The Importance of Editing

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Recommended: significance of montage in film production

Editing is a crucial aspect that determines the effect of the movie. It pieces shots together creating a sense of continuity by altering space and time within the movie, even though it is distinctively different from reality. It allows us to follow the story with little time and does not create an awkward continuum, as it now flows smoothly instead of the addition of unnecessary clips that are not essential to the plot. There are different types of editing, mainly realist and formalist. The motion picture of Julie Taymor’s Frida and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 use different techniques from each as Taymor is known to be a formalist director while Moore is a realist.
A documentary film directed by Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11, which criticizes the way George H. W. Bush handled the event of September 11, 2009. Throughout the movie, Moore uses a fair amount of montage “that elicit a strong emotional reaction on the part of the viewer” and “used as transitional or climactic sequences” (Yahnke, A Primer of Documentary Film Techniques). He uses the reactions of the people for us to see the grim day of 9/11. We see a series of close up shots depicting detailed expressions on their faces showing intense emotion towards the destroyed Twin Towers. He also uses the technique to show George H. W. Bush’s lengthy vacations in a small amount of time portraying that he was not resolving the case and not doing anything to protect America.
He juxtaposes “iconic symbols and video montages of former President Bush against grisly war scenes and emotional personal interviews”, to “develop a number of second order meanings… to relate to his message,” (Pacheco, Analysis of 9/11) using uninflected cuts. The shifting of a visual to another, diff...

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...lating scenes making it more artistic.

Work Cited:
Giannetti, Louis D. Understanding Movies. 5th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972.
Print. Canadian.
Lent, Tina Olsin. "Life as Art/Art as Life: Dramatizing the Life and Work of Frida Kahlo."
Journal of Popular Film and Television 35.2 (2007): 68-76. Print.
Fahrenheit 9/11. By Michael Moore. Dir. Michael Moore. Studio Canal, 2004. DVD.
Pacheto, Isaac. "Analysis of Farenheit 9/11." Weblog post. Universal Veritas. N.p., 23 June 2009.
Web. 1 Nov. 2013.
Frida. Dir. Julie Taymor. Perf. Salma Hayek. Miramax/Ventanarosa, 2002. DVD.
Weber, Cynthia. "Fahrenheit 9/11 : The Temperature Where Morality Burns." Journal of
American Studies 40.01 (2006): 113-31. Print.
Yahnke, Robert. "A Primer to Documentary Film Techniques." Documentary Film Techniques.
Robert E. Yahnke, © 2009, n.d. Web. 1 Nov. 2013.

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