postPerspective Update

Editor Tom Eagles on Cutting
The Harder They Fall

By Randi Altman

The film The Harder They Fall is a full-out Western starring Idris Elba, Regina King, LaKeith Stansfield and Jonathan Majors. Directed by Jeymes Samuel and streaming on Netflix, it focuses on outlaw Nat Love (Majors), who gets his gang back together to take down enemy Rufus Buck (Elba), a crime boss who just got out of prison. While the film is what the director calls a "revisionist Western," its characters are based on real people. It's part history, part bloodbath, part comedy… and quite a ride.

We caught up with the film's editor, New Zealand-based Tom Eagles (Jojo Rabbit), who actually started on the movie twice. The first time was when he flew out to New Mexico in March of 2020 to prep for the first shot. But soon after he arrived, everything started shutting down due to COVID. "There was a week when we didn't know what was going to happen," he says. "During that time, Jeymes and I hung out on FaceTime and talked about pressure points in the script and things I thought needed clarifying."

The second time was when shooting resumed, but that didn't mean he wasn't thinking about the script during the lockdown. Eagles spent his time back home working on other projects, but he would periodically return to the script in his head. "I was thinking about what it needed, what we could prep, sourcing temp music and sound effects. When the film started up again in September, we were much better prepped than we would have been."

Let's find out more from Eagles…

Can you talk about working with Jeymes in the edit?
We had a wonderful and surprising synchronicity, especially given we were working long distance for the first three to four months. I treat each director as a unique genre or sub-genre, and I'm a quick study. It's especially rewarding with a first-timer because you are kind of inventing the language together as you go along. I figured out quickly, for example, that Jeymes likes to go large — more is usually more with him. If there's an opportunity to be expressive or stylized, he's likely to be into it.