“Bohemian Rhapsody” editor John Ottman is finally speaking out about his controversial Oscar win for Best Film Editing.
A video went up the other day criticizing a scene in particular which shows Queen meeting their manager John Reid for the first time. The user video proved that it was possible to make the scene better just by removing some of the cuts. The infamous meeting scene features a dizzying 60 cuts in under two minutes. Posting the moment on Twitter, one user sarcastically wrote : “Did this scene clinch BEST FILM EDITING for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at the #Oscars tonight? It’s hard to say.”
According to Ottoman [via The Washington Post], the meeting with John Reid was one of the few scenes filmed by Dexter Fletcher, who had to replace Bryan Singer as director after he was fired with less than 20% of the film left to shoot. Again, according to WaPo “It meant that the storyline became re-ordered and the original dialogue no longer made sense. For Ottman, it meant acting under time constraints – as well as responding to early feedback from audiences who said that they wanted to see more of the band’s early days. While he was able to slow down some of the early scenes, it ultimately meant he didn’t get a chance to recut the widely derided scene.”
When quizzed on the backlash, Ottoman told The Washington Post: “Oh my God! Wow. I didn’t know about that, but I know why that’s out there. Whenever I see [the scene], I want to put a bag over my head. Because that’s not my aesthetic. If there’s ever an extended version of the film where I can put a couple scenes back, I will recut that scene!”
My take is that, of course, the cuts were very choppy and the pacing was very bad, but the eyelines were also all over the place and the angles did not mesh well together at all. Then again, the viral video criticizing the sequence doesn't really deal with the overall pacing. That scene was one of the only moments of character interaction that wasn't just skipping through Wikipedia bullet points in the film. If it was only 1/3 the length, the rest of the movie would have felt even more rushed up than it already was. I can see why Reid would just cram in whatever footage he had to stretch it out a few more seconds. This still doesn’t explain how in the living hell he won the editing Oscar.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.