Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling. Film editing is the only art that is unique to cinema, separating film-making from other art forms that preceded it (such as photography, theater, dance, writing, and directing), although there are close parallels to the editing process in other art forms like poetry or novel writing. Film editing is often referred to as the "invisible art"^[1] because when it is well-practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that he or she is not even aware of the editor's work.

On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique, and practice of assembling shots into a coherent whole. A film editor is a person who practices film editing by assembling the footage. However, the job of an editor isn’t simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut off film slates, or edit dialogue scenes. A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively "re-imagine" and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole. Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film.

With the advent of digital editing, film editors and their assistants have become responsible for many areas of filmmaking that used to be the responsibility of others. For instance, in past years, picture editors dealt only with just that—picture. Sound, music, and (more recently) visual effects editors dealt with the practicalities of other aspects of the editing process, usually under the direction of the picture editor and director. However, digital systems have increasingly put these responsibilities on the picture editor. It is common, especially on lower budget films, for the assistant editors or even the editor to cut in music, mock up visual effects, and add sound effects or other sound replacements. These temporary elements are usually replaced with more refined final elements by the sound, music, and visual effects teams hired to complete the picture.

Film editing is an art that can be used in diverse ways. It can create sensually provocative montages; become a laboratory for experimental cinema; bring out the emotional truth in an actor's performance; create a point of view on otherwise obtuse events; guide the telling and pace of a story; create an illusion of danger where there is none; give emphasis to things that would not have otherwise been noted; and even create a vital subconscious emotional connection to the viewer, among many other possibilities.

Early experiments[link]

Edwin S. Porter is generally thought to be the American filmmaker who first put film editing to use. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. Early films by Thomas Edison (whose company invented a motion camera and projector) and others were short films that were one long, static, locked-down shot. Motion in the shot was all that was necessary to amuse an audience, so the first films simply showed activity such as traffic moving on a city street. There was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. When Edison's motion picture studio wanted to increase the length of the short films, Edison came to Porter. Porter made the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was among the first that had a plot, action, and even a closeup of a hand pulling a fire alarm.

Other films were to follow. Porter's ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery is still shown in film schools today as an example of early editing form. It was produced in 1903 and was one of the first examples of dynamic, action editing - piecing together scenes shot at different times and places and for emotional impact unavailable in a static long shot. Being one of the first film hyphenates (film director, editor and engineer) Porter also invented and utilized some of the very first (albeit primitive) special effects such as double exposures, miniatures and split-screens.

Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language: that the screen image does not need to show a complete person from head to toe and that splicing together two shots creates in the viewer's mind a contextual relationship. These were the key discoveries that made all non-live or non live-on-videotape narrative motion pictures and television possible—that shots (in this case whole scenes since each shot is a complete scene) can be photographed at widely different locations over a period of time (hours, days or even months) and combined into a narrative whole.^[2] That is, The Great Train Robbery contains scenes shot on sets of a telegraph station, a railroad car interior, and a dance hall, with outdoor scenes at a railroad water tower, on the train itself, at a point along the track, and in the woods. But when the robbers leave the telegraph station interior (set) and emerge at the water tower, the audience believes they went immediately from one to the other. Or that when they climb on the train in one shot and enter the baggage car (a set) in the next, the audience believes they are on the same train.

Sometime around 1918, Russian director Lev Kuleshov did an experiment that proves this point. (See Kuleshov Experiment) He took an old film clip of a head shot of a noted Russian actor and intercut the shot with a shot of a bowl of soup, then with a child playing with a teddy bear, then with a shot an elderly woman in a casket. When he showed the film to people they praised the actor's acting—the hunger in his face when he saw the soup, the delight in the child, and the grief when looking at the dead woman.^[3] Of course, the shot of the actor was years before the other shots and he never "saw" any of the items. The simple act of juxtaposing the shots in a sequence made the relationship.

History of film editing technology[link]

The original editing machine: an upright Moviola.

Steenbeck film editing machine rollers

Before the widespread use of non-linear editing systems, the initial editing of all films was done with a positive copy of the film negative called a film workprint (cutting copy in UK) by physically cutting and pasting together pieces of film, using a splicer and threading the film on a machine with a viewer such as a Moviola, or "flatbed" machine such as a K.-E.-M. or Steenbeck. Today, most films are edited digitally (on systems such as Avid or Final Cut Pro) and bypass the film positive workprint altogether. In the past, the use of a film positive (not the original negative) allowed the editor to do as much experimenting as he or she wished, without the risk of damaging the original.

When the film workprint had been cut to a satisfactory state, it was then used to make an edit decision list (EDL). The negative cutter referred to this list while processing the negative, splitting the shots into rolls, which were then contact printed to produce the final film print or answer print. Today, production companies have the option of bypassing negative cutting altogether. With the advent of digital intermediate ("DI"), the physical negative does not necessarily need to be physically cut and hot spliced together; rather the negative is optically scanned into computer(s) and a cut list is conformed by a DI editor.

Post-production[link]

Editor's cut[link]

There are several editing stages and the editor's cut is the first. An editor's cut (sometimes referred to as the "Assembly edit" or "Rough cut") is normally the first pass of what the final film will be when it reaches picture lock. The film editor usually starts working while principal photography starts. Likely, prior to cutting, the editor and director will have seen and/or discussed "dailies" (raw footage shot each day) as shooting progresses. Screening dailies gives the editor a ballpark idea of the director's intentions. Because it is the first pass, the editor's cut might be longer than the final film. The editor continues to refine the cut while shooting continues, and often the entire editing process goes on for many months and sometimes more than a year, depending on the film.

Director's cut[link]

When shooting is finished, the director can then turn his full attention to collaborating with the editor and further refining the cut of the film. This is the time that is set aside where the film editor's first cut is molded to fit the director's vision. In the United States, under DGA rules, directors receive a minimum of ten weeks after completion of principal photography to prepare their first cut.

While collaborating on what is referred to as the "director's cut", the director and the editor go over the entire movie with a fine-tooth comb; scenes and shots are re-ordered, removed, shortened and otherwise tweaked. Often it is discovered that there are plot holes, missing shots or even missing segments which might require that new scenes be filmed. Because of this time working closely and collaborating – a period that is normally far longer, and far more intimately involved, than the entire production and filming – most directors and editors form a unique artistic bond.

Final cut[link]

Often after the director has had his chance to oversee a cut, the subsequent cuts are supervised by one or more producers, who represent the production company and/or movie studio. There have been several conflicts in the past between the director and the studio, sometimes leading to the use of the "Alan Smithee" credit signifying when a director no longer wants to be associated with the final release.

Continuity[link]

Continuity is a film term that suggests that a series of shots should be physically continuous, as if the camera simply changed angles in the course of a single event. For instance, if in one shot a beer glass is empty, it should not be full in the next shot. Live coverage of a sporting event would be an example of footage that is very continuous. Since the live operators are cutting from one live feed to another, the physical action of the shots matches very closely. Many people regard inconsistencies in continuity as mistakes, and often the editor is blamed. In film, however, continuity is very nearly last on a film editor's list of important things to maintain.

Technically, continuity is the responsibility of the script supervisor and film director, who are together responsible for preserving continuity and preventing errors from take to take and shot to shot. The script supervisor, who sits next to the director during shooting, keeps the physical continuity of the edit in mind as shots are set up. He is the editor's watchman. If shots are taken out of sequence, as is often the case, he will be alert to make sure that that beer glass is in the appropriate state. The editor utilizes the script supervisor's notes during post-production to log and keep track of the vast amounts of footage and takes that a director might shoot.

Methods of montage[link]

In motion picture terminology, a montage (from the French for "putting together" or "assembly") is a film editing technique.

There are at least three senses of the term:

1. In French film practice, "montage" has its literal French meaning (assembly, installation) and simply identifies editing.
2. In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s, "montage" was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.
3. In classical Hollywood cinema, a "montage sequence" is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion.

Soviet montage[link]

Lev Kuleshov was among the very first to theorize about the relatively young medium of the cinema in the 1920s. For him, the unique essence of the cinema — that which could be duplicated in no other medium — is editing. He argues that editing a film is like constructing a building. Brick-by-brick (shot-by-shot) the building (film) is erected. His often-cited Kuleshov Experiment established that montage can lead the viewer to reach certain conclusions about the action in a film. Montage works because viewers infer meaning based on context.

Although, strictly speaking, U.S. film director D.W. Griffith was not part of the montage school, he was one of the early proponents of the power of editing — mastering cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations, and codifying film grammar in other ways as well. Griffith's work in the teens was highly regarded by Kuleshov and other Soviet filmmakers and greatly influenced their understanding of editing.

Sergei Eisenstein was briefly a student of Kuleshov's, but the two parted ways because they had different ideas of montage. Eisenstein regarded montage as a dialectical means of creating meaning. By contrasting unrelated shots he tried to provoke associations in the viewer, which were induced by shocks.

Montage sequence[link]

A montage sequence consists of a series of short shots that are edited into a sequence to condense narrative. It is usually used to advance the story as a whole (often to suggest the passage of time), rather than to create symbolic meaning. In many cases, a song plays in the background to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed. One famous example of montage was seen in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicting the start of man's first development from apes to humans.

Continuity editing[link]

What became known as the popular 'classical Hollywood' style of editing was developed by early European and American directors, in particular D.W. Griffith in his films such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. The classical style ensures temporal and spatial continuity as a way of advancing narrative, using such techniques as the 180 degree rule, Establishing shot, and Shot reverse shot.

Alternatives to continuity editing (non-traditional or experimental)[link]

Early Russian filmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov further explored and theorized about editing and its ideological nature. Sergei Eisenstein developed a system of editing that was unconcerned with the rules of the continuity system of classical Hollywood that he called Intellectual montage.

Alternatives to traditional editing were also the folly of early surrealist and dada filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel (director of the 1929 Un Chien Andalou) and René Clair (director of 1924's Entr'acte which starred famous dada artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray). Both filmmakers, Clair and Buñuel, experimented with editing techniques long before what is referred to as "MTV style" editing.

The French New Wave filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut and their American counterparts such as Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes also pushed the limits of editing technique during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. French New Wave films and the non-narrative films of the 1960s used a carefree editing style and did not conform to the traditional editing etiquette of Hollywood films. Like its dada and surrealist predecessors, French New Wave editing often drew attention to itself by its lack of continuity, its demystifying self-reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they were watching a film), and by the overt use of jump cuts or the insertion of material not often related to any narrative.

Editing techniques[link]

Vsevolod Pudovkin noted that the editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of film making originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording), but editing is the one process that is unique to film.^{[citation needed]} Kubrick was quoted as saying: "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit."^[4]

• Edward Dmytryk stipulates seven "rules of cutting" that a good editor should follow:^[5]
  • "Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason."
  • "Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short."^[6]
  • "Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'."^[7]
  • "Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'."^[8]
  • "Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action."^[9]
  • "Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'."^[10]
  • "Rule 7: Substance first—then form."^[11]
• According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first, with notional percentage values.):
  • Emotion (51%) — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
  • Story (23%) — Does the cut advance the story?
  • Rhythm (10%) — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'" (Murch, 18)?
  • Eye-trace (7%) — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame" (Murch, 18)?
  • Two-dimensional plane of the screen (5%) — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
  • Three-dimensional space of action (4%) — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?

Murch assigned the notional percentage values to each of the criteria. "Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom."-Murch

References[link]

Bibliography

Notes

Further reading

See also[link]

• 180 degree rule
• 30 degree rule
• A Roll (Footage)
• B Roll
• Cinematic techniques
• Clapperboard
• Compositing (Keying)
• Cut (transition), for the director's call Cut!
  • Axial cut
  • Cross-cutting
  • Fast cutting
  • Jump cut
  • Long take
  • Match cut
  • Slow cutting
• Cutaway
• Edit decision list (EDL)
• Film transition
  • Dissolve
  • L cut (split edit)
  • Wipe
• Filmmaking
• Kuleshov Effect
• List of film-related topics
• Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG)
• Motion picture terminology
• Moviola
• Re-edited film
• Scene
• Sequence
• Shot
  • Establishing shot
  • Insert
  • Master shot
  • Point of view shot
  • Shot reverse shot
• Video editing

Wikibooks[link]

• Mewa Film User's Guide
• Movie Making Manual

Wikiversity[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Film editing

• Portal:Filmmaking

External links[link]

Wikibooks has more on the topic of Film editing

=

• The Art of the Guillotine

Jennifer Connelly
at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	Jennifer Lynn Connelly (1970-12-12) December 12, 1970 (age 41) Round Top, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Paul Bettany (m. 2003) «start: (2003)»"Marriage: Paul Bettany to Jennifer Connelly" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Jennifer_Connelly)
Partner	David Dugan (1990s)
Children	3

Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America. Connelly continued modeling and acting, starring in films such as the 1986 Labyrinth and the 1991 Career Opportunities. She gained critical acclaim for her work in the 1998 science fiction film Dark City and for her portrayal of Marion Silver in the 2000 drama Requiem for a Dream.

In 2002, Connelly won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award for her supporting role as Alicia Nash in Ron Howard's 2001 biopic A Beautiful Mind. Her later credits include the 2003 Marvel superhero film Hulk, the 2005 thriller Dark Water, the 2006 drama Blood Diamond, the 2008 science fiction remake The Day the Earth Stood Still, the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You and the 2009 biographical drama Creation.

Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education in 2005. She has been the face of Balenciaga fashion advertisements, as well as for Revlon cosmetics. In 2012 she was named the first global face of the Shiseido Company. Magazines including Time, Vanity Fair and Esquire, as well as the Los Angeles Times newspaper have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.

Life and career[link]

Early life[link]

Connelly was born in Round Top, New York, in the Catskill Mountains. She is the daughter of Ilene, an antiques dealer, and Gerard Connelly, a clothing manufacturer.^[1][2] Her father was a Roman Catholic with Irish and Norwegian ancestors, while her mother was a yeshiva-educated Jew, of Polish and Russian background.^[3] She was raised in Brooklyn Heights, near the Brooklyn Bridge, where she attended Saint Ann's, a private school focused on the arts.^[4] Her father suffered from asthma, so the family moved to Woodstock, New York in 1976 to escape the city smog.^[1] Four years later, the family returned to Brooklyn Heights, and Connelly resumed her education at the same school.^[5]

Child modeling and early movie appearances[link]

When Connelly was ten years old, an advertising executive friend of her father suggested she audition as a model.^[6] Her parents sent a picture of her to the Ford Modeling Agency, which shortly after added her to its roster. Connelly began modeling for print advertisements, before moving on to television commercials.^[2][7] In an interview with The Guardian, she revealed that, after having done a bit of modeling, she had no aspirations to become an actor.^[8] She appeared on the cover of several issues of Seventeen in 1986 and 1988.^{[9][10][11][12]} In December 1986, she recorded two pop songs for the Japanese market: "Monologue of Love" and "Message of Love".^[13] Connelly sang in phonetic Japanese as she did not speak the language.^[7]

Her mother started taking her to acting auditions; at one of these, she was selected for a supporting role as the young aspiring dancer and actress Deborah Gelly in Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America.^[7][4] The role required the performance of a ballet routine. During the audition, Connelly, who had no ballet training, attempted to imitate a ballerina. Her performance, and the similarity of her nose with Elizabeth McGovern's, who played the character as an adult, convinced the director to cast her.^[14][15] Connelly described the movie as "an incredibly idyllic introduction to movie-making".^[16] While Once Upon a Time in America was being filmed, Connelly made her first television appearance, in the episode "Stranger in Town" of the British series Tales of the Unexpected.^[17]

Her first leading role was in Italian giallo-director Dario Argento's 1985 film Phenomena as a young girl who uses her psychic powers to communicate with insects to pursue a serial killer who is butchering students of the Swiss school where she has just enrolled,^[18] followed by the lead in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven, released the same year.^[19]

Of her early career, she said, "Before I knew it, (acting) became what I did. It was a very peculiar way to grow up, combined with my personality".^[8] She described herself as feeling like "a kind of walking puppet" through her adolescence, without having time alone to deal with the attention her career was generating.^[8]

1980s–1990s[link]

Connelly gained public recognition with Jim Henson's 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth, in which she played Sarah, a teenager on a quest to rescue her brother Toby from the world of goblins. Although a disappointment at the box office,^[20] the film later became a cult classic.^[21] The New York Times, while noting the importance of her part, panned her portrayal: "Jennifer Connelly as Sarah is unfortunately disappointing. ... She looks right, but she lacks conviction and seems to be reading rehearsed lines that are recited without belief in her goal or real need to accomplish it."^[22] Two years later, she starred as a ballet student in the Italian film Étoile,^[23] and portrayed college student Gabby in Michael Hoffman's Some Girls.^[24]

Balancing work and school, she studied English for two years at Yale University in 1988 and 1989, before transferring to Stanford University in 1990 to study drama.^[25] There, she trained with Roy London, Howard Fine and Harold Guskin.^[26] Encouraged by her parents to continue with her film career,^[2] Connelly left college and returned to the movie making industry the same year.^[25]

In 1990, Dennis Hopper directed The Hot Spot, in which Connelly was cast as Gloria Harper, a woman being blackmailed.^[27] The movie was a box office failure.^[6] Stephen Schaefer wrote for USA Today, "Anyone looking for proof that little girls do grow up fast in the movies should take a gander at curvaceous Jennifer Connelly [...] in The Hot Spot. Not yet 20, Connelly has neatly managed the transition from child actress to ingenue". During an interview with Shaeffer, Connelly commented on her first nude scene: "The nudity was hard for me and something I thought about...but it's not in a sleazy context".^[6] The same year, director Garry Marshall considered her for the role of Vivian Ward in Pretty Woman, but ultimately felt that she was too young for the part.^[28]

Connelly's next movie was the 1991 romantic comedy Career Opportunities, starring alongside Frank Whaley.^[29] The director was criticized for exploiting Connelly's image. People deplored an advertisement that showed Whaley watching Connelly ride a mechanical horse; the caption read "He's about to have the ride of his life".^[7] In an interview with Rolling Stone Connelly stated, "I don't know about anyone else, but that wasn't something I felt all that comfortable about. That sure as hell wasn't a subject that I was trying to learn about from my professor".^[16]

The big-budget Disney film The Rocketeer followed later that year, but failed to ignite her career.^[30] She played Jenny Blake, the aspiring actress girlfriend of stunt pilot Cliff, "the Rocketeer".^[31] New York characterized the movie as "pallid". The review said of her performance, "Connelly is properly cast; she has the moist, full-to-the-cheek bones sensuality of the Hollywood starlets of that period, but she's a little straight".^[32]

She appeared alongside Jason Priestley in the Roy Orbison music video for "I Drove All Night" the following year.^[33] In 1995, director John Singleton cast Connelly as a lesbian college student in Higher Learning.^[34] She next appeared in the 1996 independent film Far Harbor as Elie, a prominent person in a Hollywood studio who writes a screenplay based on her own traumas.^[35]

The neo-noir crime thriller Mulholland Falls centered on the murder of Allison Pond (Connelly), mistress of General Timms (John Malkovich), and the investigation by a group of detectives led by Maxwell Hoover (Nick Nolte), followed the same year.^[36] New York magazine wrote about a clip that reveals to the investigators the link between Timms and Pond: "This footage is actually dirty. That is, it makes us feel like voyeurs when looking at it, but it's so juicily erotic that we can hardly look away".^[37] About nudity in the movie, Connelly said: "It kind of shocked everyone who knows me that I wound up doing this movie, because I had always been so careful about nudity, it was very much a part of this character and I couldn't be coy or guarded or self-conscious--otherwise it wouldn't work. It was sort of a challenge I wanted to take on, I guess".^[6]

She subsequently began to appear in small budget films which did well with critics, such as 1997's drama Inventing the Abbotts, set in the late 1950s, in which she played the part of Eleanor, one of three daughters of the town millionaire, Lloyd Abbott.^[38] About her performance, director Ron Howard said, "She not only was beautiful and seductive but gave some difficult psychological moments in the film a lot of depth and complexity. She had an extraordinary combination of talent and beauty, and I guess I stored that information in the back of my brain".^[6]

Her next appearance was in the critically acclaimed 1998 science fiction film Dark City, where she played alongside Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Ian Richardson and Kiefer Sutherland.^[39] Connelly portrayed femme fatale Emma, a torch singer whose husband, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), suffers from amnesia. As Murdoch is regaining his memories, Emma is kidnapped by Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien) and The Strangers, who alter her memories and assign her a new identity.^[40][41] Author Sean McMullen wrote, "Jennifer Connelly is visually splendid as the 1940s femme fatale. (Emma)"^[42]

Early 2000s[link]

In 2000, Ed Harris directed Connelly in the biopic Pollock in which she played Ruth Kligman, Jackson Pollock's mistress.^[43] The same year she appeared in what critics considered her breakthrough film, Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky and based on the novel of the same name.^[44] Connelly played Marion Silver, Harry's (Jared Leto) girlfriend in a movie that also starred Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn.^[45][46] Her character is a middle-class girl from Manhattan Beach who pursues the dream of establishing a dress shop, but whose addiction ultimately leads to a degrading life of prostitution.^[47] Connelly prepared for the role by renting a separate apartment in the building where she lived. During her time in the apartment, Connelly isolated herself, painted, listened to music that she considered that her character would, designed clothes, and used the time to reflect about addictions and their origin. Connelly also talked to addicts and attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings with one of her friends, who was being treated.^[6] Critics acclaimed the individual performances due to the courage needed to demonstrate their characters' constant physical and mental degradation.^[48] Connelly stated that she was interested in the script for its depiction of the addictions and their impact on the lives and affections of the characters' relatives.^[49] Critic Elvis Mitchell wrote in The New York Times, "Ms. Connelly, too, whittled herself down to a new weight class, and it's her performance that gives the movie weight, since her fall is the most precipitous. By the end, when she curls into a happy fetal ball with a furtive smile on her face, she has come to love her debasement.... Her dank realization is more disturbing than anything in the novel, and Ms. Connelly has never before done anything to prepare us for how good she is here."^[48]

During 2000, she appeared as Catherine Miller in the FOX drama series The $treet, about a brokerage house in New York City.^[50] Also in 2000, she appeared in Waking the Dead, a film based on the 1986 novel of the same name, playing Sarah Williams, an activist killed by a car bomb in Minneapolis while driving Chilean refugees.^[51] Initially, director Keith Gordon was reluctant to cast Connelly. Gordon, who did not consider Connelly a serious actress, was convinced to cast her after her agent, Risa Shapiro, persuaded him to watch Far Harbor. Gordon later stated: "There was a subtlety and depth even to her gaze that captured more of the relationship than I ever could have hoped for."^[15] About her role, Connelly said, "Waking the Dead was the first film I worked on where whatever I did felt like my own thing. I was really trying to make something of the part and threw myself into it, so that meant a lot to me".^[52] The New York Times described her performance, "As Sarah, Ms. Connelly captures a burning ethereality and willfulness that are very much of the period. And she and Mr. Crudup connect powerfully in love scenes that convey the fierce tenderness of a relationship whose passion carries a tinge of religious fervor."^[53]

The script of Ron Howard's 2001 film A Beautiful Mind, which was loosely based on the 1998 biography of John Nash by the journalist Sylvia Nasar, sparked her interest in the project.^[54] Connelly was invited to an audition after her agent, Risa Shapiro, sent the producers a tape with a clip of the then-unreleased Requiem for a Dream. She was cast by the film's producer, Brian Gazer, as Alicia Nash, the long-suffering wife of the brilliant, schizophrenic mathematician played by Russell Crowe.^[55] Howard and the producers eventually chose them after being particularly impressed by their screen chemistry.^[56] The film was a critical and commercial success, grossing more than US$313 million worldwide.^[57] Unlike her co-star, she had the opportunity to meet the real Alicia Nash before starting shooting in order to learn more about her life.^[8] For her portrayal, Connelly earned a Golden Globe,^[58] an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,^[59] and a BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.^[60] Time magazine critic Richard Schickel called her performance "luminous" and the actress intelligent and passionate.^[61] Roger Ebert wrote, "...Jennifer Connelly is luminous as Alicia. Although the showier performance belongs to Crowe, it is Connelly's complex work, depicting a woman torn by love for and fear of the same man, that elevates the film to a higher level".^[62]

Connelly stated afterwards, "[A Beautiful Mind] is the film I'm really proud of and really love."^[34] A.O. Scott of The New York Times said, "There is, for one thing, Ms. Connelly, keen and spirited in the underwritten role of a woman who starts out as a math groupie and soon finds herself the helpmeet of a disturbed, difficult man."^[63] In relation to previous roles, she expressed: "There was a period where I felt like I wasn't quite being considered for the projects that I wanted to work on because maybe people were thinking. 'I'm not going to cast the girl who was in that movie for this adult project.' I've felt for a long time that this is what I want to do so I'm happy at this point to just take my time and work on projects that I feel really strongly about and the rest of the time just live my life."^[6]

According to Connelly, she was interested in Ang Lee's Hulk (2003) because of his philosophical perspective on the Marvel Comics superhero.^[64] She played Betty Ross, a scientist and the former girlfriend of the main character, Bruce Banner. The film was a moderate success.^[65] It was followed the same year by The House of Sand and Fog, a drama based on the novel by Andre Dubus III. She portrayed Kathy Nicolo, an abandoned wife whose inherited house is sold at auction to the Iranian emigre and former colonel Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley).^[66] Connelly was interested in playing the role after she read the script, she later declared: "(the story is) moving and beautifully written. I liked the fact that there is no good guy and bad guy. I found it really compelling that both sides do things that are morally questionable, because life is often like that." Producer Michael London stated about Connelly's portrayal: "I think she understood Kathy and knew in her bones that she could take this character and give her the kind of dimension that she had. I don't think there is another actress who could have played Kathy with such power and grace."^[67] The film received worldwide critical acclaim, with a BBC reporter commenting, "[Connelly] convinces totally as a selfish, desperate and lonely woman who confesses to her brother, 'I just feel lost'".^[68]

2005–present[link]

Connelly in Central Park, New York City, June 2005

After a two-year absence from the film scene, Connelly returned in the 2005 horror/psychological thriller Dark Water, which was based on a 2002 Japanese film of the same name.^[7] She played Dahlia, a frightened young woman traumatized by her past, who moves with her daughter to an apartment in New York City where paranormal happenings take place.^[69] In his review, critic Roger Ebert wrote, "I cared about the Jennifer Connelly character; she is not a horror heroine but an actress playing a mother faced with horror. There is a difference, and because of that difference, Dark Water works".^[70]

She played Kathy Adamson in an adaptation of the novel Little Children alongside Kate Winslet, a movie which focuses on the relationship between Sarah Pierce (played by Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson).^[71] Connelly co-starred in Blood Diamond opposite Leonardo DiCaprio where she portrayed journalist Maddy Bowen, who is working on exposing the real story behind blood diamonds.^[72] New York praised her performance: "Connelly is such a smart, sane, unhistrionic actress that she almost disguises the fact that her character is a wheeze."^[73] Both Little Children and Blood Diamond were nominated for multiple Academy Awards.^[74]

Her next appearance was as Grace in the drama Reservation Road with Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo, a film released in 2007.^[75] After her son dies in a hit-and-run, Grace gradually tries to overcome her grief, while her husband Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes obsessed with discovering who killed him.^[76] By her own account, the character she played in the movie proved tougher than any of her previous roles.^[77] USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna commented, "The strong performances of Jennifer Connelly and Mark Ruffalo ... raise the film above overheated melodrama".^[78]

Parisian fashion house Balenciaga and Revlon cosmetics signed Connelly as the face of their 2008 campaigns.^[79][80] Connelly portrayed astrobiologist Helen Benson alongside Keanu Reeves in the 2008 remake of the 1951 science fiction film The Day The Earth Stood Still. Unlike the original movie, in which Benson was a secretary and her relationship with Klaatu was the focus, the remake featured Benson in a troubled relationship with her stepson, portrayed by Jaden Smith.^[81] This was followed by a role in the 2009 romantic comedy He's Just Not That Into You, which also featured Jennifer Aniston and Ginnifer Goodwin.^[82] The film was based on the self-help book of the same name.^[83] Variety praised her portrayal: "Despite its layer of darkness Connelly gives a really rich performance as a woman whose principles back her into a corner".^[84]

In 2009, she appeared in the costume drama biopic Creation, in which she played Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin, opposite her real-life husband Paul Bettany.^[85] Set during the writing of On the Origin of Species, the movie depicts Darwin's struggle with the subject of the book as well as with his wife, who opposed his theories, and their mourning for their daughter Annie.^[86] The San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Darwin's wife, a religious woman who disapproved of her husband's theories, is played by Jennifer Connelly, Bettany's real-life wife, in the kind of casting that doesn't always work, but it does here. We believe in the Darwins' history together, their familiarity and affection. Connelly's English accent is also as good as Renée Zellweger's and Gwyneth Paltrow's. She doesn't get just the sounds right, but also the music and the attitude".^[87] She then voiced the character named "7", an adventurous warrior in the animated film 9.^[88]

Dustin Lance Black's Virginia premiered on September 15, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Festival. Two years later, it was announced that the movie would receive a limited theatrical release in May 2012.^[89][90] Connelly portrayed the title role of Virginia, a mentally unstable woman who has a 20-year affair with the local sheriff, whose daughter then starts a relationship with Virginia's son.^[91] Connelly prepared for the role by watching documentaries on schizophrenia. She also spent time at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and the New York University's Cancer Center to understand the afflections and obstacles of her character. While she was preparing for the role, director Dustin Lance Black requested Connelly's advice to design the set of Virginia's house, as well as the selection of the apparel to create the character's style.^[92] She described the film as a "very different independent film - it's very personal".^[93] According to Cinema Blend, "Virginia is propped up by a strong central performance, with Connelly doing some of her best work in years".^[94]

In 2011, Connelly starred in Ron Howard's comedy The Dilemma, opposite Vince Vaughn. Although the Austin Chronicle's review noted, "Vaughn nails it, and his nicely nuanced everyguy performance is aided by the always-excellent Connelly,"^[95] the movie opened to generally negative reviews.^[96] Variety remarked, "Connelly, though a shade looser and more spontaneous than usual, seems stuck at an emotional remove from the action".^[97] Her next project, George Ratliff's Salvation Boulevard, premiered during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.^[98] In the film Connelly played Gwen, the wife of Carl Vanderveer (Greg Kinnear); the couple are members of the Church of the Third Millennium, led by pastor Dan (Pierce Brosnan).^[99] During the same year, Connelly recorded an audiobook version of Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, which integrates the A-List Collection of Audible.com, released in March 2012.^[100][101]

In January 2012, it was reported that Connelly was due to star alongside Greg Kinnear in the family drama Writers, the directorial debut of Josh Boone. Connelly is set to play the ex-wife of Kinnear's character, with whom he is obsessed.^[102][103] In February 2012 Connelly was announced as the first global brand ambassador for Shiseido, having previously worked with the company in the 1980s in a series of advertisements for the Japanese market.^[104] Later the same year, she was confirmed for the role of Naameh in Darren Aronofsky's developing project Noah.^[105]

Personal life[link]

Connelly and her husband, Paul Bettany, at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival

Her first son, Kai, was born in 1997, from her relationship with photographer David Dugan.^[106]

On January 1, 2003, she married actor Paul Bettany, whom she had met while working on A Beautiful Mind, in a private family ceremony in Scotland.^[107] The couple's first child, Stellan, named after their friend, actor Stellan Skarsgård,^[108] was born the same year. She gave birth to her third child, Agnes Lark, on May 31, 2011, in New York City.^[109]

On November 14, 2005, Connelly was named Amnesty International Ambassador for Human Rights Education.^[110] She appeared in an advertisement highlighting the global need for clean water, and sought donations for African, Indian, and Central American drilling projects for the non-profit organization charity: water .^[111] On May 2, 2009, she participated in Revlon's annual 5k Run/Walk for Women.^[112] In May 2012, Connelly was named ambassador for Save the Children fund, to advocate for the children's rights in the United States and worldwide.^[113]

Publications such as Vanity Fair, Esquire, and the Los Angeles Times have ranked her among the most beautiful women in the world.^{[114][115][116]}

Filmography[link]

References[link]