all in all- great show. everyone else has pretty much said everything that needs to be said.

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The man with the magic hands.

Who else? If it's only to please a director's whims, then this underscores what I said about self-indulgence; 3-hour movies being made out of 90 minute stories.

>>I guess you've never edited a film, and if you have you must be a VERY strong traditionalist and haven't seen many avante-guarde<<

I'm of the "less is more" school. You'd be surprised at how many times NOT making a cut will speak volumes. I don't consider myself an editor, nor even an amateur filmmaker, but I have done 16mm work in the 70s, and I have a 3/4" and NLE system in my house for video. I have seen some of the type of films you mention, but don't "get" them.

In 1982, my union local assigned me to dailies work on a movie called "And They're Off..." (don't look for it, it was never released). I struck up a friendship with the supervising editor, Bob Swink, ACE (an Oscar winner for ROMAN HOLIDAY). He was a kindly fellow who'd come out of retirement for this picture, and he patiently answered all my questions. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in the editing room. The other two editors on the show were of the 'progressive' school, and had reservations about Bob's "traditionalist" technique. I realize the following isn't unusual, but I recall one particular sequence, cut by one of these cool-cats, was virtually unintelligible; you simply could not follow it. The director asked him to re-cut the scene several times, but he kept drawing blanks. OLD-TIMER-PRO TO THE RESCUE! After screening Bob Swink's cut, it was like a cloud had been lifted. It magically made the scene COHERENT! So you can't tell me about what works and what doesn't, because I've been there and seen it both ways.

>>styles like that of short film (or even music video) step into mainstream it is misunderstood.<<

You didn't comment on my question of making a movie out of sequence. I believe you'd admit it would be a jumble, rendering it worthless as a storytelling vehicle. So herein lies the key issue: at some point, you have to preserve the integrity of the process. And with big screens, the audience can't move their eyes and/or heads fast enough to follow hither-and-yon editing! Physics come into play. This was learned with Cinerama. Therefore, what might work for a video won't always work on the big screen.

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Better Projection Pays!

Carl Welles made an interesting observation about avante garde filmmakers not being successful in the business. I knew two such people who believed they had all the answers, and what the world needed was their high art. Once they made films, the world would stand on end. One fellow, who was my relief projectionist in the 70s, had the financial backing of his wealthy father. This guy did make his films; oddball, 'experimental'-type entries which were supposed to garner deep, intellectual meaning, but instead left the viewer feeling unenlightened. He even did some of these films in 35mm. Today, he's working in his father's business, and has nothing to do with movies. During the same time period, I knew a professor, who was head of a university film school. I was very surprised at her lack of understanding of basic filmmaking principles and equipment! I kept saying, "And you're head of the film school?!" Anyway, her films had a 'punk-rock', grungy look about them and, of course, they were "high-art", naturally! Today, she sits with her orange head in a bare-walled apartment, hoping one day the phone will ring with a contract for MTV interstitials. The moral of the story: make all the artsy-fartsy stuff you want, but get it out of your system early because it won't put food on the table. The motion picture industry is a BUSINESS and you have to make saleable material... as in SUBSTANTIVE.

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Better Projection Pays!

The character Maximus seems to have more in common with Commodus' successor Pertinax. Pertinax was a military man who was indirectly involved in a number of plots to kill Commodus.