Editing to Perfection

I remember being in 9 th grade when I saw American beauty for the first time , back then i thought it was a pointless and depressing movie . Forward it to 2014 where I see a channel playing this film and watch it again and being awe struck by it.

Lester and Carolyn Burnham a standard middle class American couple , Lester has a good job, their own home and a pretty daughter. From the top they seem like a normal family but the wife (Carolyn) is frustrated from her life and so is her husband who despises his job and is sexually frustrated too. Comes in Angela Hayes who gives off an impression of being the model high schooler which others envy, yet truly has low respect toward oneself.. She is flimsy, blonde, stunning, famous and sure to the seeing eye. Inside she is terrified and torn. She continually censures others as being plain, when that is the thing that she genuinely feels is her abandon.

The reason why i mention the basic story line is that to understand the camera angels and cuts it’s important to know what the actor is feeling in that moment.

At the point when Lester is gone up against by his administrator, he is shot from above, demonstrating that he is in a powerless position. it is said that High angle shots diminish the centrality of the subject ie its reduces the significance and shows powerlessness.

 Additionally, when Lester goes to her daughter's high school's game and sees Angela on the center floor in her team  outfit, he has been shot from a comparatively low point and she is shot at first from a high angel. This presents Angela's sexual helplessness and Lester's potential predominance over a a young teen.

 When it comes to editing techniques various of ‘em have seen seen in the film for example there are a few “Fast cuts” that are been introduced to build the audiences tension as to what’s going to happen like in the scene where he is finally going to sleep with Angela. “Flashbacks” have bee use to properly explain the story and introduce the important characters. Also there is a reference of fade in some scenes which basically focuses on the fact that he film is taking us in the past without being to direct or telling it via subtitles. This ads a more subtle clarity to any film and keeps the audience hitched and interested.

When I was researching the net about this movie the one thing that came up again and again was that this is basically mise-en-scene film,  which i figured out later to be one of the most identifiable attributes of any movie. This further includes makeup probs and costumes as well as all the fake and natural details of the subject as it were in real life. The term has been borrowed from a French theatrical expression, which roughly means“put into the scene”. In the all “film” language this film is a great work of mise-en-scene and showcases the talent of it’s director Sam Mendes and specially the editor Tariq Anwar who spend more time creating the first 10 mins of the film then the whole film together ! Together they created a compelling drama about a man’s journey to death after years of pointlessness. The fantasy sorta illusion they created of time moving fastly then slowly and finally stoping forever for the film’s main lead Burnham is truly extraordinary and deserves the awards it won.

 Here is the film's most "talked about" opening scene.