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Confessions of an Indie Editor
The Station Agent's Tom McArdle discusses his career
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| Peter Dinklage, Tom McArdle and Bobby Cannavale celebrate The Station Agent's Sundance victory. |
Crashing the "company car"-and a rented one at that-may spell unemployment in most industries. But in the world of independent film, just such an occurrence proved to be the first learning experience for editor Tom McArdle. For more than a decade, McArdle has worked the editing room with some of today's biggest indie success stories, beginning with Nick Gomez's classic Laws of Gravity, and most recently with Tom McCarthy's The Station Agent, which won accolades at Sundance and took home the Audience and Best Screenplay Awards, as well as the Best Actress prize for Patricia Clarkson.
An unconventional tale of loneliness and, ultimately, friendship in an old train depot, McArdle says he was attracted to the script because of its warm treatment of existentialist themes. Here, he discusses his commitment to the world of indie film and why a film about a "train-obsessed dwarf who lives in an abandoned depot in rural New Jersey and reluctantly becomes friends with an overly-talkative Cuban hot dog salesman" seemed like a sure bet.
Jennifer Wood (MM): What was the film that inspired you to become a film editor?
Tom McArdle (TA): The film that made me want to become a film editor was All That Jazz. I was 11 when it came out and I wasn't allowed to see R-rated films at the time. A friend and I snuck into the theater and later told our parents that we had seen The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh. Anyway, All That Jazz had a lot of scenes that take place in the cutting room (showing Roy Scheider as the Bob Fosse character and editor Alan Heim working on Lenny). The cutting room seemed like a very interesting place. There were scenes that showed Fosse and Heim changing scenes and also the overall structure of the film-within-the-film. Also, the cutting style of All That Jazz itself seemed really unconventional. Some scenes cut out before you thought they would, and there were the quick-cut montages of the Fosse character popping pills and talking to himself in the mirror. And, of course, there were the very dynamic dance numbers shot from multiple angles. On top of all that, the glimpse into the lifestyle of an artistic person living in the big city seemed very exciting to a shy suburban youth.
MM: How did you first get into editing, and how did you land your first feature?
TA: I studied film (and English lit) at Dartmouth College. I always knew I wanted to edit. When I graduated, two Dartmouth alums I knew who worked in editing, Bill Johnson (who won an Emmy for editing The West Wing) and John Gilroy (who cut Narc) told me about this new independent film production company in New York City called The Shooting Gallery. I went down there and started working as a PA. The Shooting Gallery specialized in low-budget and no-budget filmmaking. A lot of people there had worked on Hal Hartley's films.
On my third day on the job, I was driving a cube rental truck and got cut off by a cab driver and crashed into some Con Ed equipment. I figured my career was over before it began. However, since this was the world of guerilla filmmaking, the production manager thought quickly and called the truck rental company and blamed the accident on the (supposedly) faulty truck. The company gave us the truck for free for the week and paid for the repairs. So I learned right away that things can turn around pretty quickly. After a few weeks at The Shooting Gallery, I started assistant editing. A couple months later I was editing short films. Then Nick Gomez asked me to cut his $38,000 documentary-styled Laws of Gravity, which was my first job as a feature editor. The success of that film allowed me to keep editing features on a regular basis.
MM: You seem to gravitate more toward independent fare in your work. What is it about the indie world that keeps you coming back?
TA: I guess the concepts for the projects are less broad and more personal. I like films that aren't completely predictable. I also like films about outsiders. There is always the hope that indie films can say something new, take risks.
MM: At the same time these kinds of films are usually created in a shorter time span and on a much lower budget. How do you think these two factors affect the need for creativity and, ultimately, your role as editor?
TA: Well, a lower budget might mean that some things get rushed during the shoot. Then, in editing, you might have to figure out ways around certain problems. Sometimes I may not have enough coverage for a scene or two, so I might start to think about making a montage out of incomplete scenes or inter-cutting scenes. There is usually some sort of solution. Also, due to the lower budgets, I might be asked to work fast, which I'm used to.
MM: What was it that attracted you to The Station Agent?
TA: How can you not like a script about a train-obsessed dwarf who goes to live in an abandoned depot in rural New Jersey and reluctantly becomes friends with an overly-talkative Cuban hot dog salesman? Seemed like a sure bet to me. But seriously, I like scripts about outsiders, existentialist stuff, and this script had that. Then it turns into something else along the way, something sort of off-handedly warm. I also liked Tom McCarthy's comedic tone in the script, which was sort of deadpan, with funny small moments. Tom McCarthy, personally, is a hilarious guy, so working with him on the film was a ton of fun.
MM: The film marks Tom's feature debut, but you have a lot of experience working with first-time directors. What are the questions you generally ask of a director before deciding to work together? And what are the personality traits that attract you to a director, regardless of experience?
TA: Well, when I first meet a director, I try to get a sense of whether the person has a good amount of life experience and intelligence. I also look to see how they handle people. You know, if we meet at a restaurant, are they nice to the waiter? Then I also try to find out about the director's film sense--have they made short films or gone to film school? What kind of films do they like? Things like that.
MM: In deciding how to tackle a film editorially, what are the questions you ask (either of yourself or the director)--and want answered--before the process begins? Do you have ways to to solidify the story and where you want to go with it before you start cutting?
TA: I ask about the films that the director feels have a similar style or tone to the film that we're about to make. These influences can then be referred to throughout the process as touchstones. Sometimes in the edit, you are simply going for 'a feel,' and how do you describe 'a feel' properly? So having other films as tone or mood reference points helps. There can also be perfomance touchstones. On some jobs the editor and director may say to each other 'Let's make it more Steve McQueen' or 'more Daniel Auteuil' or whoever. Then you can shape a performance around an idea.
MM: Is there any one aspect of a film that clues you in best to the editing--the script, the acting, the cinematography, etc.?
TA: Well, you always start out trying to tell the story as written. However, as Francis Ford Coppola says on The Conversation DVD commentary, the script cut never quite works out as well as you might hope it will. Then, once you get past that whole issue, I think it usually works out that the acting drives the edit a lot more than anyone would want to admit. I think everyone, whether in the film business or not, is very sensitive to false acting moments. To me a false acting moment is like someone playing a trumpet and hitting the wrong note. You just cringe, and the film loses credibility. So in the edit, you do whatever you can to keep things feeling real all the time.
MM: The Station Agent is very much a "character" piece. Not just in the sense that it's about people rather than action, but in that it's about three clearly-defined characters, the likes of whom we don't often see on the big screen. What does it help you to know about the characters, in particular, in deciding how to edit a film?
TA: It's good to know some backstory, if you can. The film I am editing right now, Killer Diller, is based on a novel by Clyde Edgerton and, in preparation, besides reading the script a number of times, I read the book a couple times so I could know what the characters were thinking at any given moment. Then, if I know what they're thinking, I can choose reaction shots to reflect that, even though it might not be in the script. Books have the space to describe thoughts, scripts usually do not.
MM: Do you like to choose a different editing style for each of the characters, to help define them better on screen?
TA: In general, I do not try to establish an editing style for individual characters. However, in The Station Agent, I think Fin may have ended up getting his own editing style in some scenes simply because of his reluctance to connect with others and his deadpan expressions. Sometimes, cutting at a certain moment to his emotionless face just staring at people could only make you laugh.
MM: The film made its debut on the festival circuit, premiering at Sundance, playing at Toronto, Denver, Mill Valley, Aspen, Chicago and San Sebastian and winning a number of awards in the process. How satisfying is it to you to create such a personal film and have it touch so many people throughout the world?
TA: It has been very satisfying to see how the film has been received. I think everyone in some way relates to Fin and the film seems to touch a chord in people. I really enjoy the film. I hope other people do, too. I think it has the potential to entertain a wide audience.
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