By Sydney Speckmann.

Keith Fraase was the editor of Past Lives. As a repeat contributor with director Celine Song, he also was the editor for her more recent film, Materialists (2025). Fraase has edited episodes for several TV Mini Series, such as Naomi Osaka (2021) and Amend: The Fight for America (2021). One of his larger credits is being an editor for Severance season two, for two episodes. In an interview about his editing method for Severance, he said that he believes his cutting style to be methodically musical, and liked to think of each passage in an edit “as a sort of musical sequence.” This is especially notable for the style of editing done in the episodes of Severance that he worked on, and especially in Past Lives itself, where each scene feels like its own symphony with rhythm and life beneath it.

In the scene of Past Lives, where Nora and Arthur talk in bed, up late after a long day (from around 1:10 – 1:15), the editing techniques serve great purpose. We begin on a long, long two shot with both of our characters in frame. And Fraase holds on that shot, for a very, very long time. The decision to not cut, not interrupt their moment, is so pivotal. It makes the audience confront this conversation as they are, no ounce of respite involved. Only once Arthur discusses another (“past”) life where he is not the one she met at her retreat, but rather another man in the same circumstance, does the shot cut, and the tension is addled. We now flow through a series of ‘semi over the shoulder’ shots, where one character is far more prominent, but we still see the face of the second. This cut from a dialogue of the two of them to a closer shot gives us the feeling that we are now in Arthur’s head, rather than an observer. He discusses his insecurities, and lays them out bare, and only once his admittance is conquered, do we cut to Nora. She tries to refute, but the cuts flow back into Arthur every time he admits and declares another issue with their relationship. Due to the close cutting nature that still leaves stillness and breath in the performances, we feel like we are there with them, and understand the gravity of the situation. 

We stay on these OTS shots and closer up POVs for much of the discussion, until the two shot returns. And then, we are from afar, watching the moment and confronting it. When Arthur utters the famous line, “You dream in a language that I can’t understand,” we, as viewers, are confronting that this is the objective truth. Where the close cuts are internal, and have tie-ins to  subjective meanings, the raw facts are present in the two shot, when the edit lingers and lets the moment play out. This scene concludes by going back to an establishing shot of New York at night, of the carousel where Nora and Hae Sung spent much time earlier in the day. We see the carousel lights among those of the city, and then, they are turned off. A symbolic passing of ships in the night, and the beach waters continue to churn. This shot holds until the wave returns to shore, symbolizing that whatever Nora may have held for Hae Sung, there in that carousel, is extinguished by the conversation held. There are no fade ins or outs to establish these scenes, and they leave the truth out on the floor. Even with thirty minutes left to the film, through analysis, it becomes clear how it will end up. Nora and Arthur’s conversation leaves us to sit and stay with it, as it was not a talk that could be escaped, and this is done effectively through editing. The editing sincerely affects the audience experience of the scene, by making us stew through it, and seeing that although this conversation was hard, it was never going to be jumped out of. Time is taken, if not extended through the editing, to make the scene long, trepid, and painful. The whole narrative of the film builds on Nora and Hae Sung’s relationship, or what they could have been to each other. This conversation and scene puts us back into the real world, pulling us from the fantasy of ‘past lives’ by making the viewer look at Nora’s very real husband, who is not Hae Sung. Overall, Past Lives’ editing techniques rely on stillness and gritty convention to tell a story that is real, authentic, but all the while devastating.