By Randi Altman

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feature film directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, takes viewers on a journey that bridges the present and the past. Set in a European beach town, Olivia Colman plays a middle-aged professor on vacation who becomes obsessed with a group of Americans — in particular, a young mother (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter. This sets off a series of flashbacks to when her daughters were young, including some very difficult choices she made.

Affonso Gonçalves

Shot by DP Hélène Louvart on ARRI Alexa Minis with Cooke S4 lenses, the film was edited by Affonso Gonçalves, ACE, who cut on Avid Media Composer.

Gyllenhaal sent Gonçalves the script in April of 2020. “I loved it,” he says. COVID necessitated pushing the film’s start date, but in the interim, Gonçalves cut a short film that Gyllenhaal directed (Penelope, part of a series of Netflix shorts called Homemade). “So when the time came to shoot The Lost Daughter, I knew I wanted to work with her.”

We reached out to Gonçalves, whose eclectic resume includes the feature films Carol, Winter’s Bone and Beasts of the Southern Wild, the documentary The Velvet Underground and the TV series True Detective. Let’s find out more…

What direction were you given in terms of the pacing for the edit?
There was no specific direction in terms of pace; I was responding to the footage that I was getting from the set. When Maggie joined me, we worked on that together.

Were you on set? Near set? Keeping up with camera?
They were shooting in Greece with very strict COVID protocols, so I don’t think I could’ve gone even if I’d wanted to. I was in LA, keeping up with camera as much as time allowed.

How did you work with the Maggie Gyllenhaal? How often was she seeing footage?
Once she was back home in NYC, she was in the cutting room every day. I’m not sure how often she was watching the footage prior to coming to the cutting room, but once she was there, we would review performances and coverage.

Can you give an example of a note she gave?
The scene between Leda (Colman) and Nina (Johnson), after Leda finds Elena, is the first time they have a dialogue, and so much of that scene is told through looks. Maggie remembered a really specific performance from both Olivia and Dakota that she wanted to use.

Maggie Gyllenhaal on set (masked) in Greece

This was Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut. As an experienced editor, did she lean on you a bit, or did she have a specific vision of what she wanted? Combination of both?
It was a combination of both. She did have a vision of what the movie should be, but we discovered and experimented quite a bit.

Do you think her experience on-camera played a role in how she wanted edits?
She’s an experienced actress, and she brought so much of the knowledge to the cutting room. I learned so much from her.

So much of the film rides on Olivia Colman’s facial expressions and eyes.  Can you talk about coverage? Did she shoot a lot of takes?
Maggie got really great coverage, and I loved the way cinematographer Hélène Louvart captured those moments. She has such a beautiful and intimate way to shoot her subjects. They didn’t shoot that many takes.

A lot of the film’s point of view is that of a voyeur, with Leda spying on this family.
When Leda first notices Nina and her daughter, it reminds her of her younger days with her two daughters. The affectionate moments between the two trigger memories of different times. From that moment on, Leda is taken by the family, but more specifically, Nina. And as events happen, she gets closer to her. The deeper their involvement and mutual fascination, the deeper Leda gets into her memories.

How did you bridge the past and the present?
That was pretty much the way it was scripted. We did play with which images would start and finish the “flashbacks.” There’s a very specific way to come in and get out of those memories.

One example is the very first time Leda has a flashback. The sound from the memory starts with her drinking water. The image of young Leda, Bianca and Martha is very loving and intimate, and yet at the very end, there’s a look of uncertainty on young Leda’s face. That look matches the look and feel of older Leda on the other side of that memory. Also, they’re both looking in the same direction, which I felt was important.

Were any scenes particularly challenging to edit?
The octopus scene between Leda and Lyle (Ed Harris, who plays the caretaker of the property Leda is staying in) was an interesting one. As it was shot, and in the script, it worked beautifully. First, they prepare and cook the octopus in the kitchen, then they eat it in the living room. But back to back, those scenes didn’t work the way we liked. We decided to experiment with combining those two scenes and moving back and forth. We found a nice balance on the dialogue, and we played with looks and small gestures. It felt like a dance. In the end, I think it worked pretty well.

Who was your assistant editor? Was your AE mostly technical, or did you show your edits, ask for opinions, let them edit?
I was very lucky that I could work with my old assistant, Ron Dulin. He’s an editor now, but I convinced him to come and “hang out” with me in the cutting room for those five months we were working. What’s fun about working with Ron is that we are constantly talking about movies and music. He’s a great source of ideas and has an amazing knowledge of film history.

I did give Ron some scenes to cut, and every time I finished a scene, I would show him the cut to get his opinions. It was really fun working together this one more time.

Finally, how do you avoid being pigeonholed as an editor? What advice do you have for others?
I think probably working on different genres, different projects and mediums. Keep working and keep experimenting with ways to tell a story.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.