Between an unpredictable comedy following a woman (Juliette Lewis) who swaps bodies with a chair and a horror thriller from A24 that follows the return of a pop star played by John…
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Perfection is rarely achieved in movies, but this heaven-sent concert doc hits the sweet spot. Over two days in January 1972, the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin — she was 29 at the time — sweeps into the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts in front of a congregation and testifies to God in song. The blessed thing took nearly half a century to come out because director Sydney Pollack failed to sync the image with the sound. Then digital angels stepped in, and glory, glory, hallelujah!
Between an unpredictable comedy following a woman (Juliette Lewis) who swaps bodies with a chair and a horror thriller from A24 that follows the return of a pop star played by John Malkovich, the editors of “By Design” and “Opus” have some of the buzziest titles of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Benjamin Shearn and Ernie Gilbert came together in Park City for a panel during Editors on Editors presented by Adobe to discuss these unique projects.
Shearn explained that when he gets into the edit bay he becomes “more and more reticent to just start jumping in and start throwing stuff on the timeline. Now, no matter what it is, I just want to understand the breadth of everything that’s there and spend time with all the material.”
Both “Opus” and “By Design” follow narratives about society and its standards, whether it be the power of celebrity or the objectification of women. Gilbert’s approach to thinking about subtext as an editor is to actually not think about it.
“Our film is about the cult of celebrity, it’s about the power we give to people who are kind of awful because maybe they make music that we like or give us something that we like,” Gilbert explained. “And the minute you start to talk about that, then it’s answering the question for the audience.”
Shearn has worked with “By Design” director Amanda Kramer on every single one of her projects to date. Since he is familiar with her “very unique voice” and method of working, the way he approached editing this film was quite different than other projects.
He described how “in narrative, there are these kind of eternal rules which are like character and narrative clarity in the approach of editing. Amanda [Kramer]’s approach is more diagonal and her films are a discussion of a theme.”
While cutting around the non-moving chair and Lewis’ performance made the editing process easy in regards to continuity, Shearn still approached cutting as if Lewis was an active participant in every scene.
“I cut to reaction shots and stick on them for a little bit longer because everyone in the film is projecting onto this inanimate woman and getting mad at her, loving her, having every single emotion,” he explained.
“Opus” features an all-star cast including actors like Malkovich and Ayo Edebiri, which Gilbert saw as “an embarrassment of riches when you have such talent” for the edit. “Ayo and John’s chemistry in our film is amazing, they’re going toe-to-toe, sparring with one another in their words and their actions. And you just start with what’s on the page, start with what you know, and then refine it.”
