From the moment editor Laurent Sénéchal read the script for Anatomy of a Fall, he knew he had a challenge ahead of him when it came to the crucial flashback showing a drag-out fight between Sandra (Sandra Hüller), an author on trial, and her husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis), who fell to his death off the roof of their Alpine home.
The scene arrives in the middle of Sandra’s trial over her role in Samuel’s plummet. What begins as just audio played for the courtroom is eventually brought to life for the audience watching the film. “When I was reading, I didn’t really know what would be the point of view,” Sénéchal says. “It’s like the point of view of God. For me, it was a bit tricky.”
That sequence is crucial to the success of director Justine Triet’s movie, which is Oscar-nominated for editing, as well as in the categories of best picture, directing and screenplay, with Hüller in the running for best actress. She was so good, Sénéchal says, that he often used her first takes. However, Sénéchal’s work lay not only in capturing the brutality of the exchange of words between Sandra and Samuel — he blames her for his professional failures — but also in how the editor chose to bring the audience back in time.
Sénéchal explains that he pushed Triet to stick with audio for a while before cutting to Hüller and Theis. He wanted the audience to become “lazy,” assuming they were only going to hear the couple and not see them. Then, when the flashback begins, “It’s very strange to be there,” he says. “But because the actors are so great, you’re already immediately taken. For me, it’s so like when you are starting an argument with your partner. I think that everyone is feeling like, ‘OK, that’s reality.’ So there is no stress about the transition at the end.”
At the same time, Sénéchal and Triet didn’t want to linger too long in the past. They decided they wanted to cut back before Sandra’s harshest words were doled out. “When we go back, we are also going back to our movie and the contract with the audience, which is, you are not going to see violence,” Sénéchal explains. After returning to the courtroom, the filmmakers hoped that the possibility of Samuel’s suicide and that of Sandra’s guilt both remained.
Sénéchal has gleaned a lot from how people have reacted to the fight. “It’s really interesting,” he says, “because now I know a lot of my relatives better, thanks to this scene.”
This story first appeared in a February stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
