An editing analysis of City of god

City of God, a hugely praised film detailing the lives and times of the Brazilian
drug dealers living the exciting, exotic and alluring city of Rio De Janeiro. The
film follows the lives of these drug dealers from childhood and documents their
development into cold blooded gangsters. Due to the length of the film, the
editing plays a huge role in maintaining the excitement throughout. This is
evident in the opening scene which foreshadows the exciting brutality of Rio
De Janeiro.

Rapid cuts of knives being sharpened, slaughtered chickens and the

preparation of food are set to high tempo samba music, creating a very
visceral, carnal and rhythmical experience for the viewer. As Meirelles says Furious montages couple 16 and 35-millimeter film stocks with digital video,
Matrix-style angles swerve 180 degrees, and grainy, hand-held camerawork
sticks us right onto the grimy favela streets. 1

The story of Rio's nature is told by focusing on the detail and the juxtaposed
compilation of up beat music, the jovial preparation of food against the more
sinister connotations created by the fast paced, sensory based sequence
which follows a chickens escape from slaughter. Its introductory chickenchase kicks us from one jarring, breakneck sequence to another, and the pace
never wavers, even as Meirelles circle of characters grows like mushrooms
after a thundershower.1 By very quickly changing between several different
1 http://www.nitrateonline.com/2004/fcityofgod.html 2004
1

shots so quickly, the viewer feels overwhelmed and confused, but as more
shots are added a story is began to be told and the metaphorical significance
of the subjects of these shots slowly begins to become apparent. As Rezende
says in an interview with Avid blogs; the art of editing is the art of
manipulating people, thats pretty much what we do, we want them to think
that everything they are seeing is real when its not, the way we do that [is]
through connecting ideas to create a feeling.

This theme of 'connecting ideas to create a feeling' is evident in City of God,

unlike a lot of Hollywood films, where the emotion we are meant to feel is so
painfully obvious that it seems trivial and forced. Whether it be through sad
music cut with a slow motion scene of somebody crying or a macho man
ripping zombies apart with a mini gun cut against Megadeth.
Such intense preparation created a natural acting style that somehow gels with the
stylized editing and choreography in City of God. Unlike, say, the Matrix films, where
special effects create a dimension completely detached from reality, City of God uses
its fancy flourishes to immerse us into reality from different perspectives, then
grounds itself with the unpretentious performances.

Rezendes refrains from this style, instead is attempts to encompass the huge
range of emotions felt living in such an unstable existence such as the slums
of Rio.

2 Gordon Burkell, February 21st 2013 http://www.avidblogs.com/avid-toronto-editors-city-of-god/

3 Interview with Fernando Meirelles (Director)
interview by KJ Doughton, 5 March 2004

Realism was key when Director Fernando Meirelles conceived the idea,
therefore a lot of the children in the film had no experience in acting. This
meant that a lot of the lines were improvised or simply the children acting as
themselves. For Rezende this meant he a had a huge amount of scope to add
his personal input into the story as he could pick and choose the improvised
lines telling the story through his selection of edits. As he says you can
change so much from the script, there's so much you can do in the cutting
room.4

Due to Rezende's career history, music plays huge part in the his style of edit,
he worked as a DJ in Brazil whilst cutting commercials 5. City of god was his first
edit on feature length films and his musical background is prolific in his
method. Particularly, his use of high tempo samba music provides a element of
unadulterated passion throughout the movie, using the contrast between the
visual and the aural to further emphasize the world of conflicting emotions,
morals and lifestyles.
A importance part that the editing plays is effectively showing the passing of
time, both long term and short term. As in many similar epic biopic films this is
integral to the credibility of the production and the story being told, characters
must develop and change, the plot must keep a clear narrative whilst drawing
attention to poignant details. This is incredibly hard to pull off effectively, as is
the case in many films which follow a characters life story, it is it's downfall. In

4 http://www.miramax.com/subscript/city-of-god-fernando-meirelles-interview-video/
5 Cineaste Vol.XL No. 3

the city of god we are immersed effortlessly into a world of crime and passion
where 'rocket' spent his childhood.

In the scene titled 'The story of the apartment', we are offered a fly on the wall
perspective within a drug dealers house through an extended period of time,
where the angle of shot remains the same, as we are offer brief insights into
several different gang member's stints in the drug house only for each of them
to be killed or thrown out by their successor. Rezende uses cross fades
between the shots of the different occupants, as old dealers merge into new,
highlighting the fragility of life in the favela and the sense that although there
are new occupants, there are all one and the same in their mindset; money is
king.

The opening scene, as mentioned earlier, seamlessly joins up with the last
scene where the chicken, followed by a hoard of hungry gang members, runs
into the main character Rocket only to find out that he is unintentionally in the
middle of a stand off between police and the gang. The continuity of time is
effectively shown through Rezende's choice link up the start and end, hinting
at the unchanging nature of Favela life, showing that these characters have
learnt nothing from their experiences and are still metaphorically 'chasing
chickens'.

Rezende uses a Tarantino-esque technique of pausing mid action to introduce

characters but also to allow for an internal monologue which allows an

alternative perspective. This technique draws links to more classic wild west
and New York gangster films which adds a level of ironic humour through the
stark differences between their lifestyles; the opulent, grandiose and material
world of the American gangsters up against the 'dog eat dog' raw brutality of
Brazilian where no veneer of luxury is applied to the script.