After cutting Celine Song’s The first two films, “past lives” and “Materialists,” Editor Keith Fraase has a clearer understanding of the director’s view of love and relationships, what our value is as human beings and the different paths we can take in our lives. “All of these ideas are derived from Celine’s brilliant mind, so of course her films are in conversation with each other,” Fraase told Indiewire.
“What was immediately striking to me about”Materialists“Was the deep dive into the concept of capitalism and consumerism that infected dating scene,” he continued. “Breaking each other down into these component parts of height and income and attractiveness and style simplifies each other’s humanity so much. We devalue ourselves and our potential partners. It is obviously something that we live with day to day, and you look around you. But I think there was something revealing that Celine pointed out.” See what we do. ”
In “Materialists”, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) works at an advanced matchmaking agency in Manhattan and pairs in pair rich professionals with cold, calculated precision. But Lucy is broken between the dashing millionaire, Harry (Pedro Pascal), a unicorn that controls all her boxes and dedicated ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans), a Broke Cater servant and struggles theater actors. She also re -evaluates her brutal profession and worldview after long -term client Sophie (Zoe Winters) is attacked on a first date and suits the agency.
However, balancing light and dark is not something that editorial applies to fraase and song. Neither categorizes film as a romcom or dramedy. The tone grows organically out of character and situation. “We do not often focus on what is fun or what will make you cry,” he said. “We are just trying to make sure that the moment is true and honest and real and that we serve the characters as good as we can. We serve the performances the best we can.
“When I cut some comedy, I can do everything with a light touch, but specifically with Celine’s writer, it’s like Shakespeare in the theater: You don’t want too to perform the lines. It should be simple. There is a certain poetic and intellectual width what you just leave it.”
As part of his prep gave Song Fraase a list of 24 films that affected “materialists,” Of course, dominated Jane Austen adaptations. “We did the same thing on” past life, “he added.” It was important that we all saw the same films that had a similar vocabulary that we could discuss with each other in the cutting room. It is so important to get on the same page. ”
The editor was particularly blown away by Ang Lee’s “feeling and sensitivity”, as he has never seen before. “It just surprised me and has just shot up to the top of the list as one of the biggest and probably my favorite Jane Austen adaptation,” he said. “Everything is about class and money and exchange of goods, just like” the materialistic “references. But what if the status of one’s class is still an important aspect of the dating scene in Manhattan? Wealth can solve much of the problems. But what if true love for you is bad and will not solve any of your problems.
Song even undermines our expectations by opening “materialists” with a ritualist commitment between a caveman and a cave woman, which the editor thought very bold when he first read the script. “I love that it is unexpected,” Fraase said. “Since the beginning of the time, people began to be connected, and it was very important for us to really show up in the very early scene. He gives her a bag of tools and gives her flowers. These are gifts. Even at the beginning of time this transaction occurs.”
The film is crucially built around two weddings: the first when Lucy and Harry meet-route upon receiving her brother’s wedding which she arranged, which is interrupted by a chance reunion with John; The second when Lucy and John crash a wedding in Upstate New York after her division with Harry.
“Harry was first introduced where he arrives and you get some more information about him with his brother and talked back and forth about divorce,” Fraase said. “And we realized early on that it was better to just introduce Harry to his element. You see him dressed to the Nines immediately and greeted people. It just came straight to the point and was very effective. That’s how Celine likes to cut things, with a skilled hand.”
First, Harry Lucy witnesses from Afar who talks to some women about dating and demonstrating her matchmaking ability. He is fascinated. At the reception he sits next to her at the single table and compliments her on her matchmaking skills. But instead of hiring her, he wants to meet her. She immediately takes on her armor, but he charmes her to consider the offer.
“So we go back and forth between these singles at Lucy and Harry and try to hold on to each as long as possible,” Fraase added. “The key with Celine’s movies is that we are trying to cut as little as possible. So you are still wondering what the reaction is. What is Harry thinks? And then John comes in as this waiter with coke and beer, and we are shocked. It is a drink that no one would order, and there is no way for anyone to know this is that it is to be distinguished. her drink. And Harry. ”
The past and current collide for Lucy as she catches up with John, who drives her home from the wedding in the same “clumsy” car he had when they met a decade ago. Cut into a flashback to fight in the car for the cost of parking, leading to their division over his inability to afford her.
“This is one scene where we wanted the cut to go much faster,” Fraase said. “I want to make it feel like an argument. The first average I ever made with this scene was much slower. Let everyone finish their lines. And we were like, no, it must feel like an argument. You will not get all the lines. We just continued to work on it until it became a bit more hectic. The rhythm is much more staccato than anything else in the movie.”
In the third act of outdoor weddings, Lucy and John enjoy a brief romantic gap in the middle of nature’s beauty. They are intoxicated but unsure to meet again because of their love versus luxury dilemma. “One of my favorite lines throughout the movie is when John asks if they will always be passengers at a wedding,” Fraase added. “It’s so devastating to me, this feeling of being observers on someone else’s happiness.
“The first time we ever met on the movie,” he continued, “Celine had a whole playlist of musical themes that she felt represented these three characters, and the one she played for John was” Skating in Central Park “by Bill Evans. It is so etheric and fluent. The movie needs open, as it feels when you leave the city.
The climax Comes down to John’s marriage proposal on unconditional love and Lucy surrender to it. But the end is ambiguous. Although it is booked through the return of Grottman and Woman and John who present Lucy with his tender flower ring, there is a proposal to run the New York Matchmaking Office that hangs over her. We are back to the troubled equilibrium with social status.
“What I loved working on this movie is combining cynicism with romance,” Fraase said. “Trying to juggle these two are not mutually exclusive. They play each other in interesting ways.”
