One Category at a Time: Film Editing

As I mentioned about a week ago in my ACE Eddies recap, this is one of those categories on which the jury is out. The BAFTAs failed to clarify the issue, and traditional logic tells us that we should predict one of the ACE winners to take the Oscar as well (only three times in the last 23 years did the Oscar go to a film that did not win the Eddie), but it would be foolish to ignore the potential sweep that could make an Oscar winner out of an Eddie loser.

ACE Eddie winners

One of the craft categories I'm having the hardest time predicting this year is Best Film Editing. I may keep going back and forth on the issue right up until the eve of the Oscars (and possibly well into the show)! But last night's American Cinema Editors (ACE Eddie) Awards lent some clarity into what the experts themselves think, and the news is not at all surprising.

Christopher Rouse took home top honours in Best Edited Feature (Drama) for Captain Phillips, and may well take the Oscar as well on March 2nd. Even though the film is apparently not the strongest Best Picture contender, having missed out on Best Director and Actor nominations, sometimes the Academy does vote for the film with the most obvious editing. Remember The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Black Hawk Down, The Matrix, and The Bourne Ultimatum (which brought Rouse his first Oscar) managed to win without Best Picture nominations even. Still, one gets the feeling that a Gravity sweep could tilt this category in Alfonso Cuaron's favour.

One Category at a Time: Film Editing

The contest for Best Film Editing is always closely associated with Best Picture. Since editors and directors work pretty much hand in hand, the editors branch of AMPAS tends to nominate based on quality of the films as much as quality of just the editing. On top of that, the film to win Best Film Editing is often well liked enough that it almost always wins multiple categories (last year's victory for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo being among the rare exceptions). And since editing can be such an invisible art at times, the winning film is usually required to have the “most” editing, rather than the “best”, to earn the Academy's attention.

ACE, CAS both announce winners

Winners for the American Cinema Editors Awards went pretty much as expected. Oscar frontrunner William Goldenberg took home the award for Best Edited Dramatic Feature Film for Argo, while fellow Oscar nominees Jay Cassidy and Crispen Struthers won for Best Edited Comedy/Musical Feature Film for Silver Linings Playbook.

Malik Bendjelloul continued Searching for Sugar Man's dominance by winning the Documentary category, while Brave bested Oscar favourite Wreck-It Ralph in the Animated category. I'm starting to get some real vibes that Brave is the one that's gonna take Best Animated Feature next week. The marketing of Wreck-It Ralph may well have deterred many an Academy voter from even seeing it, whereas Pixar is a studio that usually garners respect from the industry. I may have to switch my prediction at the eleventh hour.