How is editing used to shape the narrative of The Act of Killing?

 ‘Editing is a documentary filmmaker’s most powerful tool in shaping the film’s narrative.’ Discuss how valid this view is in relation to examples from the documentary film you have studied. [35]

- The Act of Killing

When documentary emerged as the first film form in the 1890s, short films called 'actualities', filmmakers sought to document reality, or a 'reality', using the powers of editing footage, arranging it in such a way to construct a narrative in order to gratify an audience; expository onscreen intertitles were used in the absence of diegetic sound to convey such information. Thus the issue arises that what is shown becomes filtered - edited - through the filmmaker's lens in the creation of a narrative, making people characters, and events somewhat fictitious in dramatising situations or changing the perception of how they occurred in order to gain an emotional reaction from the spectator and thus engaging with the film. Cinema Verite of the 1950s, pioneered by D.A Pennebaker, attempted to utilise the observational, reflexive, and interactive modes of documentary (in applying Bill Nichols' theory), making the documentary process exposed to the spectator in order to give an impression of authenticity of documented events and people; this does not rule out the necessity of editing, and despite the 'truthful' reality projected, inevitably a 'narrative' is still constructed in the arrangement and cutting of shots, perhaps producing a 'Kuleshov effect' in some instances. This is the primary approach of Joshua Oppenheimer's 2012 documentary, 'The Act of Killing', and I will be arguing in favour of the given quote. 

Significantly, Oppenheimer constructs a narrative redemption arc for the focused protagonist Anwar through the habitual cutting away from him during the film's exposition when he has said something morally shocking or embarrassing to the desired Western audience. The most overt example is when Anwar, after a banal demonstration of his killing method when he worked as a 'gangster' hired to kill communists in the 1960s, claims how he was 'killing happily', this abruptly cutting to an observational shot of him singing and drinking alcohol in a bar. Such abrupt editing serves to shape the spectator's visceral repulsion of his character, the mention of 'bad dreams' anchored during this scene the introduction of his redemption arc, despite this being evidently chronologically altered through Anwar's change of clothes and hair colour. This construction perhaps brings to light the Oriental perspective Oppenheimer inhabits, such motivated editing crafting a spectatorial sense of moral superiority as a preferred reading in relation to Stuart Hall's reception theory, of the film's characters - the fact that these people are credited as such proposes that Oppenheimer views their existence as a means for storytelling and conveying a narrative. The coiner of the term Orientalism, Edward Said, claimed that by minimising the cultural diversity of Eastern peoples, a 'contrasting image' is formed of which the West seems culturally superior, and thus the peoples of the 'Orient' are often depicted as barbaric, irrational, or culturally degenerate.  Thus the editing is powerful in shaping this perspective of Indonesia and its corrupt inhabitants, ultimately through Oppenheimer's lens despite how much he tries to convince us otherwise through the observational, interactive, and reflexive modes: frequently long-takes are utilised such as within the final scene as Anwar retches without any intended result, shot in a handheld 'realism', the final shot being an LS of Anwar walking out of the building he used to kill in as a cyclical narrative idea. The long duration of these shots creates the impression that what is being shown is meaningful,  profound, and real, the lack of cutting emphasising the weight of Anwar's positioned 'guilt'. This occuring as the final scene functions as a conclusion to his narrative arc and theoretically the audience has been recompensed for their time and interest despite his costume being the same as when he claimed he was 'killing happily': after all, one cannot tell whether this shot was staged and directed by Oppenheimer, but the significance of editing this scene as the final parting footage for the spectator is fundamental in shaping and concluding the film's narrative. 

The film becomes manipulative in shaping the film's narrative through the use of editing, Oppenheimer often anchoring scenes with a preceding scene that relates or is positioned to relate to it. For example, as a recurring scene, Oppenheimer interviews Anwar from a car, his eyes shot from the rearview window. Anwar explains how he killed communists if they didn't pay money, this cutting to a scene of Herman and paramilitary leader Safit demanding and stealing money from ethnic Chinese, their corrupt bullying shot in such a close and aligned perspective so as to position the spectator as a passive force alongside such corruption. Oppenheimer shoots this through conventional continuity editing, with shot-reverse-shots between Safit and the Chinese traders, the interactions undisruptive from the use of sound bridges seamlessly creating an image of reality. Cinematography is also important in this positioning: the camera tracks the two through the crowded space, with parallel CU on each group and a zoom towards a Chinese trader's face, Oppenheimer coding his expression as one of uncomfortable compliance. The spectator remains 'sided' with the corrupt bullies despite being morally shocked by the behaviour. The editing of Anwar's claim and this scene blurs and intertwines past and present, creating a narrative of a corrupt Indonesia through the reframing of past events within a current political, historical, and social context. Above all the narrative, as a documentary, is edited to feel real and mimic reality; a combination of camerawork and editing to create an 'impression of reality' in relation to Richard Allen's theory. In a reconstructed scene of past interrogations, a man performing as a communist in the interrogation seat cries, 'have mercy on me!': this is shot in a long take focusing the spectator on his pain. Oppenheimer tries to attach this pain to Anwar by cutting to a matched CU of him witnessing as a Kuleshov effect, crafting the narrative that Anwar relates to this as the cries of communists he murdered. The use of the diegetic J-cut furthers this notion, the man's cries overlaying Anwar's expression, and for a Western (or foreign) audience, the removal of subtitles during this sequence further emphasises the edited relationship formed between Anwar and the horrors of the past. This manipulative idea is used again in the film's first shot: the onscreen Voltaire quote, 'It is forbidden to kill, therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets, crafts an anchoring message which the documentary is to be viewed under, an un-subtle critique on the military and its role as a nationalistic, propaganda tool to enforce ideologies. Thus editing is made powerful tool for shaping the film's narrative. The editing also works in favour of Oppenheimer's view in pointing out the ironies of the state, presented as both comically satirical and shocking: Herman, positioned as the narrative 'side-kick' to Anwar of lesser intellect, in a sound bridge, claims how everyone attending Governmental rallies are paid to attend, this edited as a voiceover to a montage of Pancasila youth, this furthering the satirical narrative of Indonesia. 

The arrangement of shots and scenes are edited to create tonal differences and contrasting spectator responses between the East (the Indonesian perpetrators) and the West (Oppenheimer), ultimately viewing Oppenheimer's work as the ultimate documentation of the reality that the Indonesian men refuse to 'admit'. This is created in the film's opening as traditionally dressed women emerge dancing from a large fish and in the foreground of a waterfall while a director incessantly shouts, 'This isn't fake'. Thus Oppenheimer constructs these men to be liars through this juxtaposition of sound 'realism' to the fantastical and oneiric imagery, the saturated colouration, soft focus, and hyperbolic sets, and such imagery is made ironic. Succeeding this, Oppenheimer presents the gritty 'realism' of Indoensia's 'third-world poverty' with capitalist advertisements, unmotivated lighting, and diegetic street sounds, the expository and reflexive onscreen text detailing the contexts and aims of the documentary, how the perpetrators 'proudly' guided the filmmakers through their history, the fading and embedded text significant in encoding how the past cannot be erased. Like the Voltaire quote, this serves to indicate to the spectator the truthful account which the documentary is to be viewed, under Oppenheimer's 'realistic' guidance. This aesthetic realism in juxtaposition to the Indonesian subjects who are oneiric, surreal, and fantastical, shows that their view, clearly hinted through the arranged editing, is far removed from reality and that they are happy in remaining in a biased and corrupt worldview of their history; this is manifested through an Indonesian journalist who claimed to have known nothing about the massacres dispute them occurring, to use the expression, under his nose. The character, Adi, is important in this sense in the narrative to act as a truth-teller of higher intellect whose bluntness in admitting their 'cruel' past behaviour acts as a 'refreshing' take for the spectator, edited to appear within the midpoint of the film as a development for Anwar's redemption. As the two discuss in a Proppian-style 'mentor' versus 'hero' dynamic, Oppenheimer constructs a narrative relationship between the two through shot-reverse-shots in OTS, which motivated cuts such as the fut to Abwar's fiddling hands on, 'thats what gives me nightmares'. The camera lingers on Adi as he listens, his expression positioned as authoritative, intelligent, and wise as Anwar confesses his 'bad dreams'. 

Thus, as defined by John Grierson, Oppenheimer presents a 'creative treatment of actuality' to engage the spectator with the events and characters, such examples 'realism' developed from the 'direct cinema' approach to project a truthful account of reality, such editing techniques exampling a construction of a narrative which becomes a powerful tool for manipulating, projecting, and encouraging a set of ideas.