Directed by Chad Freidrichs • Documentary • 2025 • 93 minutes
From the director of The Pruitt-Igoe Myth comes a documentary about the psychology of film editing.
Why do film cuts work? Why do people around the world – even children – so effortlessly understand them? In real life we don't instantly jump from one viewpoint to another. Such a bizarre disruption of reality would be nauseatingly jarring. And yet, most viewers don’t even notice the hundreds or thousands of edits in their favorite films and shows.
THE CINEMA WITHIN delves into the mystery of how and why an edited movie feels so natural and so effortlessly makes sense. Drawing on the insights of editor Walter Murch, scholar David Bordwell, and a varied group of perceptual scientists, THE CINEMA WITHIN explores the idea that in film’s earliest years, the most common edits were instinctively shaped to fit the contours of human perception – and that this might explain why, more than a century later, most modern-day filmmakers still rely on these exact same techniques.
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