Cuts We Love 1st Qtr 2020

Cuts We Love – 1st Qtr, 2020

Set during the Sierra Leone Civil War of the 1990s, this political thriller concerns the illicit trade in diamonds mined by warlords and diamond companies. It’s a typically socially-charged film from Edward Zwick (Glory) with regular editor Steven Rosenblum, ACE, building the tension.

An early scene shows fisherman Solomon (Djimon Hounsou) in a forced labor camp somewhere in the jungle overseen by ruthless warlord Captain Poison (David Harewood). “I didn’t have to work hard to establish the tension,” Rosenblum says. “It’s clear that this is no Eden; that these guys are in slavery. When we made Glory, among the first things we show is somebody’s head being blown off. Once you set up that level of intensity then something as innocuous as going to the toilet – as in this scene – becomes fraught with danger.”

Vandy discovers an enormous diamond in the river and attempts to conceal it, but the area is suddenly raided by government troops. “Vandy is kidnapped and clearly wants to escape but his motive for stealing the diamond is less clear,” Rosenblum says. “I’m curious why we find him to be a hero when he’s stealing something for his own purposes, even if his reasons are more noble than the soldiers. It’s a conflicted motivation between good and evil – and that’s what I like about it.”

He adds, “It was easy to work with Djimon’s reactions – he’s very good with his eyes. In his performance you can see fear, motivation and humiliation.” The hardest part of the scene was timing the explosion of the water pump. “We need to make it appear natural and not a contrivance, even though it acts as a handy distraction for Vandy to conceal the diamond.”

Rosenblum says, “The best way to play this was to feature the water pump in the most objective shot I had, to place it in the scene a couple of times without drawing attention to it.”

Vandy makes an excuse to go to the toilet in bushes on the riverbank, in reality to hide the diamond.“You don’t know exactly where he is in relation to everyone but the geography is not an issue. It’s obvious he is in a secluded vantage point and also at his most vulnerable.”

Poison surprises Vandy and is immediately suspicious, and pats down his clothes. “I specifically wanted to play the scene from Poison’s side since this is the first time the audience really encounters him close up. He’s wearing sunglasses and when he takes them down you see his eyes for the first and pretty much the only time in the film, since seconds later he will be injured and wear an eye patch for the rest of the movie.”

The second half of the scene depicts an attack on the camp by a rival army faction. “There’s nothing worse than feeling lost in an action scene but this had to feel disorientating because we have to believe that Vandy gets away from Poison and also just has the time to find a new place to bury the diamond in the all chaos,” Rosenblum explains. “It is this moment that will keep these characters connected. I always try and find a way to work in a wide shot that tells the audience where the characters are, but that shot needs to be earned by either a pause in the action or [by being] somehow dramatically warranted.”

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