Chicago
Chicago won best film editing at the Academy Awards, and editor Martin Walsh was asked how did he received the job editing in a Film4 website interview. “I just thought that it would be so exciting to work on a project like that. It then took a lot of negotiation and persuading. The director, Rob Marshall, having come from Broadway, hadn't worked in film at all before and so we had to reassure him that I would be able to help him and that we could work together.” Rob Marshall originally conceived doing the screen version of the play in the character of Roxie’s mind. That is the reason that Martin Walsh pics transitions with an up close and personal shouts of her eyes or face. A good example of this is in the title form cut where you see what you later learn is Roxie’s eye that transitions to the O in Chicago in stage lights.
The other often used editorial element is the parallel cuts between what is going on externally in reality and what Roxie is envisioning. These happen often and early on in the movie. When the detective is investigating their story in Roxie and her husband’s apartment over the dead body of Fred Casely, and he shines a flash light in Roxie’s face. This moment is form cut with a stage spot light where we establish Roxie’s internalizing of the interrogation. The editor cuts back and forth between what Amus Heart is telling him and Roxie’s internal act on stage of the song Hubby of Mine. Another time this type of cutting happens is when Roxie is being questioned by the press outside the court house and her lawyer Billy Flynn played by Richard Gere is navigating her through questions and manipulating the press. She at the same time she internalizes this in a dummy act where she is the dummy and he is the ventriloquist in the song They both Reached for the Gun.
The editor did a wonderful job mixing the stage elements and the internal thoughts of the main character. Unlike other movies based off plays the movie really made me feel as if I was watching the play. The way it was edited together you felt as if I was sitting in a round theater where I could see all elements of the plays action and even behind the scenes areas. Of course this was made easier with the fact that the director was once a Broadway choreographer.
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