10 Most Dishonest Editing Cuts In Film History
They played us like a damn fiddle.
The art of filmmaking is inherently a manipulative one, because what is the intent of cinema if not to thrill, to move, and sometimes to terrify?
No director wants to make a film which leaves the viewer blank-faced while feeling not a flicker of emotion, and so they'll resort to every last trick in the book to make audiences respond viscerally to their work.
Obviously a film is comprised of so many disciplines working in tandem: the script, a director and their shot choices, the actors, and various below-the-line crafts elements.
But there's perhaps no single discipline which can make or break a film easier than editing: the precise stitching together of hundreds if not thousands of images to form a coherent narrative and get the viewer emotionally invested.
At its best, editing can drop jaws and enhance the meaning of a work - think the brilliant match cut from 2001: A Space Odyssey - though filmmakers will often resort to sneaky, tricky editing techniques in the pursuit of a shocking rug-pull or satisfying reveal.
These 10 films all employed clever - if patently dishonest - editing tricks to get the desired dramatic result, regardless of whether audiences liked it or not...