Reuniting with Paul Thomas Anderson for “Phantom Thread,” editor Dylan Tichenor helps make the whole film hypnotizing.
‘Phantom Thread’ succeeds thanks to its actors.
“There were a lot of challenges on the film, [finding] the balance of the characters and the drama between them. We were lucky in that we had these great actors. Obviously Daniel [Day-Lewis], but Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville just completely hold their own. It’s what the film needed, it’s what we were hoping we had. We worked hard to make sure that came to fruition.”
Editing a film is like creating music.
“What I try to do when I have a movie that has a lot of long takes is vary it. We do some long takes and some faster cuts so that you have a more musical rhythm. It’s like you’re listening to a piece of music rather than just statically rolling along. It’s got variances and rhythm and focus, and that keeps you rocking back and forth and on your toes a little bit so audiences never get lulled into complacency.”
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Editors know actors intimately.
“Editors know actors better than anybody. We know every little tic of their face, why they’re in this mood or that. A performance in a film is a combination of actor, director, and editor. It is of course the actor bringing their voice and choices about how they’re going to approach a scene, but then there are people down the line after them remaking those choices.”
Editing can vastly change a performance.
“[Editors’ efforts] contribute greatly to how an audience perceives a performance and a character. I feel, truthfully, that editors have a great deal to do with an acting performance, and when we’re lucky, we have a complete plethora of material to work with. It comes down to some choices that editors and directors make with the material they have, and, honestly, it can change things night and day, left and right, up and down. You would be very, very surprised how different something can feel with tweaks in editorial. I consider that I work with the actors. They are the people that I spend all day with.”
“Phantom Thread” could have gone in a number of directions.
“There’s a lot of film that was shot that’s not in the movie, a lot of storylines. It took a long time to really accept [that] ‘OK, that’s not part of the film.’ Paul and I also wanted it to not be super long, because it isn’t that complex. We’ve made it more complex with some nuance-y stuff, but plot-wise, there isn’t a lot going on. We knew it shouldn’t be this sprawling thing and were cognizant of that throughout, making sure we knew what story exactly we were trying to tell, because there was a bunch of other stuff in the movie that was distracting us from that.”