Examining Editing Style in "Be Kind Rewind"

"Be Kind Rewind" is a film that cleverly satirizes the rules and conventions of film editing established by the jurisdiction of Hollywood studios. It does this firstly by being and independent film that uses editing both as a tool to present the film stylistically and as a subject addressed through the narrative of the film. The film satirizes the conventions of Hollywood by integrating different styles of editing, manipulating the expectations of the audience, and compressing time and space. There are several different editing styles that are incorporated in the film. For instance, there were scenes and instances that were more reflective of a narrative styled edit, and other moments that were more so a documentary styled edit. This occurs in scenes for instance where Mike and Jerry interact with one another in the video shop, the style of editing is clean cut and seamless, as in classical Hollywood cinema. However, during scenes where Mike and Jerry film their own versions of films, the style of editing changes to that of a documentary appearing more so unplanned and left as a rough edit. Even looking at the film that they create about Fatts Wallace, is stylistically labeled as a documentary because it is in black and white, a film stock that often is used in older documentaries. This is all to say that although Mike and Jerry's film was not produced on a large scale or budget, they were still able to satisfy and intrigue the people of the community.
This film also manipulates the expectations of the audience, and in doing so satirize the conventions of traditional Hollywood editing. It does so by giving the audience the notion that the films that Jerry and Mike produce are cheesy remakes that no one would ever find appealing or would ever consider as a replacement for the "real thing." In the movies they recreate, they freely use junk from their environment in innovative ways in order to create props and sets because they have no money to produce on a "Hollywood" scale of filming. It pokes fun at hollywood in that Mike and Jerry's low budget films hold just as much of an importance to the people who produce and love them as any mainstream, studio, million- dollar budget film. Lastly, the compression of time and space is also used in the editing style for this film. For instance, in one scene a montage is created of all the scenes that are being shot at the same time from different movies that were being shot. This was a clever way of compressing time and space because it would be unnecessary to show every film that they recreated. So instead, during a scene where they were producing several movies at one time, we see all the different sets next to eachother, and characters shoot one scene and run to the next set. Essentially, the editing of the film reveals that the characters are managing to mass produce remakes of films like "Rush Hour", "Rocky" and "Ghostbusters" under atypical circumstances. Ultimtely the film calls attention to the idea that independent made films an be just as strong and impactful to the public without applying traditional Hollywood conventions.