"Bourne" cutting

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At a San Franciso Film Festival seminar last April I asked legendary editor Walter Murch (Cold Mountain, Apocalypse Now, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Talented Mr. Ripley) about machine-gun cutting in action movies, and at what point does it get to be too much? I was thinking at the time of the editing in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, portions of which had driven me crazy. Murch said audiences do indeed start to go crazy if you use more than 14 set-ups per minute.

One can obviously cut back to the same set-up -- a visual point of view -- within a given minute, so Murch wasn't saying only 14 cuts every 60 seconds. Nor was he necessarily putting a limit on the number of cuts per set-up. But let's say for the sake of simplicity that during an action sequence you use two cuts per set-up -- by Murch's rule that would mean no more than 28 cuts per minute, or a little more than two seconds per cut. That sounds too frenzied, doesn't it? But maybe not.

In an 8.2 Hollywod Reporter interview, Carolyn Giardina has spoken to to Bourne Ultimatum editor Christopher Rouse and producer Patrick Crowley about the mathematics of cutting in their new film.

Variety's Todd McCarthy has reported The Bourne Ultimatum's running time as 115 minutes. Subtract seven or eight minutes of opening and closing credits and you're down to 107 minutes of actual footage. Crowley tells Giardina that Ultimatum has "about 4000 cuts." Divide those 4000 cuts by 107 minutes and you're left with 37 cuts per minute, or a cut every one and two-thirds seconds.

Crowley doesn't say how many set-ups were used in Ultimatum so there's room for interpretation, but if you go by Murch's rule -- no more than 14 set-ups per minute -- and then a hypothetical 28 cuts per minute if you use two cuts per-set-up, Ultimatum has been cut more than 25% faster.

In other words, according to one interpretation of Murch's law, The Bourne Ultimatum is going to drive a lot of people crazy. Only it doesn't. This is probably due to the set-up count. Perhaps Rouse is cutting back and forth between only seven or eight set-ups per minute, or nine or ten. A lot of the film is obviously fluid and moving and hand-held. To repeat, Murch's law is about not laying too many cuts on an audience within a given minute, but too many points of view.

The funny part is that The Bourne Supremacy was cut slower -- 3500 cuts, according to Crowley -- and yet it irritated me here and there. During the three or four high-velocity stand-out sequences, that is. And yet Ultimatum, for whatever reason, isn't irksome at all.

Supremacy ran 109 minutes, so take away 7 or 8 minutes for credits and you're left with 102 minutes. 3500 cuts means a little more than 32 cuts per minute, or a little more than one every two seconds.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 2, 2007 at 7:54 AM

comment #1

BurmaShave says ...

Isn't it not just cuts and setups but also the actual camera? I think it was the shaky-cam that drove a lot of people up the wall. I myself wasn't bothered by it, except in the fight with Martin Csokas.

Posted by BurmaShave at August 2, 2007 9:24 AM

comment #2

le corbeau says ...

Both Bourne Supremacy and Flight 93 seemed to be deliberately pushing the editing beyond coherence in order to convey the confused and desperate states of mind of the characters (including, in the former, the fact that he was injured and starting to lose it)-- turning it into a rush of action, not an action sequence per se. Sort of like the coked-up sequence in Goodfellas. I hope that Bourne Ultimatum steps back from that, because twice was enough; I'm all for kinetic, but not incoherent.

Posted by le corbeau at August 2, 2007 9:31 AM

comment #3

DavidF says ...

"My understanding, was that there would be no math in this debate."

Posted by DavidF at August 2, 2007 9:31 AM

comment #4

Rich S. says ...

"32 cuts per minute is for pussies."

- M. Bay

Posted by Rich S. at August 2, 2007 9:39 AM

comment #5

christian says ...

i think the editing intent is different in bay than in BOURNE but they both leave the same residue: total lack of spatial logic and my eyes weary of this ADD action.

Posted by christian at August 2, 2007 9:51 AM

comment #6

otownroger says ...

Interesting that the counting of cuts would be so illuminating. Though comparing Bourne's latest to, say, Bond's last, might be more useful.
Greengrass has been working on this signature style--shaky, extreme close-ups, the camera moving and cutting to the next image we're meant to fix on, since at least Bloody Sunday.
Got to be a bit much in the last chase and fight in Ultimatum, I thought. Wearying.

Posted by otownroger at August 2, 2007 9:52 AM

comment #7

Reedyb says ...

I think this cutting really sprung up once editors started using non-linear systems to edit, like Avid and are editing on TV monitors.

TV is ok for fast cutting. In fact, I like Moulin Rouge better on TV than I did in the theater for that reason alone.

You still have to be able to follow the action. The Bourne movies do this well. Michael Bay has no clue.

Posted by Reedyb at August 2, 2007 9:54 AM

comment #8

Toby Kwimper says ...

I saw "Bourne Ultimatum" from halfway back and loved it. Then I saw it from the third row at an overbooked screening, and virtually all the action scenes were incomprehensible and painful to watch.

I still think the movie's great--but if you're not sitting far enough back to take it all in, Bourne will give you a major headache.

Posted by Toby Kwimper at August 2, 2007 10:30 AM

comment #9

MilkMan says ...

The only thing I get from watching Paul Greengrass' movies is that the person who gets the most bored watching them is Paul Greengrass.

Posted by MilkMan at August 2, 2007 12:12 PM

comment #10

jeffmcm says ...

Greengrass knows what he's doing, spatially and action-wise. I trust him and have enjoyed his three films thoroughly.

Posted by jeffmcm at August 2, 2007 12:41 PM

comment #11

T. Holly says ...

Part I of "I Have to Rip You a New One:"

While Carolyn Giardina's article is very good and the total number of cuts in a movie has always been EITHER a curiosity and an interesting piece of trivia OR an absolutely necessary piece of information if you're the producer or the negative cutter, the rest of what you wrote is a sea of misguided confussion and misplaced emphasis.

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 12:47 PM

comment #12

jeffmcm says ...

Sounds like somebody else I can think of...

Posted by jeffmcm at August 2, 2007 12:49 PM

comment #13

T. Holly says ...

let's see if mcm can figure out why

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 12:59 PM

comment #14

jeffmcm says ...

Okay, 'figure out why' what?

Please use syntax!

Posted by jeffmcm at August 2, 2007 1:15 PM

comment #15

berg says ...

no matter how fast the cuts are coming (cf. the montage sequences in Abel Gance's Napoleon or The Wheel) the ability to enjoy as cinema is related to the sense of continuity ... Ultimatum has solid continuity no matter how fast the action proceeds

Posted by berg at August 2, 2007 1:36 PM

comment #16

JaySmack says ...

I didn't notice any "shaky-cam madness" in Bourne Supremacy, which I loved and made me like the series, because I hated the slow, plodding incompehensible Bourne Identity.

I don't know where this non-stop chorus of complaint about Greengrass camera cuts or shaky-cam comes from. I didn't see it, or at least wasn't bothered by it.

You want to complain about something so badly, complain about the pace, the incoherence and downright foreign feel of Bourne Identity. Greengrass saved this franchise.

Posted by JaySmack at August 2, 2007 1:53 PM

comment #17

T. Holly says ...

That's really the heart of it berg, but yes, there are considerations, like for instance, whether to play an explosion in 2 or in 3 shots, where continutiy is fine either way, but 2 is less cutty.

PART II:

Whatever you think you heard Murch say, a set-up is a camera angle or a shot, it's not a point of view. "A point of view" is a type of shot. Every shot has a name (2 shot, long shot, over the shoulder, close up, etc.) and they are all set-ups. Everytime you reset the camera, you
have a different set-up, plus each camera rolling on the same action is its own set-up, so you can see how quickly you can get to 14 and beyond, especially when shooting action. Murch is saying don't dip into more than 14 set-ups in a
minute's time, but he's not saying how long each dip should last.

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 2:04 PM

comment #18

le corbeau says ...

(cf. the montage sequences in Abel Gance's Napoleon or The Wheel)

Speaking of which... and I know this won't matter to 99% of folks... David Shepard is working on a DVD release of La Roue (The Wheel).

Posted by le corbeau at August 2, 2007 2:05 PM

comment #19

bostonlackey says ...

I said it before, I'll say it again:

Paul Greengrass is Michael Bay.

Except he has an accent so everyone gives him a pass. Seriously, if anyone more exemplifies Kael's "pretense of art" than PG I'm not sure who it is.

I was flipping back and forth between Supremacy and Bad Boys II on cable a couple weekends ago. As atrocious as BBII is, it was 100x more visually coherent than Supremacy and the setups were far superior.

The fact that sheep-like critics and commentators excoriate Bay (who I am no fan of, believe me) and celebrate Greengrass just shows how disingenuous and pliable modern film critiquing has become.

This is Shaky-Cam Greengrass' last chance. He can't keep killing great scripts and get away with it, even if he does have most movie herds fooled.

All promise of the Bourne series died with Liman's exit.

Posted by bostonlackey at August 2, 2007 3:26 PM

comment #20

buckzollo says ...

with all due respect to the cinematic icon, Walter Murch, it was not the cuts per minute that sank RETURN TO OZ. tab of acid anyone?

Posted by buckzollo at August 2, 2007 3:38 PM

comment #21

T. Holly says ...

PART III:

No one would ever think of putting a limit on the number of cuts per set-up, or make an arguement that you use X cuts per set-up, or ever consider how many set-ups were used in a movie, except to order something from the lab. This is something a post super might need to know, but never the artist.

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 5:43 PM

comment #22

T. Holly says ...

That didn't work.

Murch is saying don't pull pieces of footage from more than 14 set-ups to make one minute of cut footage. However, he's not putting ANY limitation on how long or short each piece is.

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 5:52 PM

comment #23

T. Holly says ...

He would never say how many times to go back to a set-up, just to go back to the same group of 14 in a minute of cut footage. And believe me, 14 is arbitrary, he'd change that number in a heartbeat if the footage dictated it. He could justify any number, but you can be sure it would be the right number, because you don't get to be Murch by being wrong.

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 5:57 PM

comment #24

Rothchild says ...

Bostonlackey, you shouldn't be allowed to talk or type about films. You should just sit by yourself and stew in your nonsense. And this is coming from a guy that loves everything Michael Bay (besides Pearl Harbor). They have nothing in common. I typed about seven paragraphs explaining why you have no idea what you're talking about, and when I realized I had a long way to go, I backspaced everything. If I understand the internet correctly, it doesn't matter if I have logic and facts on my side, you'll still cling to your opinion. So I have nothing else to say.

Posted by Rothchild at August 2, 2007 7:15 PM

comment #25

christian says ...

i would have cut that up to seven words.

Posted by christian at August 2, 2007 10:58 PM

comment #26

T. Holly says ...

Here's a quote from the editor Glen Scantlebury being interviewed about his work on Transformers. He said, "Michael doesn't want this film to be cutty, but then as you comb through the film again and again, we trim and trim looking for dead space to the point of getting a scene to explode in your face -- the signature of a good action picture."

Posted by T. Holly at August 2, 2007 11:30 PM

comment #27

OddDuck says ...

"Here's a quote from the editor Glen Scantlebury being interviewed about his work on Transformers. He said, "Michael doesn't want this film to be cutty, but then as you comb through the film again and again, we trim and trim looking for dead space to the point of getting a scene to explode in your face -- the signature of a good action picture.""

Sure, that quote makes it sound like Bay and Greengrass share a similar style in that they both cut a lot, and there's probably some merit to that.

Then again, chimpanzees and humans share like 98% same dna, so go figure.

So it stands to reason that fans of Michael Bay probably like to have sex with monkeys :)

Posted by OddDuck at August 3, 2007 6:08 AM

comment #28