By Peter Tonguette
In Bradley Cooper’s new comedy-drama “Is This Thing On?,” Alex Novak (Will Arnett) finds that the best way to understand and eventually exorcise his personal problems is to present them to a paying audience with a microphone in hand.
On the heels of his separation from his wife Tess (Laura Dern), Alex begins to make impromptu “open mic night” appearances at the Comedy Cellar in New York. There, in front of faceless strangers looking for a good laugh, Alex recounts the struggles and joys of his life, including his marital problems. He finds an outlet for his pain and a new avenue for his life. Against all odds, Alex also finds his way back to Tess and their two young sons. The expression referenced in the film’s title — “Is this thing on?” — is not only a nod to a standard stand-up comedian line but an allusion to the state of Alex and Tess’s marriage: what seemed very much in doubt and “off” — their union — turns out to have signs of life and thus be “on.”
Following “A Star is Born” (2018) and “Maestro” (2023), the film is Cooper’s third directorial effort and was co-written by him, Arnett, and Mark Chappell, from a story by Arnett, Chappell, and John Bishop. (Cooper also logs an appearance in a comic supporting role as Balls, a longtime friend of Alex and Tess.) Photographed in catchas-catch-can documentary fashion, with Cooper responsible for the bulk of the camera operating, the film unfolds in long takes that bring to the forefront the complex, sometimes contradictory, emotional states of the characters. Following its premiere in October at the New York Film Festival, “Is This Thing On?” was released on Dec. 19 by Searchlight Pictures.
To manage the film’s unique tone and sometimes raw style, Cooper turned to first-time solo picture editor Charlie Greene, a longtime assistant editor who most recently served as the first assistant editor on “Maestro,” a biopic of composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein edited by Michelle Tesoro, ACE. Having developed a rapport with Greene on the earlier film, Cooper tapped him to move up to the editor’s chair on his new movie.
CineMontage recently spoke by phone with Greene and Cooper about their work together.
CineMontage: Charlie, talk about working on “Maestro” and how you got the chance to edit “Is This Thing On?”
Charlie Greene: I had worked with Michelle [Tesoro] for quite some time. She is one of the best editors working, in my opinion. I’ve learned so much from her, and I continue to do so. Bradley is very collaborative. Everyone comes to the table. He welcomes opinions. There’s a constant dialogue with the team. I’ve been fortunate to have that experience on other projects, so it wasn’t completely foreign to me when the director asked for my opinion. [With Bradley], I felt very free to do so. He doesn’t want to surround himself with people who are saying, “Oh, yeah — it looks great. I love it.” He wants to hear your honest, honest take on something. With the dialogue that we had on “Maestro,” when this project came up, he thought of me.
CineMontage: Bradley, what was it about Charlie and his contributions on “Maestro” that led you to offer him this chance to move up?
Bradley Cooper: Michelle is incredible. We were so lucky that she agreed to come do “Maestro,” and she brought Charlie with her. I got to know him very well on that movie. This movie is very low-budget, relatively speaking. [We] were shooting in New York, and it seemed like a real opportunity to ask people to step up. I asked Charlie, and he seemed interested. … Right away, I thought, “Oh, I think this would be a perfect opportunity for him,” and he agreed to do it. The team he assembled: Gil [second assistant editor Gil Seltzer] and PK [first assistant editor Phillip Kimsey] — the whole editorial team — is just incredible.
CineMontage: Charlie, had you been looking for an opportunity to move into the editor’s chair?
Greene: I had been, but not too actively, because with a family, the time commitment to make the jump, not to mention the opportunity… it’s rare for the stars to align. I’ve had many good experiences working with Michelle, as a first assistant and a visual effects editor — but it was really hard to say no [to “Is This Thing On?”]. I had a good rapport with Bradley and a sense of what this might be like. I think he appreciated my work ethic.
CineMontage: Bradley, the film has lots of oners and is very committed to the hand-held look. How did you settle on the aesthetic, and how did it inform the way the film was edited?
Cooper: It certainly helps, because there wasn’t much to be done other than reorganizing. … The scenes were what they were going to be because there was no coverage. I wanted the movie to feel the way I experienced New York, living here in the late ’90s. Downtown is like a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. It’s vertical. It’s square.
Greene: I think, with that style, everyone has to be on board. Not only is Bradley directing, but, in addition to the other camera team, he’s also shooting it. There is this realness that happens and an intimacy.
CineMontage: What’s it like to work with that sort of material?
Greene: As an editor, we had a lot of options at our disposal for scenes, but there’s always that sense of: “Oh, that’s the take — that’s the one.” Despite the fact that there are a lot of oners, it was very freeing to be in the moment and let it roll. There is the Zen of just letting something play and seeing where it goes. …There were moments with an improvised line or an improvised look, and then it’s, “Oh, wow, that’s just magic — that just lends itself to the moment.” Also, I think Bradley wanted the actors not to always consider the scripted material, and just go with it; if this feels like real life, go with that moment. The artifice melts away at a certain point.
‘I wanted the movie to feel like New York in the late ‘90s.’
We hit the ground running during production. I was assembling, and after a couple of weeks, we were already reworking scenes. He would call me from set every day. There’s the moment when Alex is in the bathroom after his set, and he sings, “Ole, ole, ole.” We didn’t always have that in there, but we knew that we had it. When I saw that take, I mentioned it to Bradley on the day. I said, “Oh, that was incredible that he did that.” We had takes of him looking into the mirror, considering what had just happened to him — that he’d gone up and performed. But as we neared the end of the edit, we knew we had that take [of him singing]. And when you look at the film holistically, and the arc of the characters, this is our guy.
CineMontage: Charlie, talk about the basic process of how you and Bradley worked together.
Greene: During dailies, we would check in with each other every day. He would give me the heads-up about what’s coming down the pipe, if there was anything that stood out to him — “Look for this moment where this happens” — things like that. We would start putting together assemblies and deliver those. Typically, by the end of every week, we would send him a batch of things so he could take a look and give some feedback.
Cooper: He’ll be getting everything together and refining it, and then putting it into an order. Then, when they’ve done that, they will have time to start to assemble things. When the movie is over, we don’t watch an assembly. [The editing team] may make it for themselves, but I never watch an assembly. We just start editing.
Greene: We just started from the top and started working through it. We did a mix of Evercast [remote live collaboration] and in-person. We had a great spot that Company 3 had set up for us. It was convenient for [Bradley], and it was quiet. … We just started moving through it.
Cooper: We’re in it together. It’s a lot of pressure. You can feel the walls coming in when you’re going down a road that doesn’t seem to be working. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that there’s no path not worth pursuing. Because even if it doesn’t work, it always enlightens something else. Closing a chapter on [one] idea helps the other idea be born. [Charlie and I] have the same philosophy about editing, and I think that’s been the true gift. [With] all the tense moments we had on this movie, and having to edit it at a breakneck speed, it was just always fluid. That’s the key. You have to be open. In the editing room, when there’s tension, you can’t create.
CineMontage: Bradley, when Alex is on stage for the first time, the camera stays with him. It’s almost like we’re in his POV.
Cooper: I always want to be looking at Will, or whoever the comedian is. We don’t cut to people reacting. We’re just with [the performers on stage], and we’re not safe — just [like] the way it feels on stage. … Those kinds of choices are what scare a studio, and there were definitely conversations like, “Can’t you just get a little …” But no, we were really clear from the beginning that this is the way we wanted to shoot it. And luckily, it worked out because we shot this in 33 days.
Greene: When we’re so tight on Will, that was a continuous take of him doing a full [stand-up] set, and then he goes offstage. The choice of the tight shot, the 1.66 aspect ratio — you’re very much in his head. Up until that moment, you were starting to piece together what’s going on with this couple [Alex and Tess]. You know everything is not all right, but [Alex] is really telling us what happened. It’s like a therapy session. We don’t have a lot of laughter there [from the crowd]. The crowds in those scenes were genuine crowds actually reacting to the stand-up material, be it Will or some of the other comics. We wanted to have this sense of silence.
CineMontage: On the other hand, when Tess and her date Laird (played by Peyton Manning) show up at the Comedy Cellar and unexpectedly find themselves taking in one of Alex’s sets, the camera really holds on Laura Dern’s face. We see a range of emotions on her face: shock, anger, and, finally, a kind of fondness and sadness for Alex as she listens to his account of their marriage. Alex, of course, is ignorant that she’s even there.
Greene: She’s so wonderful. She’s doing several different things in that moment. You feel her character processing everything that’s happened.
Cooper: That whole sequence, starting from when [Alex] gets the call that he’s going to go up, all the way to when we get them on the street corner outside the Cellar, was one of the most arduous editorial endeavors of the film — just rhythmically [and in] pacing. You hope you can achieve it, but you don’t know. As one of the Coen Brothers said, “You get three chances to get it right: you write it, and you shoot it, and then you edit it.” Some things don’t work, but that did.
Ideally, I wanted to stay on [Tess] the entire time, literally the whole time, but that was too much. So I was able to go back to [Alex]. Then, the second thought was, “Well, if I go back to him, maybe it’s a conversation [between them].” [Tess] is looking camera left, and [Alex] is kind of talking to her camera right. He doesn’t know she’s there, but it’s almost like two singles — people having a conversation together.
CineMontage: Charlie, did the film change radically in post, or did you have a core set of strong assemblies for most scenes?
Greene: There were certain sections where we had a good core assembly. Then, once we had everything together and started viewing the film — really, the macro of it — we started playing around with the structure. Bradley always talks about rhythm, and I’ve learned so much from him in terms of the pacing and how the dialogue bounces. His experience as an actor really lends itself to this, and he’s very inventive. I noticed this on “Maestro,” too. We can watch a few scenes or the whole film, and with each watch, he completely wipes his slate clean and can view it with fresh eyes.
Cooper: Charlie is smooth — he’s just smooth. You never see him sweat. He’s such a wonderful person, a great guy to be in the hole with when you’re exploring. There’s no judgment. Every idea is worthwhile. … I really feel like I found somebody very like-minded in the editing room. He’s a massive part of why the movie works.
CineMontage: Charlie, what surprised you most about editing a film for the first time?
Greene: I was surprised by how I reacted to certain things emotionally. When you’re not in the chair [as the editor], you’re a little bit removed from it. … I think having hands on it, you’re so invested in it.
We screened in L.A. for Searchlight at the Warner Bros. stage. I said to Bradley, “That played really well. It was actually very emotional for me.” Not only was I experiencing it, but I was also experiencing it through others, through the audience. I guess I knew I might have that feeling, but I did not know how powerful it would be until I actually experienced it.
