Ben Hur and the History of “Analog” Editing’s Technology - Text 4
The scene is perhaps the best example of what had become possible conceptually in film editing, and of the effects that could be created by the careful analysis and representation of a complex narrative event, which prompted the need, we might say, for a new, more sophisticated editing system – a need answered by the introduction of the Moviola. It is not clear, though, whether such complexity was made possible by new editing technology, or if it was the sort of complexity that was emerging already that led to such new technical devices.
For, as Brownlow notes, editing “settled down to a solid professionalism around 1918.”[4] What he thus describes is the transformation of film editing from an effectively mechanical task of joining already composed shots into a compositional endeavor on its own terms. Editing was becoming a matter of organizing vastly increased amounts of information, as more cameras were being used to gather footage, which would then be assembled in more and more complex, synoptic visual (and, eventually, aural) patterns. This change is a shift in the understanding of editing, and filmmaking generally, as a set of techniques for the management and organization of information. Editing systems develop subsequently as information processing systems, a development fully realized with digital technology, but initiated in the first dedicated devices like the Moviola.
By the time director William Wyler brought his version of Ben-Hur to the screen in 1959, editors were facing new technical difficulties. The film was shot with the proprietory MGM Camera 65 widescreen system, in 65 mm, with new Panavision lenses, creating much more “information-rich” images and much more complex compositional possibilities. Its success, leading to the development of the Super Panavision 70 System, as Peter Lev has noted, secured Panavision’s position as the “de facto Hollywood standard,”[5] leading eventually to the new, more horizontal aspect ratio that has since become more or less standard, and which allows for more complex inter-frame compositions.
