The Conventional Rules of the Cut
In most mainstream American movies, editing serves a clear purpose: move the story forward. A cut typically follows the action or dialogue, creating a seamless flow that keeps the audience oriented and the plot humming along. We cut from a person speaking
to the person listening, from a car chase's wide shot to the driver's determined face. This continuity editing is the bedrock of cinematic language, a grammar so ingrained that viewers rarely notice the cuts at all. It’s a functional art form, focused on clarity and momentum. The goal is to immerse you in the narrative so completely that you forget you’re watching a construct of assembled shots. But what if the goal isn't just to tell a story, but to make you feel the story in your bones, to inhabit a character's subjective experience?
Moonlight and the 'Barry' Rhythm
This is where Barry Jenkins, along with his key collaborators, editors Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders, began to rewrite the rulebook. McMillon notes there's a specific "Barry rhythm" to his films, a pace and subtlety that is nuanced and specific to his style. For their Oscar-winning work on `Moonlight`, McMillon (the first Black woman ever nominated for the Best Editing Oscar) and Sanders didn't just assemble scenes; they sculpted time. The film, structured in three distinct chapters of a young man’s life, uses editing to reflect his fractured identity and profound isolation. Cuts are often dictated by emotion, not action. Jenkins will hold a close-up for an uncomfortably long time, forcing the audience to sit with a character’s silent pain or confusion. Then, a sudden, jarring cut will thrust the viewer into a new moment, mirroring the abrupt shifts of memory and trauma. Jenkins' direction to his editors wasn't always about timing; he would often just describe how a scene should feel. This approach privileges the internal over the external, making the edit a tool for empathy.
Sensory Editing in Beale Street
If `Moonlight` was about the rhythm of identity, `If Beale Street Could Talk` is a masterclass in sensory editing. The film moves fluidly between past and present, but the transitions aren't just functional flashbacks. They are triggered by a touch, a color, or a line of dialogue, creating an associative logic that feels more like poetry than prose. The editing, once again by McMillon and Sanders, works in concert with James Laxton’s lush cinematography and Nicholas Britell’s soaring score to create a true audio-visual tapestry. A shot of Tish’s face might dissolve into a memory of her lover, Fonny, the edit motivated by her internal state of longing. The story’s chronology is less important than its emotional continuity. Because they all went to film school together and had worked together for years, the editors understood Jenkins's style intimately, allowing them to translate his vision of a deeply romantic and subjective experience into the final cut.
The Power of the Sustained Gaze
Jenkins carried this philosophy into television with `The Underground Railroad`, a ten-episode adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel. While many historical dramas use quick cuts to convey action and scale, Jenkins does the opposite. He and Laxton frequently employ long, unbroken shots that linger on the faces of the enslaved characters, creating what he calls 'portraits in motion.' This isn’t about advancing the plot; it's about forcing the viewer to bear witness. The editing refuses to look away, transforming the passive act of watching into an active engagement with history and humanity. The series often lingers in moments that don't directly serve the narrative, creating space for contemplation and refusing to tell the audience how they should feel. It’s a challenging, meditative pace that stands in stark contrast to the churn of modern streaming content, demanding a different kind of attention from the viewer.
