Film editing

The twenty-sixth entry is la versione del regista, and the obvious rendering, « the director’s cut », is right about the sense and misleading about the habit behind it. In English, a « cut » is first the join itself, the thing the scissors make. Then, by a quiet extension nobody notices any more, it becomes the whole film in one of its states, so we speak of a « rough cut », a « fine cut », a « final cut » and a « director’s cut », where not one single join is meant. Italian never let il taglio travel that far. Il taglio stays with the join and with the kinds of join — il taglio sfalsato is on this page, and so is il raccordo beside it. For the film as a whole, in whatever state it has reached, the language reaches for two other nouns: il montaggio for the work and its stages, la versione for the object handed over. So the rule is short and worth holding on to. Where « cut » names a stage rather than a seam, do not write taglio.