‘It is when poetry is written in the language of cinema’: women editors behind the art of cinema | Video

Bbehind every great director, voice production, and good editor – and as given earlier this month for the late Marcia Lucas, the Oscar-winning editor of Star Wars: Episodes IV through VI, and the ex-wife of creator George Lucas, reminded us that the editor is often a woman. In a history that was dominated by men, these famous Hollywood celebrities are events that deserve to be explored.

It goes back several decades. During the supermacho Hollywood new wave era, Dede Allen worked with Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) and Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon), and Thelma Schoonmaker prepared Raging Bull, The King of Comedy and GoodFellas for. Martin Scorsese (and many more). David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia may have had no female protagonists, but it won Anne V Coates a revolutionary Oscar. Anne Bauchens was nominated for Cleopatra in 1934, when the revolutionary Oscars were created, and became their first female winner in 1940 for Cecil B DeMille’s North West Mounted Police.

The received wisdom is that women came to take over editing when they were dismissed from other production jobs because editing was thought to be difficult, unskilled and, when male-dominated machines emerged, editors were subordinate to the producer and director.

This, however, may not be the whole story. JE Smyth, professor of history at the University of Warwick, said: “Women were the best designers in the studio; many had music to help them move.

“He was well paid, in senior positions and editors often sat in the crowd and watched over the directors’ mistakes. Barbara McLean (20th Century Fox’s director of editing) close-ups of production after the director has left the picture. In most cases, the producer can listen to the editor’s opinion at the final stage. “

Editors can have a big influence on the final result. “Viola Lawrence saved The Lady in Shanghai,” says Smyth, “and, without McLean, All About Eve would have been a mess because director Joseph L Mankiewicz was so sympathetic.”

Collaboration between director and editor is often essential to long-term success. Justine Wright, editor of The Last King of Scotland and The Iron Lady, says it’s “dependant and a shared vision”. “It’s about being open to emotions and being honest in your feelings while being sensitive to each other’s weaknesses. Because we’re a step removed from the script and the chaos of shooting, the editor can see things that the director can’t, but the director has to stand up and defend their film.

As Marcia and George Lucas show, creative relationships can also be personal. Mary Sweeney, the editor of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive, was briefly married to the director and assistant. David Lynch. He tells me: “David was the only person with whom I had a personal and professional relationship at the same time. We worked together for several years before it became personal. Working together, living together, raising a family when our son was born, it was a dream planned for twenty years. It was a very fruitful professional relationship. We were lucky, but I am not sure how to mix professional and personal life all the time.”

A more important question is whether female editors are viewed through the lens of gender? Were they hired in the belief that they were too friendly or to act out the vision of “smart” male directors? Schoonmaker he said humbly that “he works with many artists” and laughs at the idea of ​​defeating Scorsese, emphasizing that “he will not show (him) anything other than what he originally planned”. He additionally he encouraged that women may be happier in making changes than in leading because “they are better off maybe in collaboration with the leaders”. Quentin Tarantino, meanwhile, spoke about his late editor Sally Menke about women, explaining he heard the woman will be “bringing more film” and for him, not “trying to push their goals or win their battles”.

Sweeney pushes back on this, saying, “I wouldn’t describe his contributions as parenting”, instead describing Menke as a “great editor” known for “a strong understanding of character and continuity, a solid knowledge of music and time, and a boot-camp commitment to work”. (In Tarantino’s defense, he also called Menke his “number one assistant”).

“What continues to frustrate me is the lack of talent management,” says film and TV producer Mariana Moraes. “If we look at the Bafta or Academy Award nominations, the heads of departments are still overwhelmingly male. I recently worked on a production where every post-production assistant was a woman, while the editor, post producer, composer, sound designer, VFX supervisor and VFX editor were all men. Sometimes, it was like a playground where the ‘boys’ were allowed to take part in a very interesting film.”

But the women I spoke to rejected the mention of frustrated producers, emphasizing their own commitment to the industry. “I immediately fell in love with the renovation,” says Sweeney. It speaks to all parts of my brain – the physical, leathery, haptic art, and the art of painting, drawing and dreaming the story of images and visual metaphors.

Sweeney sums it up lovingly: “Editing is the final rewriting, where the poem is written in the language of cinema.