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| The Dead Thing |
Behind every film are a mass of filmmakers turning a script, maybe even a dream of an individual or handful of people, into reality. Elric Kane's The Dead Thing and Joshua Erkman's A Desert are distinctly different films. The Dead Thing follows a young woman, in a mesmerising performance from Blu Hunt, who begins a passionate affair with a man who hides a secret. In A Desert, Harold (David Yow), a private investigator, is hired by a distraught wife (Sarah Lind) to find her husband, Alex (Kai Lennox), who has disappeared while on a photography trip in California's Yucca Valley.
Rosencrans' previous credits include Dalila Droege's 2022 thriller No More Time, about a couple seeking sanctuary in a remote mountain town from a virus that turns people into murderers, and the 2020 documentary Feather And Pine, about the effects of The Great Recession on a logging community in Northern California, which he co-directed with Michael James Beck.
In August 2024, at London FrightFest, Rosencrans spoke with Eye For Film about the experience of working alongside his close friends, Kane and Erkman. He also spoke about the trends in modern filmmaking, Nicolas Roeg's singular presence, and what stimulates him as a viewer.
Paul Risker: To begin, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the role of the editor and your personal experiences of film editing.
Star Rosencrans: Everything's unique, but these two films in particular are unique because I was on set every day for both films, which is not typical for editors. Certainly there were times when it was exhausting, but it was helpful. In the case of Josh and Elric, I'm pretty close friends with them and I had a very good idea about what they wanted in the scripts. I could see where things were going and was able to think about how things might start to take shape.
The director is rightly seen as the one steering the ship and, because of that, there are so many things that they have to respond to. By being on set and specifically thinking editorially about things, I was ultimately able to think about what was going to make my life easier when we came to the edit.
Things are easy to miss just because there's so much happening, and so, it was a privileged position for me to not have to deal with that stress, and to be able to maybe catch a few things that might have fallen through the cracks otherwise. Not that I think that either of these guys would not have done what they needed to do, but one of my flaws with scripts is I sometimes have a hard time envisioning them. So, there are things that editorially seem obvious notes that maybe I could have caught at a script level, but my brain wasn't quite working in that way.
That was another thing that was interesting — once I have footage in front of me, and I'm really wrapping my head around what's happening, it's like, 'Oh, we might actually try this instead.' But ultimately, it's like I'm working in close concert with the directors every time, and in these cases I've been lucky to be simpatico in terms of what's being made and how.
PR: It's said that a film is rewritten in the editing, or as Pablo Larraín told me, the film is discovered. It places a huge responsibility on the editor, which requires humility to work with the director's vision.
SR; Josh and I have worked together in a lot of those locations before — taking photographs, or we've done music videos in some of those spots. I knew what the atmosphere was going to be even before we shot the film. But as an editor, when I'm doing my best work, I'm obviously just helping to see the director's vision through. Then, I might be able to see something that they don't, and find the answer.
You're ultimately putting the film together, and hopefully, if you've done a good job, you're creating consistent performances and a consistent emotional throughline. You're shaping the thing to be the best it can be for what it needs to be and that includes reminding yourself of what you're trying to do at all times, because it's easy to get self-conscious and rush.
Again, it really helps that both Josh and Elric are very confident directors who knew what they were after.
PR: The Dead Thing and A Desert are different films, so, how did the edits compare in terms of their individual needs?
SR: With The Dead Thing, you have such a clear single point of focus for the most part with Blu's performance. Finding the rhythm of that was about going on a journey with her, losing time and trying to create a stasis-like state at the beginning, which then starts to fall apart.
Then, with A Desert, I was cognisantly trying to cut things short and make things feel a little bit off edge. It's about finding those moments that feel like we're cutting a little earlier than you might expect, to create a little bit of anxiety, even in those quieter moments. We have a character who doesn't quite know what he's getting into, and I was trying to find that in the pacing of the edit. Obviously, there are big shifts that happen and in A Desert, you know you're dealing with something else which changes the focus.
There are also considerations in the mirroring and the more time we had with it, the more I was finding those places where, while it's about a repeated cycle, there were also some things that felt like a difference in the characters. It wasn't written this way, but when Harold the PI arrives at the dunes, which are such a big deal for Alex, who really embraces the sunlight, Harold literally blocks out the light.
It's something that none of us were thinking about, but by putting those two things together, just this little gesture, shows a crucial difference between the two characters. Some of these moments were conscious and others were not.
PR: The Dead Thing rides on the shoulders of Blu's performance, whereas A Desert appears to be pulling on a lot of different strings. The performances are important In A Desert, but the wandering characters, the mystery and the ambiguity have an Antonionio-esque touch.
SR: You're with Blu and the challenge is that it has to be internal, and some people don't think we meet this challenge. With Blu, we have to establish that there is a repetition and rhythm to her life that is not fun, nor is it good. Then with A Desert, as you said, there's a sort of Antonioni aspect to it, which is certainly a conscious thing. It's also about the cinematic as photographic, and mirroring this experience of framing up the shot and of being within that space — being within the frame of the photograph. LA as a character is important, but the desert and the things that may or may not exist within it, were very important to the pacing.
PR: As we've touched upon Antonioni, are you referencing other films or specific techniques when editing?
SR: It's weird — mostly no, actually. There's one very self-conscious thing in it that I did that I don't think anybody would ever pick up on, because it's not a one-to-one, and we're doing something a little bit differently. There's a style in Kiyoshi Kurosawa films of a flashback — this thing happens very quickly initially, because it's about the character recalling an image or moment more than it is about you, the audience getting it. Then it comes back again, and maybe it's a little bit longer, and there's more for you, but it's still inside that character's perspective. A Desert doesn't quite do that, but I felt it was a very smart handling of memory that I consciously took in.
[…] Sometimes I sort of feel like with everything, fake it until you make it. Every now and again I'll run into pedestrian issues, and I'll start thinking about those — I'll become hyper-cognisant as I watch other films. In the script there are direct references, but I didn't necessarily go back to them editorially.
With both Josh and Elric, we have such a similar cinematic frame of reference. I've been discussing and watching films with Josh for 26 years, and I haven't known Elric for as long, but part of what Elric and I have really bonded over is the fact that there are a lot of very specific, esoteric references that we have come together on. It helps to have that language in place.
PR: The striking thing about both films is how they become more playful with the pacing and the visuals towards the end.
SR: In both films, you have these logistical things that have to happen, and then they become like a puzzle box. Josh was very good at getting the footage he needed, but he was very worried the monitors at the end of A Desert weren't going to work because those are being played live — they're not post-CG. We are filming those monitors playing back that footage, and it's a big swing to do that. With A Desert, once you figure out how to unlock the puzzle, it comes together.
With the pacing of The Dead Thing, we have a sex scene that's quite long, and at least for me, it still doesn't feel so. Part of that was that it's a sex scene that has a storyline, and so all the editing was obviously directed towards this. It's an obvious thing to say, but I think that's what makes the difference to something that's just inert, and if we've done our job, you are hopefully sensing this progression within the scene.
PR: When we talk about the depiction of sex in cinema, Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now is a film that cannot be left out of the conversation. Aside from Don't Look Now, the sex scenes in Roeg's cinema are particularly intriguing for their technical aesthetic.
SR: It's so funny because growing up I wanted to do makeup effects. So, as a child I really loved horror films and I also read a lot. I knew about Don't Look Now, but only because of the sex scene. I had no idea that Don't Look Now was technically a horror film. I just knew that it had this scene that people said might have been real.
The way that Roeg plays with time, he's definitely somebody that is always at the forefront of my mind. It's for good reason that people talk about the Don't Look Now sex scene because there is real intimacy there. It is actually made even more intimate by seeing them dress together — the intercutting makes it feel like a complete thing.
It's weird because there is this debate right now about whether we should have sex scenes in films. Of course, it's part of the human experience. It's not even a question for me, but that said, my son actually has been funny about sex scenes. […] He wanted to watch Hellraiser, and so I said, "Well, you should know that Hellraiser is a very sexual film." When we finally watched it, he said, "I don't know why you're warning about sex in this because it's all important. The story is about the sex, as opposed to when we're watching a slasher film and then there's just some topless girl." It was interesting because I just assumed he was prudish about nudity, but no, he's just not interested in it if it's not motivated.
Also, when you think of Roeg's Eureka, some of the scenes in terms of the sex are crazy. One of the things I think about a lot with Don't Look Now is the way that he plays with the premonitions, because the first time you're watching it, you have no idea that's what you're seeing. There are so many things happening; there are so many layers. And the way he plays with premonitions in a lot of his films, it's kind of a theme. I don't know if there's anybody better at montage and the abstraction of time.
PR: Watching Roeg's films, you're aware of the film's artifice, which infringes upon the suspension of disbelief. As an editor, do you think the audience should be aware of the edit?
SR: I feel that even disruptive edits, when they're done well, can still end up being invisible, because we're all versed enough in the cinematic language, that there's not a lot you're going to do that's really going to surprise people. As I mentioned in A Desert, I'm trying to call attention to the cut points. It's trying to create these little moments of impact and anxiety, and also, if that's working, people are just feeling a little off kilter about things as opposed to actively being aware of this.
We did see a movie where we were very aware of the editing this weekend [at FrightFest]. It felt showy for showy's sake, like it was just speaking more about how we're making a movie, and we have these statements. That could be okay, but it pulls you out.
There's room for everything, I guess. I like being confronted by films; I like being thrown off by films and I like not having the answers. Maybe, to some people, that is automatically disruptive and pulls you out of the experience. For me, I just don't like being fully pulled out of the engagement with the film.
PR: If we consider that we are immersed in the world of the characters, while we are simultaneously aware that we are watching a film, the experience of cinematic storytelling can be described as an out-of-body experience. Personally, I like to see the construction of a film and sense the filmmaker's presence, which doesn't obstruct the suspension of disbelief. Instead, the two viewing modes nourish us differently.
SR: With contemporary filmmaking, I have a problem with the hand of the filmmaker disappearing entirely. Everything can be so controlled now. There was a moment early on in cutting A Desert when we were on these very bumpy roads, we asked whether we should try to stabilise this? I felt like no, this is what it actually feels like to be in this story, and it's okay for the camera to actually represent that.
There are techno cranes that create these incredibly smooth camera movements, and I just remembered there's a moment in Don't Look Now where a door closes, and the camera shifts a little bit. Maybe they should have cut a little bit earlier, but there's still something about that moment where they break the spell — only a little bit. And, not the most remarkable film, but I rewatched Kalifornia not too long ago. There's this incredible car flipping stunt and it has a great camera move. The camera is pretty close, then it quickly backs away before stopping. There's this judder, and you realise they're in a golf cart. It's great though, and it feels more dangerous because they were there. It actually heightened the stakes of that moment for me a little bit more than it would have done today, with an incredibly empty, smooth and fluid movement.
[…] If the filmmaker's hand completely disappears, then I guess that can sometimes work, but if anything, but more times than not, I'm aware of how much you've planned this as opposed to it being organic. You want to feel like it's living and breathing. Not for everything, but there are definitely some things that you think, 'That's a great director showreel, but I didn't feel anything in these moments.'
PR: I've heard it said that if you try and explain why you love a piece of music, you undermine it, because it's a feeling. Cinema is no different, and we're always interrogating why a film worked or didn't, or why a scene was effective. On some level, cinema exists only as a feeling, and yet, as human beings, we're so desperate to understand an art form that remains evasive, and refuses to give up its secrets.
SR: A 100% and it's important to ask. I can also appreciate something that isn't interested in that. I can appreciate something that is an exercise or that is just chasing an idea that is not about cinema and not about emotion, and maybe is not necessarily what I'm trying to do myself.
Look, none of this stuff is easy. Everything's a struggle and so I do try to be charitable with what I see. There's nothing I've made that isn't without flaws, so I don't mean to be super critical, but for me, things that feel empty, those are the hardest to reconcile, because so much time and energy went into them that you ask, "What are you bringing? Why this? Why now?"
The Dead Thing and A Desert screened at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival, and London FrightFest. The Dead Thing is available to stream now on Shudder.
