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Q3 2020

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29 F A L L Q 3 I S S U E F E A T U R E material. "He will cut multiple versions where he is saying, 'Well, in this one she stays in duress longer, and then she makes a move at this moment. Well, in this version, there's a way we could do it where she makes the decision much ear- lier,'" Jenkins said. "He will take a single frame of just performance and split it multiple times where he's created a shot that never happened." Yet, to paraphrase Shakespeare, the s o u n d a n d f u r y o f " Wo n d e r Wo m a n 1984" does signify something; unlike so many movies based on comic books, this one is rooted in character, the editor said. "There is so much heart and depth to this character, Diana Prince," Pearson said. "That noble and pure quality is really upheld by Patty, and we were always try- ing to service those sides of her. Frankly, G a l G a d o t i s h a l f- a - s te p a w a y f ro m actually being that person. She obviously doesn't have superhero capabilities, but she is just a lovely, lovely woman— kindhearted and so giving. It's really astonishing and refreshing to work with material like that." The editor said that he often lingered on "moments of compas- sion" that flicker across Gadot's face, choosing to stay on her until "the very last frame possible." For Pearson, working on the film was a blast from the past, especially when he dropped by a decommissioned mall in Washington, DC, that was turned into a 1980s-era shopping center for the film. "I'm 58 years old, so I was right in the middle of all that," he said. "It was really freaking me out to walk around this mall and to see Chess King and RadioShack— but with the RadioShack logo from the '80s. It was like a visual slingshot back to my younger self." The editor even flashbacked to his roots at WCCO in Minneapolis—that dream job that wasn't quite. "There was an opportunity to cut an infomercial, which wasn't unlike an infomercial that I would've cut back in the '80s when I was working at the television station in Minneapolis, utiliz- ing some of the same kind of ridiculous graphics and transitions," he said. For her part, Jenkins will have a tough decision if she makes a hypothetical "Wonder Woman 3"—will it be Pearson, or Walsh, or both in the cutting room? "At the end of this movie, we were ac- tually trying to juggle something for a minute, so we actually brought Martin in," she said. "They're both mind-blow- ingly talented editors—the best editors I can imagine." ■ Peter Tonguette is a freelance writer specializing in film and TV. Director Patty Jenkins was delighted by Pearson's editor's cut: "I had all these emotions," she said. P H O T O : C H R I S T O P H E R F R A G A P A N E

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