Behind the Seen

by Charles Koppelman

  September 14, Murch’s Journal

  Sara scene thoughts: Inman now leaves her of his own free will. Formerly, he had to leave because the baby died and she died, so fate took the decision out of his hands. It is actually better for his character this way. In addition to the time and structural issues.

  A lift may work for itself, but what about the film fragments that remain around it? How will they sit next to each other? After Sara shoots the third soldier, the altered scene ends with a devastating closeup of Inman. He looks blankly at scudding gray clouds, which dissolve to Black Cove Farm and Ada waking to the first heavy snowfall of the year; then a short scene of Stobrod, Pangle, and Georgia leaving prints in the fresh snow as they make their way back up the mountain. When Inman next appears, he’s cresting the snowy ridge above the town of Cold Mountain and sees the valley below. His expression and his body language still convey the weight he carries. He is pulled downward, but not by Sara’s suicide and her baby’s death, since they no longer occur. Instead Inman’s heaviness is a larger social malaise: that a young widow like Sara, who wanted to eliminate all weapons from the world (“every blade, every gun”), is so beaten down and hardened that she shoots and kills the one Union soldier—a young man probably very like her dead husband—who tried to protect her baby from the cold.

  Days later, while mixing the soundtrack at De Lane Lea for this last preview in Edgewater, Walter was still pondering the story implications of the Sara scene, turning them over and over like worry beads.

  September 27, Murch’s Journal

  The three soldiers are killed and their horses are left for Sara—she can make it through the winter if she sells them. She still has the hog. So she is better off now than before Inman arrived. Just her sick baby.

  The re-imagined Sara scene prevailed. And with it, a new lesson emerges for Murch about the changing relationships between book, screenplay, and film. “It was as if film reached over the screenplay and went back to the book,” Walter says later. “There was something fundamental in the book that transcended the screenplay. It was difficult for Anthony because Sara’s death was something he added to the story, and he loved how the hog butchering had turned out in the shooting. It was a real ‘Book of Job’ moment, where a good scene was sacrificed for the larger good of the film.”

  Beside the removal from the Sara scene, Murch and Minghella had made two other major alterations prior to the last preview. These changes occur in the sequence when Inman and Reverend Veasey are captured by the Home Guard at Junior’s, and they attempt to escape. One of the principles in editing Cold Mountain the last few months has been, “Don’t let Inman sit down.” Inman’s story momentum must always be toward Ada and Cold Mountain. Murch and Minghella felt that a scene of the chain gang sitting on the street back in “Veasey Town,” where Inman resists Veasey’s whispered suggestion of trying an escape, violated that principle. The scene had great production values and redeemed Veasey’s character—he wanted to escape with the slave girl he made pregnant. But it was backwards movement geographically, and Inman’s reluctance to try an escape was hard to read: he seemed to care more about his own safety than trying to get back to Ada at any cost.

  The lift of Veasey Town gave a palpable momentum to the film. It juxtaposed the night scene of the chain gang leaving Junior’s with the gang on the road the next day, moments before a troop of Yankee cavalry appears in the distance. The chain gang boss, a southern Home Guard bounty hunter like Teague, is desperate not to be seen by the Yankees. He forces Inman and the other prisoners to hide behind a small rise and to remain silent until the Yankees pass. As scripted, Veasey decides this is as good an opportunity as any to try an escape, and he initiates a scramble up the hill, Inman futilely resisting.

  Without the town scene, Veasey’s urge to escape and Inman’s resistance make no sense. The alternatives were either putting the town scene back or finding some other solution.

  Remarkably, like Murch finding Frederic Forrest’s alternate line reading for “He’d kill us if he had the chance,” in The Conversation, the same thing happened here. “There was a line of Inman’s,” Murch says, “where he said, ‘Come on’ by way of resisting Veasey’s escape. And I remember before shooting began I made a note on the screenplay that this was an odd thing to say under the circumstances. Anthony said, ‘No, no, what it means is, ‘Come on, don’t do this.’ In fact, in a different context, ‘come on’ could mean ‘let’s go, let’s do it!’ And it turned out there was one take where Jude Law’s emphasis was like that: wrong for the original scripted intention, but perfect as a way to initiate and lead an escape.”

  “So we were able to recut the scene and create the illusion that it was Inman who led the escape—he was so desperate to get back to Ada that he seized the first opportunity to present itself. His line reading flipped the scene’s polarity 180 degrees—it became white rather than black—and it was consequently easier to understand what was going on in his head: Inman wanted to get back to Ada at any cost.”

  Murch says it’s common in editing, and normally easy, to steer scenes five or ten degrees in either direction from their intended course. Shading intensity, favoring a character, softening a moment—that’s “the bread and butter of film editing,” as he calls it. “It also seems that flipping the polarity of a scene—going completely the opposite way from where things were originally intended—is something relatively easy to do in film editing. Somebody good is now bad, or somebody who was—in this case—an unwilling participant, is now the lead conspirator.”

  Back in Theater 4, Cold Mountain is concluding. Inman and Ada are reunited, spend the night together in the old Cherokee village, and, with Ruby’s assent, make their plans to be together on Black Cove Farm. Then comes the inevitable confrontation, the shootout with Captain Teague and his Home Guard. Together, Inman and Ada get Teague cornered, and the audience cheers when he is killed. Inman tracks Bosie, the albino Home Guard, and shoots him. Inman seems to survive, but his eyes glaze over and he coughs up blood. Someone nearby says, “Oh, no,” pretty loudly, and there is a groan from many people. The Russian expresses their collective regret: “He’s not going to die?”

  Since the credit roll is not done yet, the film ends on a shot that cranes up through the trees from the Easter meal at Black Cove. A Miramax representative quickly speaks into a microphone, asking audience members to please take one of the survey cards being passed out, and to fill it in before leaving the theater. Meanwhile, producers and the other film people use this opportunity to go out into the lobby to talk, compare notes, grab their Diet Cokes, and stretch their legs before the focus group begins. Walter stays seated. He makes a few notes on his laptop then uses the walkie-talkie to reach young Walter up in the projection area. “Good job, looked great. Tell Howie and Eddy and Tim for me.”

  The Russian is in the lobby. “I filled out a card. I liked it,” he says. “It’s a good story, but I hate what happened at the end.”

  The focus group process that is about to begin originated in the advertising business. Ten to 20 consumers are selected who represent the age, gender, race, educational levels, and other desired traits of the market for a particular product. Clients and ad agency account executives observe the proceedings from behind a one-way viewing window. The purpose is to probe for subjective responses and latent feelings that may not come out in a strict multiple-choice questionnaire. Murch calls it “a black art.”

  When the focus group method is applied to films-in-progress, though, the session is held immediately after a screening, and the “clients” are sitting right there in plain sight a few rows back.

  Murch moves down toward the front of the theater where the others, including Anthony Minghella and Harvey Weinstein, have regrouped to listen in on the moderated discussion that follows. “If you wrote this up for a scientific journal,” Murch whispers, “and said we ran the film once, then changed it profoundly and ran it again for a different group of people a month later, and got
results to compare with the first, the scientists would say that’s insane because there is no control. You would need to run the two versions of the film for exactly the same group, who also need to be insulated from contact with the creators. But of course we never do that.” Focus group participants are picked on the fly, based on appearances, so one never knows if the deck is loaded one way or the other. Sean Cullen was buttonholed by a focus group recruiter after the July preview because he fit the demographic. Cullen was tempted, but said he was with the film.

  The focus group moderator, an energetic middle-aged man, begins by asking broad questions about how the group rated the film. Twelve of 23 raise their hands on “excellent,” six respond to “good.” These are called “the top two boxes,” and 18 of 23, or 78 percent, for the top two boxes is considered high. Of the other five people, the moderator wants to know the reason they did not say excellent. Most of them say it was predictable. The next issue is length and pacing—close to the bone for Walter. Nine say it was just right, but thirteen hold up their hands to say it was it too long. Only three agree that the pacing “was just right.” Six say it was too slow, and ten indicate it was okay, “but dragged in spots.”

  After another ten minutes, when the discussion is nearly over, the leader asks a final question: “Would you recommend this movie to your friends?” The people from Miramax lean forward in their seats. “The key question,” Murch whispers. “Nothing else really matters.” For a movie to be fully successful at the box office, word of mouth is a must. When 17 of the 23 raise their hands, the onlookers appear relieved.

  Says Murch: “With more than two-thirds saying yes, you have your radio-active core, the critical mass.”

  It’s nearly 11 p.m. when the session concludes and the participants collect their cash payments in sealed envelopes. The producers and Miramax staffers gather in the lobby and on the sidewalk, quietly discussing the screening and the focus group. One of the marketing consultants breaks in with a tally of the questionnaire results: “Top two boxes: 81, our best so far; 59 definite recommend, tied with Charleston for best; female under 25, 86 top two boxes; male under 25 top two boxes, 78.” Everyone seems buoyed, except Minghella, who looks glum. Perhaps he’s already thinking ahead to the next morning when he and Murch have the official post mortem with the Weinsteins at Miramax.

  Wednesday, October 1, 2003, Murch’s Journal

  Audience same reactions as previously, loved Ruby, felt that the film didn’t start until she arrived. This is the Bob Weinstein comment from June, that there wasn’t enough of Ada and Inman in the film. Most of these problems are endemic and will not go away no matter what we do. I am tired and trying not to be dragged down by the incommensurability between the effort it took to get here and the results. I kept wanting to say, “Yes, but we cut out two and a half hours.” Fell asleep in my clothes when I got back to the hotel, reading the book on clouds. Woke up about 6am and haven’t been back to sleep.

  THURSDAY OCTOBER 2, 2003—NEW YORK CITY

  At 3:30 p.m. Murch goes into the Broome Street Bar on West Broadway for a late lunch. Since mid-morning he’d been a few blocks away at the Miramax offices with Anthony, Sydney, Bill Horberg, Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa. He sits in the quiet back room of this old-style New York bar and restaurant, “a relief after the neighborhood’s sometimes cloying precocity,” as one online guide describes it.

  There were 15 to 20 people attending the morning meeting at Miramax. Murch quotes Weinstein as saying, “This is the last we’re going to get together like this because we’re running out of time, so I want everyone to say anything that they have to say, because you won’t be able to say it again. So, Albert?”

  Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa spoke first. Then, according to Murch, Sydney Pollack said, “I don’t feel comfortable talking about these things in this sort of format. So I’ll just talk privately to Anthony.”

  Murch recalls Weinstein saying that the Miramax staff got together the previous night to make their set of notes: “Here are our consolidated notes.” Then Colin Vaines, Miramax’s London executive, read them. “And then on top of that,” Murch continues, “Harvey gave his own set of notes, which were different. So I wrote them all down. It’s five handwritten pages.” The commentary Murch recorded represents the producers’ and studio’s thoughts. By contract, however, Minghella retains ultimate authority over the film—he has “final cut.”

  * * *

  Nothing Ever Changes, or Does It?

  In early September Murch came to a dialogue premixing session at De Lane Lea with a copy of Growing Up in Hollywood (1976), an autobiography by director, film editor, and child actor Robert Parrish. After the lunch break Walter stood on the little mezzanine behind the mix board and addressed the sound crew: “In 1948 Columbia Studio chief Harry Cohn let director Robert Rossen hire Robert Parrish to re-edit his film, All the King’s Men, starring Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, loosely based on Louisiana Governor Huey Long. The film was in trouble.”

  Murch read from the book:

  “The preview last night was a disaster,” Cohn said. “The fuckin’ picture is almost three hours long and it still doesn’t make any sense.” He turned to Rossen and pointed at me. “What makes you think this schmuck can salvage it when the best cutter in the studio has been working on it for five months?”

  I told Rossen I thought I saw a way to re-cut the picture. “OK, go ahead. I’m too close to it. I’ve been working on it for over a year. I’m taking a holiday. I’ll be back in a month and we’ll preview your cut in Huntington Park, a tough factory town. They’ll understand it.”

  And that’s what we did. I re-cut the entire picture, re-dubbed it using music from the film library, and we previewed it in Huntington Park.

  The fat cats from Santa Barbara [where the earlier preview was held] must have been in touch with the working stiffs in Huntington Park, because the reception wasn’t any better. In fact, it was worse... Rossen alone still believed in it, and he somehow convinced Cohn to let us carry on.

  We worked on the picture for six months after the Huntington Park fiasco. We had seven more disastrous previews with all kinds of audiences.

  Director Rossen had a last-ditch idea for editor Parrish, Murch says, continuing from the book: “I want you to go through the whole picture. Select what you consider to be the center of each scene, put the film in the sync machine and wind down a hundred feet (one minute) before and a hundred feet after, and chop it off, regardless of what’s going on. Cut through dialogue, music, anything. Then, when you’re finished, we’ll run the picture and see what we’ve got.”

  I went straight back to the cutting room, followed Rossen’s instructions to the letter... when I measured it at 5:00 am we had a ninety-minute picture... his brainstorm had worked. It all made sense in an exciting, slightly confusing, montagey sort of way... We took it to our final preview in Pasadena and were relieved at the audience’s enthusiastic reaction... the Pasadena fat cats stood up and applauded. After the Pasadena preview we cut the negative with all the imperfections, the mismatched cuts, and the jumps in the soundtrack.

  All the King’s Men won the Academy Award for best picture of the year.

  “So, you see,” Murch said, as he closed the book, “nothing ever changes.” Then he walked to the mixing board and sat down to continue the premix.

  * * *

  Murch paraphrases the gist of the group’s thinking: “Whatever you did between the last cut and this cut, do something like that again. Whatever rabbit you pulled out of your hat that suddenly made Inman the leader of the escape from the chain gang, we liked that. Do more stuff like that. There are some specific things, but it’s more like, ‘This scene now seems a little slow. Do something.’ But no suggestion as to what it might be. Meanwhile, people are starting to yell about how we’ll never make the date unless reels are locked today, and at the latest on Monday.”

  * * *

  Murch on Deadlines

  “On Godfather III we
had a preview two weeks before the film was to be released—in 3,000 prints. We made 500 changes after that preview. That was before digital, when it was all mag and photochemical processes!”

  * * *

  Murch is supposed to begin the final mix in ten days at De Lane Lea in London. To start sound mixing, he and Minghella must lock the picture first—finalize the picture cutting so the soundtrack can be mixed in sync with the picture. The studio wants the picture locked three days from today so the digital intermediate (DI) can be prepared in time to meet the release date.

  So far, the DI is a huge data file that resides on the computers at Framestore/CFC in London. And while the director of photography, John Seale, already spent three weeks making thousands of color corrections, only a handful of DI material has been output from the computer onto actual film negative. That process takes 36 hours per reel—20 days total for Cold Mountain. From that negative the film lab still has to make an interpositive, followed by an inter-negative, and from that, film prints. Then Minghella and Murch must review and approve the quality of nine reels of film print, or send them back for fixes. “It’s a complex process,” Murch says, putting it mildly.

  The incongruity of three competing deadlines—a re-edit leading to a final lock of the picture, a final sound mix beginning in ten days, and outputting film from the digital intermediate—reminds Murch of a similar situation on another film he worked on, The Godfather.