I believe the idea Walter Murch is suggesting here is that only in film is an audience really allowed to get into a character's head, to feel the character's emotions and follow their thought process. It is the idea that a picture holds a thousand words, we might be able to tell more about a character from a few frames of film than several pages of dialogue. It is not by accident that this happens, it is all to do with how the film-makers construct their film. I believe how a piece is edited has a massive part to play in allowing the audience to connect with a character and get inside their head. I think a scene in which the editing does this well is the Italian restaurant scene in The Godfather.
This scene is where Michael, the youngest son of the Corleone Mafia family, is going to assassinate the men who tried to have his father killed. Michael has never had anything to do with the criminal side of his family up to this point so this is a very big moment in the film. We want to follow what Michael is thinking, his anxiety and his thoughts on the dilemma he is facing, but obviously he can not verbalise his thoughts at the time. I want to look at how the editing of this scene allows the audience to get inside Michael's head and feel what he is feeling.
First of all, up until this point in the film the story has centred primarily around Michael's father, the Godfather. It is in this scene that the story changes to follow Michael and his own rise to becoming the Godfather. To transfer us into Michael's perspective the editor has used an interesting progression of shots.
- After the wide establishing shot of the restaurant we cut into this shot of Sollozzo from over the shoulder of Michael. The audience is watching the conversation between the two men as a third person.
- As the conversation goes on the shots of Sollozzo begin to change. We can no longer see Michael's shoulder. It is almost from Michael's point of view.
The audience has gradually been taken into Michael's point of view, we are seeing things from his perspective now. Seeing things from a character's point of view helps an audience connect to a character because they are now literally seeing things through the character's eyes, they are in the character's head. It is interesting that the editor did not simply cut straight into the closer shot of Sollozo, after all the audience would still be seeing things from Michael's point of view. I think he did this to show us the shift in perspective happening. It follows the "kuleshov effect":
"the viewer's interpretation of an individual shot is determined by the context (or sequence) in which that shot is seen." (2)
In other words because we have seen the previous shot we understand the meaning of the new shot; We understand that we have been transferred into Michael's perspective.
We are now seeing things from Michael's perspective but how else can the editor help show the audience his anxiety and the internal battle going on in his head? I think the shots the editor has chosen of Michael himself during the conversation with Sollozzo have a big part to play.
- There are a few shots of Michael from over the shoulder of Sollozzo.
-However, the editor has chosen to use the close up option of Michael for the majority of the conversation.
A close up is an excellent option for this situation. The audience can not understand Michael's emotional state through dialogue so the editor has chosen to concentrate on Michael's face, as Murch said, in film we can watch someone think. The Close up is the best way to do this:
"A close-up of a person emphasizes their emotional state. Whereas a mid-shot or wide-shot is more appropriate for delivering facts and general information, a close-up exaggerates facial expressions which convey emotion. The viewer is drawn into the subject's personal space and shares their feelings." (3)
We don't need to see anything else just now except Michael's face. The situation has been established and all that matters now is concentrating on Michael and getting the audience to feel what he is going through.
The length of time the editor chooses to hold these close ups is also very important. This clip is a good example of how long some of the close ups are held on Michael. Apart from the small cut away to McCluskey the close up lasts almost 20 seconds.
If we cut too soon from the close up then the audience will not have had time to concentrate on the character and take in their expressions. The editor holds on Michael so the audience will pay complete attention to him and what is going through his mind.
Another very interesting use of editing to root us in Michael's head is when he goes to retrieve the gun from the bathroom.
I think the interesting thing about this clip is when it cuts away to Sollozzo and McCluskey at the table. Technically it does not make sense, we are following Michael and therefore if he can not see them we should not be able to either. The editor has done this to show us what is going through Michael's mind. He can not see the men but they are all he is thinking about, the two men he is about to kill. The editor has been able to show the audience visually what the character is thinking.
Even though the cutaways do not technically make sense, if we look at Walter Murch's "rule of six" it suggests that this is alright (4). According to this rule "emotion" should take precedence over technical flaws in the edit. The shots might not make sense but they help the audience follow the character's emotions.
Also, at first Michael can not seem to find the gun. The first cut away to Sollozzo and McCluskey helps the audience feel the anxiety he must be feeling. This is because it makes the moment seem longer than it is. The editor has used Elaboration:
"to take a moment and make it larger, to stretch time." (5)
The audience are kept in the dark that little bit longer.
I think the editing of this scene is really what makes it so powerful. The editor, Peter Zinner, understood that the most important thing in the scene was the anxiety and dilemma faced by Michael. Using the techniques I have mentioned he managed to put the audience firmly inside the character's head so that they could feel exactly what he was going through during the scene.
Bibliography
(2) - www.filmreference.com/Directors-Jo-Ku/Kuleshov-Lev.html -Richard Taylor
(3) - http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/closeup.html
(4) - "In The Blink of an Eye" by Walter Murch, Silman-James Press,(08.01.01),Page 18
(5) - "Film Directing Fundamentals" by Nicholas T. Proferes,Focal Press,(11.02.04),Page 12
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