Behind ‘Nickel Boys’ Unique Approach to Delivering Character POV

Nickel Boys could change the way we see faces on screen.

That’s what editor-in-chief Nicholas Monsour thinks.

The drama, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead The Nickel Boysis one of the most structured and shot films of the year. Director RaMell Ross made the decision to tell the story of two teenagers who meet at an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida, from a first-person perspective. The camera opens with the eyes of Elwood (Ethan Herisse), who is sent to Nickel after accidentally hitching a ride in a stolen car on his way to class at college. Next, we shift to the point of view of Elwood’s friend Turner (Brandon Wilson), a charming young man initially resigned to his situation.

“That’s the craziest thing about the movie, and the funniest thing is seeing how these characters look at each other, which you don’t get in most movies,” Monsour says. . “I think you look at faces differently after watching the film.”

Monsour also believes this technique can help shed new light on the characters.

“Part of what’s fascinating about first-person POV is that you learn about the character through what he chooses to look at, and that taught me a lot about the character when I started to see it,” Monsour said.

When Monsour, whose credits include the films of Jordan Peele We And Nofirst came to The boys are great, he found himself working with a director who, as an editor in his own right, had his own ideas about editing a film. (Ross did this work in his Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County this morning, tonight.)

Once Ross arrived in New York to edit the film, he and Monsour had what Monsour calls a “theoretical orientation” around the ideas Ross was trying to convey. In addition to delving into the history of point-of-view cinema, Monsour revisited texts he hadn’t read since college on the study of phenomenology, which deals with the philosophy of perception. He also reviewed the work of philosopher Lewis Gordon, who thinks about racialized modes of seeing. This would help him discuss his choices in the editing room.

Nickel Boys also includes numerous archival documents. Nickel Academy is based on the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Florida, but beyond visual references to the actual location, Ross includes other images from the historical archives, such as documentary footage about the race for space and black life in America. Combining this with the material shot by cinematographer Jomo Fray, we created a “tapestry,” says Monsour.

Yet Monsour’s job as editor was largely to develop the audience’s understanding of the character through what Elwood and Turner see. Stock footage can sometimes serve as a representation of what’s happening on a subliminal level to the characters, but Monsour also relies on footage from the setting.

“They really focused on these kinds of moments that were very personal and spoke volumes about Elwood’s specific sensibility, his intelligence and his imagination,” Monsour says.

The action sometimes jumps forward in time to show an adult version of Elwood, played by Daveed Diggs, providing some of the film’s most surprising moments. (When Diggs is on screen, the camera hovers behind him, attached to his body. The effect, Monsour believes, is almost “ghostly.”)

The challenge of the editing process was deciding when to move to which period.

“It involved every trick in the book: stepping back and looking at the contours and rhythmic patterns of these things, then observing them and seeing what different effect it had if it happened a little bit earlier or later,” he says .

He is proud of the shock of the first transition to the old Elwood. “Humbly, I still feel the same thrill as the first time we did the rough cut of Elwood’s adult sequence, with a mouse click at the most emotionally traumatic moment in the film.”

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This story first appeared in a December standalone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.