A filmmaking “ghost” made visible: ‘STILL’ editor on Michael J. Fox documentary

Preston Barta // Features Editor

More often than not, a film or television editor’s job is to assemble without the process becoming apparent to a viewer. Once someone notices the filmmaking process, naturalism begins to slip away.

However, for the Apple-released documentary Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, editing is a key component of its storytelling.

Rather than hide tricks up its sleeve, the film – about the Back to the Future star’s life and career before and after his Parkinson’s diagnosis – uses archival footage and clips from Fox’s on-screen work to visually match the actor’s words and emotions in a new sit-down interview.

Michael Harte cleverly mixes talking-head shots of Fox recounting his story with film footage from the likes of Bright Lights, Big City and Teen Wolf. The Irish film editor, who also pieced together Three Identical Strangers and Don’t F— with Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer, has been recognized for his editorial work on Still and is currently nominated for a 2023 Primetime Emmy (Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program).

Still‘s editing is otherworldly and poetic. Imagining a filmmaker pulling off such a feat without spending thousands of hours seems impossible. Yet, Harte guns it to 88 and effortlessly recontextualizes shots like they were always destined to have multiple purposes. 

To shed some light on the process, Fresh Fiction had a virtual discussion with Harte. In the video interview below, we chat about the “strange magic” within and how the filmmakers broke beyond safe filmmaking.

Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie is now available to stream on Apple TV+. Final-round voting for the 75th Primetime Emmys wraps on Aug. 28 before midnight (10 p.m. PT).