Pieces of Dylan Tichenor

Editor Dylan Tichenor grew up watching movies with his father, a wannabe filmmaker with his own 16mm camera. His first lesson in editing took place when, as a child, he held a strip of film from an 8mm reel of The Magnificent Ambersons to the light and realized how the scene was composed of different shots. His first professional break was as a P.A. on John Sayles’ City of Hope. Since then, he’s edited Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Unbreakable, and The Royal Tenenbaums. He just finished Brokeback Mountain.

F&V: What have the challenges been on Brokeback Mountain?

I took over from the original editor, Geraldine Peroni. I learned to edit from her, when she was Robert Altman’s editor and I was her apprentice on The Player, and I worked with her for five years. While she was cutting Brokeback Mountain, she passed away rather suddenly, tragically. The first month was really difficult, seeing the work she’d done, all her selections and knowing her thinking behind it. Soon, it got to be cathartic and good to spend this time with her— I found myself thinking about her all the time through this process and it was a gift to me in that way. I think that our two styles complement each other’s. I don’t think you’ll be able to discern which cuts are hers and which are mine.

F&V: What did you learn from working with Robert Altman?

Bob is an amazing person. He’s the kind of guy where if you’ve never been a set decorator before, you could get hired as a set decorator on his film— because he recognized in you the aesthetic and the drive and the interest. He would let people rise to their level. I don’t know too many people who do that today. You have to be a very secure person— your ego has to be intact— to have lots of people around you whom you allow to contribute. More than any living director his imprint is on his movies, like a John Ford or a Hitchcock. You look at seven frames of the movie and know who directed.

F&V: What have you learned from working with so many directors with a strong storytelling sense?

It’s very rewarding to work with someone who is clear on telling a story. There are a lot of filmmakers who don’t really know how to tell a story — they know how to make a pretty shot or slam you in your seat with a big music cue, but that doesn’t have much to do with storytelling. One thing I come away with having worked with these guys, the common denominator is that they all know or have different ways of keeping on point in telling a story by having a point of view. It can be literally a character’s POV or a general cohesiveness to the tone and approach in the storytelling. In film, that’s an extremely important thing and it’s really difficult to keep track of. If there’s a scene where a guy is getting angry and breaking furniture, is the point to watch the guy smash the furniture or is it to see what it does to his little daughter? The filmmaker who understands POV and storytelling will know not to spend all day shooting high-speed shots of furniture splitting but the little girl’s eyes. You’d be surprised how many directors don’t understand that.

F&V: What goes into making a good director/editor partnership?

The basics are trust and respect— going both ways. I have to trust that this person knows what they’re doing or, at the very least, that they’re using all of their faculties to attempt something. You don’t have to be successful. Sometimes we can fail and have it be the most rewarding experience. It’s very important to fail otherwise you don’t get a sense of where the rails are. At the same time, I need them to understand that I’m putting just as much of myself into the film to serve their vision and the path they’re carving. The main part of the editor’s job is to be a surrogate audience, to react to footage and say what’s important and not important to the story. I’m exposing my own sensibility. A lot of times, when I have to show the director what I’ve cut, I’ve been so nervous. With Paul [Thomas Anderson] on Magnolia, I put a sequence together, a very emotional section of the movie. Paul sat down on the couch to watch it and I literally couldn’t press the play button. Paul understood that I had put something of myself into it and that I was understandably nervous. That’s one of the reasons I respect Paul as much as I do. He understands the contribution.

F&V: Do you have a personal style or philosophy of editing?

I’m not an MTV-style guy, and I’m not whatever the opposite of that is. If I have a style or philosophy it’s that I’m really drawn to true moments. I like to structure things so that there is a moment where things come together, where the ideas you’re working on resonate. I’m looking for connections and associations— not overtly or intellectually, but in my mind that’s how I’m building a story. At the end of the day I like to have a human connection to it. I don’t want smash-it-up movies that are only smash-it-up or broad comedies that are only broad comedies.

F&V: What are you working on now?

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford— the writer/director is Andrew Dominik [Chopper]. He knows what storytelling is about. And Roger Deakins is shooting, so it’ll look good no matter what.