BEVERLY HILLS — Both veterans
and first-timers came away happy at the 57th American Cinema Editors (A.C.E.)
Eddie Awards last month.
Thelma Schoonmaker, A.C.E.,
took home her fourth Eddie (which is likely to live next to her shiny new
Oscar) for the work she did on Martin Scorcese's The Departed. In a historic
tie, Schoonmaker shared the honor with first-time winners Stephen Mirrione,
A.C.E., and Douglas Crise, who edited the film Babel. A.C.E editor Virginia
Katz won her first Eddie for Bill Condon's Dreamgirls in the feature comedy or
musical category.
Alan Heim, president of A.C.E.,
said, "It's a night where editors get a chance to honor their own. Editing is
an enormously pragmatic art. Editors have been basically doing the same thing
since the beginning of film, which is telling stories. And it takes a
particular kind of mind that can tell stories in a concise fashion and
entertain audiences."
Describing her recent work on
The Departed, Schoonmaker said, "This film was rewritten in the editing room,
because we had the problem of combining a thriller which had already existed as
the film made in Hong Kong, Infernal Affairs. And we had this wonderful new footage
given to us by [Oscar-winning writer] Bill Monahan and Scorsese and the
wonderful actors we had, full of character and humor and startling dialogue. So
the problem for me was how to keep the film a thriller and still keep as much
as I could of that wonderful character material, which was not in the original
film."
When I asked Mirrione about his
distinctive, tautly edited multi-narrative, storytelling-style he said, "I do
my worst work when I think about what I am doing, so I'm always trying to find ways
to work off my gut, work off instinct. There's a confidence that comes in
forcing yourself to do something and to do it quickly and to not think about
it."
Oscar-nominated Babel director
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, a presenter at the awards, honored the craft of
editing with the words, "To edit a film is to rewrite a film, to reinvent the
film. Editors are the sculptors who can discover and reveal the real spirit and
form of the stones that the director brings to the editing room."
Virginia Katz said of her work
on Dreamgirls, "The film spoke for itself. I know how [Bill Condon] shoots, I
know what he's looking for. We worked together from the very beginning and we
have a connection. It was great, it was fun and it came together because he
shot it that way. I'm going for the story and that's what tells me how to put
it together. Even though there was singing, it's about what was happening
emotionally, and that's what I cut to."
Eddie- and Emmy-winning A.C.E
editor Steve Cohen (Material Girls, Rambling Rose), was presented with the
Robert Wise Award for "journalistic illumination of the art of editing." Cohen,
reflecting on his profession, said, "One of the rules of my cutting room has
always been that nobody knows everything — there are no stupid questions. We
all learn from each other, sorting this out together, pulling ourselves up by
our bootstraps.
"In the early years," continued
Cohen, "we saw the tools of our trade replaced, but now we're facing a world
where the very materials we work with are being replaced as well, where the
whole workflow — all the way from camera to screen — will soon be nothing but
zeros and ones. The only thing that will remain the same will be those
flickering images that bring people together to share a story." (To read Cohen's
speech in its entirety, visit our Website, www.postmagazine.com.)
Best edited documentary honors
went to Jay Cassidy, A.C.E., and Dan Swietlik for the Davis Guggenheim film
about Al Gore's global warming crusade, An Inconvenient Truth.
TELEVISION
Television Eddie Awards went to
Trevor Waite, Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act, Part One (miniseries or motion
picture for non-commercial television); Conrad Gonzalez, A.C.E., Keith
Henderson and Stephen Michael for Friday Night Lights: Pilot, (one-hour series
for commercial television); Kate Sanford, The Wire: Boys of Summer, (one-hour
series for non-commercial television); Dean Holland and David Rogers, The
Office: Casino Night, (half-hour series for television); Geoffrey Rowland,
A.C.E., Eric Sears, A.C.E., Bryan Horne, David Handman, A.C.E. and Mitchell
Danton, The Path To 9/11: Part Two (miniseries or motion picture for commercial
television).
OTHER HONORS
Academy Award-winning filmmaker
Quentin Tarantino received the A.C.E. Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year honor,
which was presented to him by Daryl Hannah. Editors are important, said
Tarantino, because, "they're like the co-writers; you write this script and now
you're writing the film [again] when you edit it."
Lifetime Career Achievement
Awards went to industry veterans John Soh, A.C.E., and Frank Urioste, A.C.E. Their prolific careers were
highlighted with clip reels and praise from friends and colleagues during the
event.