"The only reason for using another cut is to improve the scene"
About this Quote
Editing is where a director stops pretending the camera told the whole truth. Dmytryk's line lands like a rebuke to every indulgence that creeps into post: the flashy transition, the coverage-for-coverage's-sake, the cut made to prove the editor is awake. "The only reason" is deliberately absolutist, a hard brake on ego. It frames cutting not as decoration but as ethics: if the change doesn't make the moment clearer, sharper, or more emotionally honest, it's vandalism.
The specific intent is practical and disciplinary. Dmytryk came up inside the classical Hollywood machine, where continuity rules and clarity are king, and he later codified this kind of thinking in his famous "rules of editing". The line reads like a production note delivered after a long day: stop fiddling, serve the story. It also defends the editor's authority by tying it to a single, unarguable metric. Not taste. Not trend. Improvement.
The subtext is a quiet war against two temptations: coverage anxiety (cutting because you're afraid to hold on a face) and stylistic fashion (cutting because the era demands speed). "Improve the scene" implies you can define what improvement means: stronger causality, better rhythm, cleaner eyelines, a more precise emotional beat. It's a reminder that every cut is a lie you choose to tell; the only acceptable lie is the one that makes the scene work.
The specific intent is practical and disciplinary. Dmytryk came up inside the classical Hollywood machine, where continuity rules and clarity are king, and he later codified this kind of thinking in his famous "rules of editing". The line reads like a production note delivered after a long day: stop fiddling, serve the story. It also defends the editor's authority by tying it to a single, unarguable metric. Not taste. Not trend. Improvement.
The subtext is a quiet war against two temptations: coverage anxiety (cutting because you're afraid to hold on a face) and stylistic fashion (cutting because the era demands speed). "Improve the scene" implies you can define what improvement means: stronger causality, better rhythm, cleaner eyelines, a more precise emotional beat. It's a reminder that every cut is a lie you choose to tell; the only acceptable lie is the one that makes the scene work.
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