The Main Editing Approaches in Films

TITLE Your Name Subject and Section Professor’s Name Date INTRODUCTION Film editing is one of the most significant components of film production as it controls the storyline, time perception, and, thus, the impact on viewers' emotions and knowledge. Editing as art involves a range of techniques, with metric montage defined as the dictation of the scene's pace through a set of shot timings and the rhythmic, metric montage, which is built on the movie's content alone. Expanding this array, there is a tonal montage, which is built on the emotional impact of the images, and an overtonal montage, where all the elements, from the metric and rhythm to the tonal of the score, are interwoven into a complex sonata of the senses. The highest level of editing is the ideological or intellectual montage, which aims at making the audience think by connecting ideas and heeding both images (Heckman, 2020; Sperling et al., 2016). The subtle use of these techniques can be seen in "Memento,” a movie directed by Christopher Nolan in 2000, which has a complex plot and a unique montage method. This film is perfect for analysis to explain and illustrate the approaches to editing mentioned above and how it is possible to use them to create a constructive film, not only visually and in terms of the plot, but also as a stimulant for thinking. Hence, this essay will analyze the complexities of film editing by using "Memento” to explain how several editing methods are essential in creating exciting and engaging movies. METRIC MONTAGE The concept of metric montage was initially established by the early Soviet filmmakers, with a particular focus on Sergei Eisenstein, as it concentrates on the shot length being the critical factor of cuts, as opposed to the contents of the shots. This is used to produce a given beat through which the sequence's depth and ambiance are determined without much regard for the story or picture being portrayed. The length of the shot maintains a rhythmic pattern, which can control the tension and release, creating a psychological effect that conforms to the pacing of the editor. This tactical approach to editing is purely structuralist, disregarding the shots' content and paying attention to how they change the view (Heckman, 2020; Sperling et al., 2016). As Nolan (2000) manipulates the interrelation between narrative structure and storytelling visuals, metric montage helps him bring the protagonist's fractured memory to life in "Memento." One of the techniques typical of the film is the so-called "reverse aging," a perfect example of this technique is the scene where the audience watches the process of the Polaroid photograph being developed. However, the process is reversed, just like Leonard's memories flow. This scene is cut with matching one-second clips of exact symmetry and cross-cutting shots of the reverse action of the photo from clear to blurry. The regularity in short duration generates a temporal beat reflecting the film's motif on Leonard's mechanical approach to constructing his reality with notes and photographs. This editing decreases the audience's ability to discern a clear analytical goal in his search by creating an overwhelming amount of numerical data that competes with the disordered metric precision of the protagonist. RHYTHMIC METRIC MONTAGE Rhythmic metric montage goes further than metric montage, which has a strict tempo due to the speed of Metric Montage, but the content of each footage shot is also used to determine the music of the cuts. Using this approach, the editor can develop a rhythm that is different from the scenes but which can suit the dynamics of the setting within that frame, including the actors' clip motions, sounds, dialogues, and music. In this way, rhythmic, metric montage complements the intrinsic rhythm of the scene's story elements and enhances the audience's overall appreciation and interaction with the visual and narrative-temporal patterns on display (Heckman, 2020; Sperling et al., 2016). This technique is also seen vividly during the "Memento” scene where Leonard meets Teddy in the derelict building (Nolan, 2000). Here, the speed of the cuts adapts and enhances the flow of dialogue and the physical action: the speed increases as th...