CineMontage

Winter 2015

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28 CINEMONTAGE / WINTER 2015 year," she explains. "That allowed for discussion, dialogue, thinking and planning about what he would shoot — also about the editing and conversations about the characters — even while he was still writing and shooting the next year's episode. That really gave us time to live with this project. It was always alive in our minds." Adair adds that she and Linklater decided not to insert obvious transitions between the passing years of the story. "We wanted the transition of time to wash by without any clear delineation between the years," she says. "We discussed the transitions, and always planned what outgoing shot from the previous year we would use, and that would help us design the incoming shot for the following year." Although he had never worked with Anderson before, Pilling was immediately taken with The Grand Budapest Hotel once the director lured him with the script and old European photos and postcards. "Wes' unique humor and charm on such a broad canvas, set in such a significant era in Europe, with [a script] that was tight, funny, fast-paced and imbued with a wonderful sense of nostalgia" is what attracted him, Pilling says. "When a film is written, performed and shot well, the edit suite can be a wonderful place of possibility." Still, editing was often tricky because Anderson's screenplay — also nominated for an Oscar — was a particularly fast- timed and twisting comedy. And comedy, Pilling feels, is always harder to edit than drama. "Dramatic themes — tragedy, tension, excitement and so on — tend to be far more universally accepted than humor," he says. "What people find funny is very subjective. I think that comedy is also more sensitive to subtle details and changes." The most complicated sequence for Pilling to edit was a madcap ski-and-sled chase down a mountain, due to reams of elements, which trickled in slowly. "It was a real potpourri of sources," he says. "All these elements progressed at different rates, so we didn't get everything all together and working well as a whole until quite late in the process. "Given the exacting standards of timing and rhythm that govern Wes' approach in the edit, it was impossible to have anything but a facsimile of what ended up in the cut," he continues. "Of course, we are paid to be imaginative, and that can get you close. But we didn't settle on the final cut for that until everything was in, even the music." Goldenberg is proud that The Imitation Game resonated with his peers enough to earn recognition for a project he chose on over other, larger offers after he became enamored with the story of the obscure and misunderstood genius, mathematician Alan Turing. He credits screenwriter Graham Moore, "phenomenal actors," and Tyldum for making the elements come to life. "Ultimately, it's just a really great story," he says. "The film has a great message and is also really entertaining, so I think that's why people are responding to it. Other editors must see those elements, and maybe also the degree of difficulty in how we did it." Barney Pilling. "It's one story told in three time periods. It takes the movie out of straight biopic mode and into more of a thriller about someone's life." – William Goldenberg

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