Do You Ever Edit A Film While Watching?

If so, please describe. Sometimes I'll watch a film and think they should say this, or this should happen. I'm in the middle of a movie now, so I'll reply later.

I "edit" movies, sure ... all the time. For example, watching Attack of the Clones, when Padme only declares her love for Anakin after he confesses to her that he slaughtered the Sandpeople's children and women, along with the men for making his mother a prisoner and abusing her. When he first said it, though, she looked shocked, for a second, then she went instantly into denial and told him something like, "to feel anger is to be Human." Padme ... honey ... do try to stay with the conversation. He told you he killed people. So I'll rewrite the entire scene in my head, while I'm still watching it. Haven't perfected it, though. But there are many examples of this "editing" I do, watching movies. These movie-makers always add really stupid crap to make the movie "bigger" or "more 'dramatic" or to show the characters as being "Human" when their Humanity was never in question, to start with. I mean ... it's evident, is it not? Oh, but he has to be SO cool ... and then have such a horrible fall from grace, because he's a thieving bastard or something, when all of that seemed forced and tacked on. So, just to get me through the damn thing, I have to kind of say to myself, "... what the character MEANT to say was '_____________'" or what they didn't have the budget to show was ... and so on.

I was watching Visitor Q by Takashi Miike and when the mic popped into the shot I thought to myself, "that shot needs to be redone." But then when it happened a second time I just decided to watch something else instead.

Then don't watch Tarkovsky's Zerkalo. It happens in the first couple of minutes!

(but it's intentional)

By the way, if I watch a movie with a hot girl I always edit it so she is topless in that scene.

I don't think I can bring myself to not watch a Tarkovsky film.
Lol. I'm kind of the opposite. If there's a nude scene I edit it out. When I don't... I feel guilty and dirty inside.

All things considered, boom mics appearing in the shot is probably the least objectionable part of Visitor Q.



Anyway, as for my answer...I think the last film that really could have used some serious editing was Spectre. You could have dropped Monica Bellucci's character and nothing of importance to the story would have been lost.

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People have never liked this when I've brought it up before because of the universal love for Christopher Walken, but if it had been up to me, I would have cut his scene from Pulp Fiction...the scene brings the film to a screeching halt and adding a few lines to Butch's scene in the hotel room could have served the same purpose. JMO.

I notice I'm constantly doing this.. Editing the movie, usually inserting myself, maybe changing the situation a bit. Assisting from my couch to the screen, back to my couch, and into my life as I walk out.

Whoa, old thread. I've since come around on the idea that, whatever problems you may have with a moment, trying to conjure alternative approaches regarding how you think or feel that a given story should play out means you're distancing yourself from the film and not judging it on its own merits (or lack thereof). There is a difference between "I thought this movie was bad because X happened" and "I thought this movie was bad because Y didn't happen".

I think it's justified because you need the full extent of Walken's monologue to emphasise just how much of a journey this particular watch has already been on (and will continue to go on) - it's a watch that's survived three wars while both Butch's father and grandfatherdied to ensure that the watch was passed on to their heirs, plus Walken's line about how he and Butch's father were in a "pit of hell" together foreshadows what ultimately happens to Butch and Marsellus. Trying to cover all this in a few lines during the hotel room scene just wouldn't do justice to the importance of the watch, plus it would be out of character for someone like Butch, a gruff boxer who doesn't open up about his innermost thoughts or feelings even to his girlfriend (and speaking of scenes that stop the movie dead, the entire hotel room sequence itself does that better than any other and I do not need it to be any longer than it already is).

All the time. Most all movies I watch, I think of a line of dialogue or how a scene should be changed and then I tell my wife about it...then I add, "oh well, it's too late now, it's an old movie." Like the director would've really listened to me back in the day. I tell ya what, I would've made a good director.

As I've explained before, I understand the importance of the scene, I just think it really slows down the film.

It seems like an either/or situation to me, though - either the scene's too important to be cut out completely or it's not. I would argue that the hotel room sequence itself is where the film really hits a slow patch because it's this drawn-out and awkwardly-scripted romantic interlude between Butch and Fabienne, but I can see how it's necessary to establish a kind of eye-of-the-storm calmness before Butch realises his watch is missing and freaks out over it, thus setting the rest of the plot into motion. Think that's what I was going for at the top of my previous post - that just because I have a problem with something in a movie doesn't mean that I should necessarily think that the film would be improved if it was cut out or changed or anything like that.

Yeah, I think we all can come to that point where we are not merely or sort of passive escapist.
As of end up seeing many kinds of films, I believe the bigger that temptation has to self insert ourselves not only what happened on the screen but the decision behind it.
We may build our sense of what the good aesthetic is, the proper editing choice, the better narrative, camera movement, things like that, but I do think we also shouldn't forget the separate line as the audiences and bogus ourselves as kind of didactic.

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It's definitely a weird feeling, to be so aware of the movie that you can critique it while it's happening. I think that's a level of film criticism that does hurt the experience to some degree, but in a way that adds more elsewhere. But it does strike me as funny how removed we can get, how we can seriously describe a movie as "immersive" during it, how we can step outside of it that way even while it's happening. There is a naivete to art that in some ways makes it better that you don't get back at a certain point, that you can't get back. You get a lot in exchange, but it's not like-for-like.

Anyway, yes, I do this, too. The most common is not really "editing." Far and away the most common reaction of this kind I have in the moment is "wow, that was some really clunky exposition" or, amusingly "wow, that exposition was really woven in nicely." The latter is amusing because the whole point is to be invisible and I'm essentially praising it for that even though I noticed it anyway. Which means I'm basically saying "wow, that's good enough that I think other people wouldn't notice it!"

But yeah, it's mostly exposition. Second-next in terms of frequency is editing films when they spell something out, like using flashbacks to remind us of something. If my wife or I have already made the connection it's really lame.

I don't edit as much in terms of "Cut that short scene out", but its more as you said, immersing myself into it.. Fantasy.
I imagine it could be more "interesting" watching it with your wife or anyone else, being conscious of her thoughts, wondering how she thinks about your reactions, etc... I always watch movies alone, but a few weeks ago, my brother came over, and it seemed like we were reading each other's minds. I had already seen the movie, it was a favorite of mine that I wanted him to see. He wanted to foreshadow, and in turn, I would make a comment about something that wouldn't spoil it for him, and many times he would say "I was just going to say that".
In the past few days, I've been on a Bergman kick, and find myself as another character in the movie, even if its just for a few seconds, or at least an observer, maybe trying to be in the heads of the characters, or wondering how I would react to things that happen to them. Most of them were movies I had already seen, and with the ones I didn't see, I don't think I did that. I guess I like "getting lost" and using my imagination to make the movie what I want of it while not losing what's in front of me.

I do this the most by trying to fix continuity problems. Its amazing at how many movies just let these go when they could have been easily fixed. It also is a deal breaker for me in most cases. Plot weaknesses also.

I do this all of the time, especially when there is a lot of unneeded junk in a movie. While I am all for random extra stuff in movies if it is fun (especially in crime/detective stories, because, otherwise, anybody who has more than two lines and is not the cops or a suspect always ends up being the killer, which is way too obvious), I do find myself mentally editing out things that just do not seem to belong in the movie. The movie Draft Day is a great example; if you take out all of the relationship stuff with the protagonists girlfriend, mother and sister, it would be a nearly perfect 45 minute to an hour film. As it is, the emotional relationship stuff all seems tacked on so that they can pad out the run time to 100 minutes and it detracts from the main plot in very annoying ways.

This is so true, and there are the irrelevant flashbacks, too. It’s a turn towards emotions since the ‘90s. I really miss the minimalist approach to relationships in cinema.