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Remixing Closer (2004)

by Alex Lance

1499 words, non-fiction, ©2025-12-16

I seem to have spent the last few weeks editing the 2004 movie "Closer".

I remember watching it twenty years ago. It was clever and caused me inner turmoil. Good job! It explored relationships working and not working. The tease of desire and the traps of obsession. Back then I was a theatre-making person and I felt that the script also worked incredibly well as initially conceived, a play.

The DVD has sat on my shelf and never been watched, until a few weeks ago. I’d been curious: would my 44 year old self think differently of the movie now?

Well it didn’t age too badly, most of the dialogue is pleasingly timeless. But some of it made me grimace. A little too much exposition. The long conversations which work well in a play kept shooting glances at me: "what if it was cut a little differently?"

And the Damien Rice soundtrack - an album I had listened to and loved - felt heavy. Two powerful pieces of art mashed together, the play and the album both stunning but separate works.

What started as an idle thought quickly became an obsessive editing experiment. I hadn’t edited anything serious before and did not stop to ask whether I should, but I knew enough of kdenlive to know that I could.

I’m at the mercy of my enthusiasm.

Look, art does not have to be perfectly palatable to everyone. The artist has every right to say: "Here is my offering, eat it, don’t eat it, I have made it the way that I must." The film got Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins, quite clearly it was just fine without my help.

But we have the tools to play and interact in new ways. And so play I did. Aaand this is what three weeks of tinkering in the evenings came up with:

Space bar: start/stop, Click: seek, Mouse scroll: pan timeline

Note: This derivative work was created for educational purposes. Hope it can serve as inspiration to other tinkerers out there.

The irony is that I may not have actually made the movie any better. In fact chances are good that if you liked the movie enough to read this far, then you probably do-not-like that I stuffed around with it. But ANYWAY, let’s dive in. There were three levels that I explored: the music, the dialogue, and the scene ordering.

The music

I wanted to keep the late-nineties feel, but introduce songs that made things move. There is so much empty acoustic space in the film. It no doubt took a lot of restraint to make it that way (a quality I struggle with?).

Aerials - System of a Down. It’s beautiful, dark and energetic and you can crash different shots into the song’s changes. I used it for the opening sequence (even the wind sound across the opening title is from Aerials). Play scene ▶

The Fugees - Ready Or Not. The wild American wanders into the life of the London obituarist. Can’t even tell you why I picked this. But far out I love it. They’re looking at dead people’s epitaphs and there are frickin helicopters in the soundtrack. It’s not logical, it is delicious. Play scene ▶

Lily Allen - Womanizer. Cover of a Britney Spears song, and my favourite addition. It has such an upbeat mischief making melody. Like climbing a ladder to look over a fence, what will be on the other side? Clive Owen opening his trench coat at you in an aquarium, that’s what. Play scene ▶. And for some reason the segue into the next scene on the word "Daddio" into the old man’s portrait, with Dan and Alice trotting up to attend Anna’s exhibition, just seems to work. Play scene ▶

Nina Simone - Sinnerman. Look I’m not the first to use it, and I won’t be the last. The area of the film I dropped Sinnerman into was probably fine with its original scoring. It was a clever progression and I tore it right out. But I had scissors in my hands and a mean streak going on. Play scene ▶

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps. Just squeezing in at a 2003 release, this song is such a banger, and yes lyrically a bit on the nose with the scene. But those drums and energy the perfect lead-in to the dualling break-ups. Play scene ▶

Van Morrison - Crazy Love. This one’s used a bit sneakily. Hinting that everything’s okay and resolved with Anna and Dan, letting things cool, and then bringing it back again as they are thrown off a cliff, as Anna and Larry make trouble. Play scene ▶

VAST - Blue. It’s bittersweet and uplifting. And I’d suggest, not overused. The lyric is "Let’s go down with the ship, let’s slip in to, oblivion" as Alice disappears into the crowd. It’s orchestral and epic. Play scene ▶

The Ting Tings - That’s Not My Name. Credits song. There’s even a line in it: "They call me Jane - that’s not my name!" (I mean it is Alice’s name, but you get where I’m coming from). It’s a bop. Walk out of the theatre with a smile on your face while your subconscious puzzles out the rest of your feelings. Play scene ▶

Ok - that’s the music. You can see that I either went completely overboard or maybe it all just works like magic. You decide. But did I ruin the solemnity that the original soundtrack added? You betcha.

The dialogue

These are the criteria that I use to decide whether dialogue stays or goes: a) Does it help the plot? b) Does it help us understand the character better? c) Is it coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere? (i.e. does it annoy me) d) Can we still understand the scene, without it?

Alice: I don't eat fish.
Dan: Why not?
Alice: Fish piss in the sea.
Dan: So do children.
Alice: Don't eat children, either.

Sorry, although there are repeated allusions to fishes and aquariums in the movie for some reason, this one can drown a salty death. It’s not bad writing in of itself. But it bumps up against a) and c). And positioning it as literally the first thing Alice says, is bonkers.

Dan: I'm your stranger, jump.

Iconic! But just nope, not feeling it. Also it doesn’t make sense, as it is Alice who literally says "Hello stranger" to Dan. Telling Anna that "he’s her stranger" is odd, they don’t have that backstory.

Larry: Don't move. I want to remember this moment forever. First time I walked
through the door, returning from a business trip to be greeted by my wife. I
have in this moment, become an adult.

Yeah, no, bye. It’s like the writer’s room was tasked, with: "we need to somehow share the information that they’re married now, and that he’s super happy, and that he’s been away on a business trip - now go!". It’s a little heavy-handed.

All up about 20 minutes of dialogue ended up being cut. My hope is that ultimately the viewer is further invited into some "read between the lines" moments, and that the objective of each scene is enhanced; more discovering and less spelling things out.

The scene ordering

I took some chances. Scene after scene either shortened or broken up. Threw out some of the bus ride at the start. Lost the dock scene with Larry and Anna. Did some weaving together of back-to-back scenes where it made sense to me.

There was one particular moment at the end which I jumped on. Dan had just left Alice in the airport hotel to get some smokes, all is lovey-dovey between them. Dan walks out, the elevator opens and then he has a thought.

So I stole the (amazing) climax from the previous scene at the doctor’s office, where Larry goes "Hey Dan, I lied to you..." and popped it into Dan’s thoughts as he’s about to get in the elevator. I wanted to bring the pain back, right before he loses control. Play scene ▶

Conclusion

It’s been weird imagining that anyone will come along on this ride with me.

Most saw the movie 20 years ago and think fondly of it.

If by some chance someone watches my edited version and likes it, it’s probably going to be because the movie was good enough anyway to withstand my adjustments. And franky I’m not even sure if I can know if someone liked what I did, compared to what was already there. The editor’s curse?

Finally, is this legal? Is this fair use? A derivative work? Educational? Well YES, very much all of those. Of course. What harm or profit do I seek? Still, I suspect someone will ask me to take it down and that will be a shame.

It was a learning experience and that is enough.

But I kind of want to do another one.