The Final Cut
Cartoonist: Charles Burns
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Publication Date: September 2024
Traditionally, final cut is a rare privilege, granted by studios to either the most financially successful directors or the savviest independent filmmakers. What final cut guarantees is that the director, or occasionally the producer, has the final say in editing, and as a result, in what their film will be. It’s a way to control the story told from a certain perspective. The Final Cutthe latest graphic novel by legendary cartoonist, Charles Burns, follows the making of a low budget science fiction film. It’s a graphic novel about what we tell ourselves and others, but it is also about what we leave out for our own self-image, and how we edit our understanding of our lives.
The graphic novel shifts perspectives between Brian, the director of a low budget science fiction film, and Laurie, the film’s lead actress. The two apparently hit it off at the beginning of the film’s production. They hang out at the movies and do visual effects tests for the film. It’s just the two of them in isolation. As more people come into the cast and crew of the film, uncomfortable truths of whom they are come to light.
The Final Cut represents a shift for Burns. There is the occasional surreal and horrifying imagery familiar to readers of Black Hole or Last Lookon which the author made his name. In The Final Cuthe relegates those images to dream sequences, entries in Brian’s sketchbook, or the movie. While his past work has often been fantastic, this book is purely a reality-based exploration of the disintegrating relationship between two people. The horror lies in the gaps between people rather than mutating viruses or the breakdown between dreams, memory and reality.
Burns is one of those cartoonists whose work could be described as “pure comics” but in The Final Cut, he translates the language of cinema into the comics medium. It’s not just in the homages that make obvious his affection for classic ’50s cult films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Rodan. A considered use of both color and greyscale creates images meant to evoke the cinematic. His panel transitions in this book work like cuts in a film, especially when perspectives change.
Few artists have mined the dark shadow of nostalgia as much as Burns. But there is no aching for the glory days of youth here. Only an acknowledgment of the loneliness and need for connection in those years. Brian, Laurie, and their friends only connection to each other are the films they make together. It’s implied their ties outside of that are tenuous. These are lonely young people tied together through art.
Brian represents another young man totally oblivious to the reality that Burns is all too fascinated to explore. There’s a clear through line from Keith in Black Hole to Doug in Last Look now to Brian in The Final Cut. He’s another young man who fails to understand his relationship with a young woman. But he also fails to understand his relationship with the people around him. He’s an intense individual devoted to his craft, and that often rubs people the wrong way. Art is an out for him but it isolates him too.
Laurie also feels like a distant cousin to a character like Chris in Black Hole. She never seems sure why she’s with this group of people. At first she’s drawn to Brian’s intensity but soon it terrifies her. Her character becomes the real outsider here in ways that slowly unfold. This is someone who is unsure of themselves at every level.
What’s remarkable here though are the stories that come into focus through the shifting perspectives. Both Brian and Laurie struggle to admit what kind of people they are. Brian can’t accept his own dark intensity or the darkness lurking in his family’s history. He won’t admit that people might be terrified of him. Laurie can’t accept that she could possibly be a lesbian, denying the feelings her friend has for her.
When Laurie stops finally editing her own feelings and her own story, things finally turn around for her. She can be happy. Brian, however, will never be able to do that. He is doomed by his inability to accept things as they are and move on. But The Final Cut isn’t a story about endings, because unlike film, life never ends so neatly. It’s messy and wild. People like Brian may try to edit out what feels uncomfortable but he will always force his way in.
In the end, to me The Final Cut represents a shift for Charles Burns as a graphic novelist. The shadows and uncertainties of youth still remain but gone are the druggy visions of Black Hole or the fractured narrative of Last Look. The Final Cut On its surface is a fairly simple book. For some, this might mean that an initial reading is underwhelming, given the hard experimentation of the author’s past works. In its clarity though, this book offers its own secrets and uncertainties that will linger long after reading.
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