Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers,
Speaker 1: to hear their stories, What inspires their creations, what decisions
Speaker 1: change their careers, what relationships influenced their work behind Every
Speaker 1: good filmmaker is a brilliant editor, and Martin Scorsese is
Speaker 1: no exception. His counterpart film A. Schoonmaker has edited every
Speaker 1: film the cinematic giant has done since Raging Bull, earning
Speaker 1: her three Academy Awards and seven nominations. With a face
Speaker 1: and demeanor like your favorite grade school teacher, one has
Speaker 1: to wonder how Schoonmaker has made it through editing the
Speaker 1: epic violence of Scorsese's films. But however she does it,
Speaker 1: it's working. She and Scorsese's forty plus years of collaborating
Speaker 1: is widely considered to be one of the most successful
Speaker 1: working marriages in movie history. But talented as Schoolmaker is,
Speaker 1: editing films wasn't always the plan. Born to American parents
Speaker 1: in Algiers in nineteen forty, Schoonmaker dreamed of becoming a
Speaker 1: diplomat and working overseas, but fate intervened, and today fresh
Speaker 1: off editing scores, says He's newest film Silence. She looks
Speaker 1: back on the moments that shaped her both as a
Speaker 1: filmmaker and a person, something like Age of Innocence. We
Speaker 1: certainly had to slow down and and figure out how
Speaker 1: to reach a pace that reflected nineteenth century New York
Speaker 1: with Kundoon, which was one of my favorites. Uh I
Speaker 1: had to really learn a great deal about Tibet itself,
Speaker 1: and also Marty wanted to know how to shoot the
Speaker 1: san mandala, which the monks make for two weeks, This beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful thing they make with just funnels of different colored
Speaker 1: sand and then after two weeks they wash it all
Speaker 1: away in the river. It's unbelievable and it's really hard work.
Speaker 1: Um So he wanted to open Kundooon. We did with
Speaker 1: very tight shots of images of the mandala, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to know what were the important ones for him
Speaker 1: to shoot. So I had to learn about the sand mandala.
Speaker 1: This was before we started shooting. I'm usually not needed
Speaker 1: before shooting, and so I got to go down and
Speaker 1: watch the monks make this incredible sound mandala. That was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun learning about Tibet and becoming acquainted
Speaker 1: with these wonderful Tibetans who were in the film because
Speaker 1: there weren't there weren't actors, they were actually acting out
Speaker 1: what was happening to them. Um. That was a very
Speaker 1: extraordinary experience for me, and I've remained a supporter of
Speaker 1: the cause and and friends with Tibetans ever since. So
Speaker 1: that was really world changing for me. As this movie
Speaker 1: now Silence has been for me. It's made me think
Speaker 1: deeply about my own faith and also to learn so
Speaker 1: much about the people who are still Jesuits, for example,
Speaker 1: the Order, the fervor of that order, Um is extraordinary
Speaker 1: to meet them. And the advisors who came to help
Speaker 1: us on the film were so amazing people. So I
Speaker 1: loved delving into a seventeenth century Japan. The Japanese actors
Speaker 1: themselves were so incredible. I couldn't believe how wonderful they were.
Speaker 1: Even the extras. You never had to worry about cutting
Speaker 1: away from a shot because an extra wasn't paying attention
Speaker 1: or not doing what they were supposed to do. Every
Speaker 1: single person who came from Japan to work in that
Speaker 1: movie were so dedicated and learning to edit people speaking
Speaker 1: Japanese or Japanese speaking a language that was not native
Speaker 1: to them was was very interesting too. But that this
Speaker 1: this film silence has had the same impact on me.
Speaker 1: That couldn't doned it When you talk about the sand
Speaker 1: Mandala and you coming in early to discuss with him
Speaker 1: that you know what shots you might need or not
Speaker 1: need for the sequence, but you say that you're not
Speaker 1: involved in that kind of composition. Typically you don't sit
Speaker 1: down with him during the period of storyboards. Does he storyboard? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: he still Now he tends to write on the right
Speaker 1: side of the script a little, the little image that
Speaker 1: he wants. No, he designs all the camera work, always has,
Speaker 1: and I'm not needed usually in the writing um or
Speaker 1: any designing of the film. So I come on when
Speaker 1: it starts shooting, with the exception of Kundun. Really, so
Speaker 1: when you come on when it starts shooting, does he
Speaker 1: come to do you come to him? Because I've seen
Speaker 1: this experience on films that I've made, where with any
Speaker 1: director where the the editor is sending messages to them saying, well,
Speaker 1: we could use this, we could use this angle. I
Speaker 1: rarely have to do that with him because he thinks things.
Speaker 1: He's a great editor. So he thinks like an editor.
Speaker 1: When he conceives of the movie. He usually has an
Speaker 1: editing style on mine. Also when he writes or co
Speaker 1: writes the movie, and when he shoots it, he's thinking
Speaker 1: like an editor. There are occasions where I do ask
Speaker 1: for things. For example, in the drowning sequence where Garupe
Speaker 1: played by Adam Driver drowns in silence. Um, it was
Speaker 1: very difficult shoot, very cold, and Adam was getting you know, hypothermia,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't feel I had quite enough footage
Speaker 1: for the drowning sequence, particularly because the stunt women in
Speaker 1: Taiwan we're not sort of as tough as maybe more
Speaker 1: experienced stunt woman would be. UM, and to be shoved
Speaker 1: down under the water constantly was was difficult for them.
Speaker 1: So that was one of the few times in Taiwan.
Speaker 1: On this incredible sequence where Uh Rodriguez played by Adam
Speaker 1: Garfield is made to watch Uh Japanese Christians pushed off
Speaker 1: boats wrapped in straw mats so that they will drown.
Speaker 1: It's a terrifying sequence, and Marty shot it with three cameras,
Speaker 1: so there wasn't a lot of control in that situation. UM,
Speaker 1: and he was very interesting. He had an idea that
Speaker 1: he wanted to show the horror of these will being
Speaker 1: pushed off in the water from a wide shot, to
Speaker 1: show the banality of it, like the banality of the
Speaker 1: way the Nazis killed people. So it was very complicated shoot.
Speaker 1: He was trying to get those white shots close ups
Speaker 1: on Adam Garfield and cover Garupe and the other and
Speaker 1: the Japanese Christians, and it was all happening simultaneous. It
Speaker 1: was chaos, but so I was eventually able. We never
Speaker 1: did get any additional footage, but I was able to
Speaker 1: sort of make it work. I think that's never a
Speaker 1: thought of going into a tank or doing anything with
Speaker 1: us or the set. There was some thought of that,
Speaker 1: but then we decided not to so, but that's one
Speaker 1: of the few times there are occasions when I asked
Speaker 1: for something. But he he's such a great editor, you know,
Speaker 1: he knows what he needs. And my husband Michael Powell
Speaker 1: once said to him, you don't need to do master
Speaker 1: shots cut into the center of the scene. Don't do
Speaker 1: master shots. Marty only does them now as rehearsal. Really,
Speaker 1: so not that he doesn't love wide shots. He keeps
Speaker 1: saying today with all the fast cutting that's going on.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened to the shot, the shot that Stanley Kubrick
Speaker 1: would come up with five minutes. You could watch this
Speaker 1: incredible shot and never be bored. And now what's happened
Speaker 1: to it? He says, It's just vanished. But I want
Speaker 1: to get back to when you're in the editing room.
Speaker 1: Are you cutting a film together and you start hearing
Speaker 1: music yourself? What's the inner life for you when you're
Speaker 1: cutting a film? Well, first of all, the most important
Speaker 1: time for me is when he looks at Daily's. Now,
Speaker 1: when he's looking at Daily's I look at the footage first,
Speaker 1: um as soon as it comes in to make sure
Speaker 1: there isn't something missing or something wrong. Or sometimes the
Speaker 1: camera when one of the great shots in Raging Bull,
Speaker 1: where it begins on DeNiro down in the basement of
Speaker 1: this enormous stadium and he the steadicam cameras backing up
Speaker 1: in front of him. It's an amazing tour to fourth shot,
Speaker 1: Marty's preferred take on that was ruined in the lab.
Speaker 1: There was a claw that went off in the camera,
Speaker 1: and so I had to go on the set and
Speaker 1: tell him his favorite take with Ruth. Unfortunately, we had
Speaker 1: just as good ones. But what he does in dailies
Speaker 1: is really fascinating. I wish that in a way filmmakers
Speaker 1: could listen to him, because he's very, very tough on himself,
Speaker 1: and he constantly talks to me during the dailies. I
Speaker 1: like that. I don't like that. That's I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to get better on take seven. UM, don't ever
Speaker 1: show me that to me again. Burn that, UM and so.
Speaker 1: And I'm also telling him what I think. First of all,
Speaker 1: he wants me to be a cold eye. He wants
Speaker 1: me not to have been on the set and see
Speaker 1: how they did something, UM or hear from him what
Speaker 1: he's going to do. He wants me to look at
Speaker 1: it cold and tell him if it works. So that
Speaker 1: is my part of my job. So I tell him
Speaker 1: what I think. He tells me what he thinks, and
Speaker 1: from those incredibly rich reactions of him, I then begin
Speaker 1: to create select and then I do the cut before
Speaker 1: he comes in when he's through shooting, and then from
Speaker 1: that point on we do all the rest of the
Speaker 1: twelve if we can get away with it, twelve different
Speaker 1: edits of the movie together, very twelve different edits of
Speaker 1: the movie. That's what we prefer to do if we can,
Speaker 1: or one of the is there a bible that dictates
Speaker 1: what those twelves are? Can you just use you're a
Speaker 1: phrase to have a manual? Is there the Thelma Marty
Speaker 1: manual of that mentions each twelve of those? You know
Speaker 1: what happens is that, you know, we don't screen the
Speaker 1: first two or three cuts because we're still trying to
Speaker 1: get the film in shape. But once we start to
Speaker 1: screen with very few people, maybe twelve people who our friends,
Speaker 1: who we know, we'll be honest, so we does confer
Speaker 1: with other people. Oh, yes, well we debrief I I
Speaker 1: mainly do most of the debriefing afterwards. So we will
Speaker 1: screen with twelve people, say, then I debrief them very
Speaker 1: heavily for two or three days. Uh. Then we do
Speaker 1: the second cut, and we screen for more people, and
Speaker 1: pretty soon we get up to two hundreds, at which
Speaker 1: point I can't debrief everybody. We do cards. Then we
Speaker 1: like too if we have time to do twelve, because
Speaker 1: that's how long it takes. You have to live with
Speaker 1: the movie. People don't understand that I have to marinate it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to live with it and learn what it
Speaker 1: wants and what it needs. And um so uh, all
Speaker 1: the editing is just absolutely fascinating. You would love to
Speaker 1: be in the room. This is a work that you
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily I wouldn't say you fell into it, but
Speaker 1: you were certainly on a different course for while you.
Speaker 1: You grew up where my mother and father met in France. Um,
Speaker 1: they were both Americans. They married there. My older brother
Speaker 1: was born there in Paris, and then we were transferred
Speaker 1: to Algeria and my mother crossed the Mediterranean Ocean. She
Speaker 1: was carrying me at the time. I was born in Algeria.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately the North African Invasion occurred where all the
Speaker 1: Allies invaded to try and get rid of the Nazis
Speaker 1: in other parts of Northern Africa, and so we were evacuated.
Speaker 1: But my mother loved Algeria. She would have loved to
Speaker 1: stay there. She was always out here. Dad I was
Speaker 1: there because was with shell oil standards, so y. And
Speaker 1: then my father went to Aruba in the Caribbean, and
Speaker 1: that's where I grew up with. Yes, in the war
Speaker 1: time and post war time, well, in the war time,
Speaker 1: that's right, and they were actually torpedoing, they were trying
Speaker 1: to knock the Germans were trying to knock out the
Speaker 1: refinery because it was fueling the North African invasion, and
Speaker 1: so they would lobb torpedoes and also um mortars in
Speaker 1: trying to hit the oil tanks which were above where
Speaker 1: we were living. So we were taken out every night,
Speaker 1: wrapped in blankets and taken to the one building that
Speaker 1: was made of stone, um and stay there. And I
Speaker 1: remember seeing the burning tankers along the horizon. Um. But
Speaker 1: eventually the Germans did not take the island. And what
Speaker 1: happened was they brought all kinds of Europeans, people from Australia,
Speaker 1: from all over the world. So I grew up in
Speaker 1: a European atmosphere, which I love. So when I came
Speaker 1: back to the States, when my father was transferred back
Speaker 1: to New York, it was a shock at the bends.
Speaker 1: It was shocking. It was really the most shocking thing
Speaker 1: for you. You're in New York, Yeah, it was no
Speaker 1: New Jersey. So in a my father was commuting into
Speaker 1: New York. UM. So I was in Ridgwood, New Jersey,
Speaker 1: which was you know, could parts of it were well off.
Speaker 1: We were not. We were in the sort of poorer
Speaker 1: part of it. But The thing that shocked me was
Speaker 1: the rigidity of this sort of social code. If you
Speaker 1: weren't a cheerleader or football player, you were nobody. And
Speaker 1: I was very unused to that kind of thing, and
Speaker 1: and also seemed very limited. Although the education there was excellent,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until I went to Cornell University, where
Speaker 1: I met a whole bunch of New York Jewish girls.
Speaker 1: I was saved because they read books, they listened to
Speaker 1: music like I did. I was and I just loved
Speaker 1: being at Cornell. And and you're a different plan. You
Speaker 1: were going to study Cornell. Well, I wanted to become
Speaker 1: a diplomat, so I studied the Russian language. Is one
Speaker 1: of the first Russian language courses in America because Sputnik
Speaker 1: had just gone up, so everyone was panicking. And so
Speaker 1: I studied Russian and political science with some great, great teachers.
Speaker 1: And then I went and took the Foreign Service Exam.
Speaker 1: That's the exam, but they do a stress test with
Speaker 1: you afterwards, where they have people from the CIA and
Speaker 1: other things try and upset you, as if you're at
Speaker 1: a reception in South Africa and they say, what would
Speaker 1: you say if somebody said, what do you think about apartheid,
Speaker 1: I said, I would say it's terrible, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: you can't say that until the government tells you. You
Speaker 1: can say that. You were going to that's right, you're
Speaker 1: going to be very unhappy here. You should go to
Speaker 1: the U S. I A. But I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know the travel bug. What's the
Speaker 1: difference something? You're right, I don't know. It was probably
Speaker 1: stupid of me, on the other hand, so I went
Speaker 1: to work for the first Peace Corps program at Columbia University.
Speaker 1: They were going to see early on and then I
Speaker 1: saw something in the New York Times which never occurs,
Speaker 1: which said willing to train assistant film editor. No wait, now,
Speaker 1: what the hell are you thinking? Well, what was interesting
Speaker 1: was that there was this wonderful program called Million Dollar
Speaker 1: Movie Remember, which ran the US the same film nine times,
Speaker 1: and Scorsese learned about so many films, but particularly the
Speaker 1: films of Paula and Pressburger. He would watch them nine
Speaker 1: times until his mother said she was going to kill him. Um,
Speaker 1: and I was watching that same program. I didn't even
Speaker 1: know that I was watching the Life and Death of
Speaker 1: Colonel Bloom. So you're a movie watcher. Well, I guess
Speaker 1: I was. I didn't know that that it meant anything.
Speaker 1: But were movies in your family, Well, yes, I did see.
Speaker 1: My mother took me to see the Rich Shoes in
Speaker 1: the Ruba, and at one point they were a big
Speaker 1: movie with your parents. Um, not big ones, no, but
Speaker 1: theater music. Well yes, when my mother would have, having
Speaker 1: lived in Paris, she loved all arts and she taught
Speaker 1: me enormously about that, which was great, very interesting. My
Speaker 1: brothers completely didn't go with it at all. They hated it,
Speaker 1: and my mother and I whenever we would see one
Speaker 1: of those signs on the side of the road, you
Speaker 1: know that says revolutionary farmhouse or something, we would immediately
Speaker 1: and they would go, oh no. And even to this day,
Speaker 1: my brother won't go into a museum, whereas the first
Speaker 1: thing I do, I go into a museum. So my
Speaker 1: mother gave me all of that. I'm so grateful. Even
Speaker 1: though she didn't want me watching television in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: I did, and I remember that. The Life and Death
Speaker 1: of Colonel Bloom, which is still one of I think
Speaker 1: my all time favorite of my husband's films, was seared
Speaker 1: into my mind. I remember that and I remember, Hamlet
Speaker 1: was pretty Olivier's Hamlet was pretty startling. But I just guess.
Speaker 1: I saw this ad in the New York Times said
Speaker 1: willing to train assistant filmmaker, and I thought, well, why
Speaker 1: don't I just go see what this is like? So
Speaker 1: and it was this horrible man who was butchering the
Speaker 1: films of Felini, Antonioni Truffaux for late night television stalts
Speaker 1: and on Rocco and his brother Visconti's Great film. He
Speaker 1: took out one entire reel. I said, you can't do that,
Speaker 1: and he said, nobody's looking at these things at one
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, but Marty was. And um, so
Speaker 1: it was pretty appalling. But I did learn to cut
Speaker 1: negative and I learned to put subtitles. That was a job.
Speaker 1: You had to do that, and he trained you had
Speaker 1: to do it. And I learned to use a movie
Speaker 1: all which was very helpful. Then I couldn't stand this
Speaker 1: guy anymore. And I saw an ad and it said
Speaker 1: a six week course at what was called Washington College,
Speaker 1: which became part of NU and a six week course
Speaker 1: in in filmmaking. So I thought, well, if I quit,
Speaker 1: I just have enough money to take that course. So
Speaker 1: I went to something changed while you had that job.
Speaker 1: You got the bug, I guess, so I guess. So.
Speaker 1: So I get there at this course and uh run
Speaker 1: by an incredible Armenian American named Hagan NuGen And when
Speaker 1: I first went down, I was a little late and
Speaker 1: I heard somebody screaming inside the lecture hall. Turned out
Speaker 1: that's just the way Hagen Nugian always talked, and he
Speaker 1: was a wonderful support to Marty. Marty wasn't there then,
Speaker 1: wasn't well, Marty, No, this is how I met him.
Speaker 1: So we go to this six weeks course and they
Speaker 1: carve us up into ten, ten people for each little film.
Speaker 1: And the film I was on was a documentary about
Speaker 1: harness racing, so boring. But at the end of the
Speaker 1: six weeks, close to the end of the six weeks,
Speaker 1: the professor said, does anybody here know how to cut
Speaker 1: negative or help Martin Scorsese because he's made a student
Speaker 1: film and somebody has cut his negative wrong, and so
Speaker 1: if there's anybody who can help him, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'll try, you know um, And I went over and
Speaker 1: he had been up for two days editing the movie,
Speaker 1: and he was completely zonked, but his eyes were open,
Speaker 1: and so I started running the film on the synchronizer
Speaker 1: and I said, well, you've lost six frames here, maybe
Speaker 1: we can add them at the tailor. So I helped
Speaker 1: him patch it back together. But explain to people who
Speaker 1: don't know what you mean by negative cutting. What happens
Speaker 1: is when you get a take, the camera slows down
Speaker 1: and you get what's called a flash frame, so a
Speaker 1: white four or five frames. You finish it in your movie.
Speaker 1: Then you have to cut the negative to fit the
Speaker 1: way you've edited the workprint. So you pull the negative
Speaker 1: first from flash frame to flash frame, and then very
Speaker 1: carefully you spice it together. You you match it to
Speaker 1: the workprint, and you cut off what you don't need.
Speaker 1: You never cut right close to what the number was
Speaker 1: on the workprint. And this young woman had accidentally done that.
Speaker 1: By the way, about fifty years later she contacted me.
Speaker 1: I'm the person who did it, and I'm so sorry,
Speaker 1: And I said, no, don't be sorry. You gave me
Speaker 1: the greatest life in the world. If you hadn't just
Speaker 1: cut that negative, I would never have met him. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. So it's a miracle. So you so you
Speaker 1: salvage Marty's a student student film, and what did you
Speaker 1: make of him? Then? Well, it's a young so it's Marty.
Speaker 1: It was in college, right, Well, all of us knew
Speaker 1: from one particular student film call It's Not Just You Murray,
Speaker 1: which is filled with incredible ideas that he had it.
Speaker 1: It was very clear he had it. What was it
Speaker 1: that he had? Storytelling on film? Pretty an idea of
Speaker 1: startling ideas. For example, It's not just Hu Murray starts with, uh,
Speaker 1: somebody's shoes and a hand comes into frame and he
Speaker 1: encourages the camera to lift up to his face. It
Speaker 1: was just, I mean, just unbelievable, great, great ideas. Uh So,
Speaker 1: then what happened was a group of us got together
Speaker 1: and we were making films for PBS Short Films UM,
Speaker 1: covering Aretha Franklin concerts UM and helping fellow filmmakers finish
Speaker 1: their films. And one of them was Marty's Who's That Knocking?
Speaker 1: His first feature film, which he had shot part of
Speaker 1: and had run out of money, and so we volunteered
Speaker 1: our efforts to help him finish it. And then he
Speaker 1: taught me how to edit on that movie. I knew
Speaker 1: nothing about editing, nothing, so I was on the crew
Speaker 1: as we were trying to help him finish it, and
Speaker 1: we all did everything. We pushed the wheelchair that had
Speaker 1: the cameraman in it because we didn't have dollars. Um
Speaker 1: we ran sound. I would get lunch. I learned to
Speaker 1: tie into power sources in the basement. People said to me,
Speaker 1: bend your legs because if you get the jolt, you'll
Speaker 1: fall down and it'll break the contact. So and I
Speaker 1: drove the car with the cameraman on the front effort
Speaker 1: on again for a tracking shot. It was great. It
Speaker 1: was I think it was the Cone Brothers. I could
Speaker 1: be wrong. I was reading an article about raising Arizona
Speaker 1: and they they were saying how their improvisations with the
Speaker 1: camera led to like certain names. They have thing called
Speaker 1: the blankie can, and if you wanted the camera to
Speaker 1: have the point of view of the dog that was
Speaker 1: attacking you, they would lay the cinema targity operator on
Speaker 1: a blanket and pull him across the lawn and he'd
Speaker 1: be right on the heels of the victim. Came everybody
Speaker 1: was doing them. I mean, now you know Napoleon, the
Speaker 1: Great film by Abel Goaz, a silent film. He had
Speaker 1: small cameras that he threw over the He had people
Speaker 1: throw them over the wall of this fortress to give
Speaker 1: the idea of what a cannonball would be like going
Speaker 1: into a fortress. So it was the point of view
Speaker 1: of of the cannonball. So people, you know, people were
Speaker 1: inventing all of these things all along in film coming
Speaker 1: up the one piece of work that Schoonmaker considers the
Speaker 1: perfect film to hear another voice behind some of Hollywood's
Speaker 1: biggest films. Check out my interview with former Walt Disney
Speaker 1: CEO Michael Eisner. Today, he still prefers movie theaters to
Speaker 1: a private screening room. I almost only go to the theater.
Speaker 1: I go at least twice a week. And what do
Speaker 1: you do? I often go at ten o'clock or midnight.
Speaker 1: Uh can't drag my wife's out. Usually I'll go in
Speaker 1: the afternoon. I can remember even being at ABC when
Speaker 1: I was twenty seven years old and having a fight
Speaker 1: with somebody and saying, you know what, I'm getting out
Speaker 1: of here and go to Broadway and go to a movie.
Speaker 1: Take a listen, and here's the thing, Dot Org. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing,
Speaker 1: Initially studying to become an international diplomat. Algerian born film
Speaker 1: of schoolmaker's life took an interesting turn in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties when she met Martin Scorsese, then a sleep
Speaker 1: deprived film student. The partnership changed her life, eventually leading
Speaker 1: her to Michael Powell, a cinematic mastermind in his own right,
Speaker 1: whom she'd marry. But before love came work with Marty,
Speaker 1: as she called Scorsese, driving the train. He taught me
Speaker 1: how to build a scene, how to when to use
Speaker 1: close ups, when not to use close ups, um, how
Speaker 1: to learn what's good acting, um, how to build rhythm
Speaker 1: between two actors. Uh. He's never in a position where
Speaker 1: the actress he's working with don't deliver what he wants.
Speaker 1: He gets the actors he wants. He doesn't make the film. Yes,
Speaker 1: he casts impeccably, but there are good and weaker performances,
Speaker 1: you know. So one of my jobs is to make
Speaker 1: sure we're using the very best, and you wean down
Speaker 1: and wean down your technique to that as well. Avoid
Speaker 1: close up some people you think are less truthful or
Speaker 1: oh no, no, I mean usually you can always with him.
Speaker 1: He knows he shoots until he gets what he needs.
Speaker 1: He knows what he needs, particularly as an editor, he
Speaker 1: knows what he needs less. The people are weak than
Speaker 1: just other people dazzle you well, some yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: some actors that take one. You know, other actors work
Speaker 1: towards something. For example, Marty and DeNiro did fifteen takes
Speaker 1: on the last scene in Raging Bull where DeNiro is
Speaker 1: confronting himself as Jake la Matta in the mirror and
Speaker 1: he's doing it on the waterfront speech. They wanted to
Speaker 1: do fifteen takes because they were trying different ways of
Speaker 1: him confronting himself actually forgiving himself. And I thought one
Speaker 1: was more emotional. I like that, but Marty liked another
Speaker 1: one that was colder and he so we screened it
Speaker 1: two ways with friends of ours and he was right.
Speaker 1: So that's the kind of thing. So it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: Some actors like Daniel de Lewis or Cake Blanchet are
Speaker 1: often like take one, that's it. They're come in so
Speaker 1: prepared so they're living that part. Other actors like to
Speaker 1: work towards it. Leo and and Bob like to work
Speaker 1: towards something. With Marty, so um, it's a matter of
Speaker 1: just trying to get the best and then seeing is
Speaker 1: that working with what's the best and the other actor.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's not so you have to change something. It's
Speaker 1: a it's very difficult to describe editing you. You've made
Speaker 1: that clear. Yeah, I mean, so one of the first
Speaker 1: things you would have taught me is how not to
Speaker 1: go to close ups too quickly, that two shots are
Speaker 1: sometimes just as good. But that's a very simple thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much that's about rhythm and pace
Speaker 1: and um, letting it breathe. Oh yeah, let watching the
Speaker 1: people fe you and go through it. Yeah. And Marty
Speaker 1: wants people to, particularly with a film like Silence, which
Speaker 1: is so different from what's being done today. Um. He
Speaker 1: wants people to engage with the movie and make up
Speaker 1: their own mind about what they're seeing, not be told
Speaker 1: what to think. He hates that one filmmakers tell you
Speaker 1: what to think. A lot of that goes on today.
Speaker 1: So one of the things he wanted in Silence was
Speaker 1: to not have any score at all, because he felt
Speaker 1: the score might be telling people what to think. Eventually,
Speaker 1: we do have a very subliminal score which comes out
Speaker 1: of cicadas and things, and there are a few times
Speaker 1: where you hear a piece of music up front, but
Speaker 1: normally you don't because he did not want to tell
Speaker 1: them what to think. He wants them to feel it
Speaker 1: and make up their own mind. And after people see Silence,
Speaker 1: they say they talk about it for two weeks because
Speaker 1: there's so many big questions that are raised there about
Speaker 1: doubt and faith that um, it provokes that kind of thought,
Speaker 1: which is what he wanted. That's all he wanted. The
Speaker 1: movie opens Silence. It's very quiet, if you will. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: it's a sequence of torture. It's a sequence of Liam Neeson,
Speaker 1: you know, watching the said I want to ruin the
Speaker 1: film for people. But something horrific is happening. And you've
Speaker 1: edited some films that are these spectacularly violent films. Now
Speaker 1: I've seen films that that are more graphic. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that they're graphic by any means. I've seen movies
Speaker 1: that are far more graphic and f mo or less
Speaker 1: effective as a result of it. Yeah, that's never been
Speaker 1: an issue for you. It was it was every time
Speaker 1: you sat there and said, my god, this is tough
Speaker 1: to watch. Well, the thing is you see that we
Speaker 1: create that violence in the editing room. There's no way
Speaker 1: that DeNiro could take an actual punch all the times
Speaker 1: you see it in in the film. When he was
Speaker 1: being hit in the head, there was no hand in
Speaker 1: the glove um and so his he was his head
Speaker 1: was being nudged in blood and saliva would spray off it,
Speaker 1: but he There's no way he could have taken all
Speaker 1: that punishment. So our job is to make sure that
Speaker 1: we make it look as if he took that hit.
Speaker 1: It's not actually violent. When I get it, I make
Speaker 1: it violent with Marty. I let me just say first
Speaker 1: that I think Marty's use of violence is very uh
Speaker 1: important because there is, as we know, living in this
Speaker 1: particular time, tremendous violence around the world. And if you
Speaker 1: think there isn't your your kidding yourself. If you can
Speaker 1: show it properly without being gratuitous, and I don't think
Speaker 1: he ever is, it's important that it be part of
Speaker 1: the films he particularly makes. He grew up in a
Speaker 1: very violent neighborhood. He grew up in a neighborhood where
Speaker 1: the mafia would tell people take your children off the
Speaker 1: street at three o'clock and and someone would be gunned
Speaker 1: down on the street and the kids would go back
Speaker 1: and play again. So he saw a lot of that.
Speaker 1: It is something he grew up with and he understands
Speaker 1: very deeply. But I must tell you that if you see,
Speaker 1: for example, in Casino, Joe Pesci put somebody his head
Speaker 1: and the vice with with the eye bulging right, that's
Speaker 1: all takes an enormous amount of editing to make that believable.
Speaker 1: Of course, that never really happens. But I do remember
Speaker 1: we had one screening where it was I think Mike
Speaker 1: Ovid's and two other people, somebody from the studio and
Speaker 1: maybe Marty's agent, another agent, and Marty and I were
Speaker 1: sitting behind them. They were all wearing blue suits, and
Speaker 1: when that came up, the first shot of that eye
Speaker 1: and the vice came up, Um, they all went, oh
Speaker 1: my god, and their their arms went back in sync
Speaker 1: over their heads. And Marty said to me, how many
Speaker 1: more shots of this do we have? I said five,
Speaker 1: and he went, oh it was so we cut that down.
Speaker 1: But um, it's never violent when I get it. But
Speaker 1: was there one sequence violence or no? Just in terms
Speaker 1: of action, the pacing the intention. Give us an example
Speaker 1: of a scene that was a particularly difficult one for
Speaker 1: you to cut a real challenge. I think sometimes films
Speaker 1: need to be restructured, and uh, for example, Departed needed
Speaker 1: to be restructured. Even Kundoon we had to pull up
Speaker 1: the Chinese invasion. It was taking too long. Um, So
Speaker 1: they're the restructuring is sometimes very important in a movie.
Speaker 1: But also Silence was very hard for me because to
Speaker 1: get the right meditative pace without being born was was
Speaker 1: very important. And it was very interesting to try and
Speaker 1: incorporate the Japanese actor's style of acting with the westerners. So, uh,
Speaker 1: they're they're all hard in different ways, but I can't
Speaker 1: think of one that was really expensively. So you no,
Speaker 1: particularly not the violence because Marty storyboards it very carefully,
Speaker 1: so putting it together is not that hard. Making it
Speaker 1: believable is hard. You know, when when somebody throws a punch,
Speaker 1: they're actually missing the other actors chin by half an
Speaker 1: inch so and the actor then snaps his head back
Speaker 1: to make it look So you have to get the
Speaker 1: right one of those. Sometimes he's not he's too far
Speaker 1: away or whatever may is. It believable is something that's
Speaker 1: part of my job. One of the things that that
Speaker 1: is I wonder during the arch of his career is
Speaker 1: how much producers and studios trying to interfere with the
Speaker 1: movie he's making. So it remains that way, but he's
Speaker 1: gained a great deal of control as the films go on.
Speaker 1: But we do get notes from the producers or the studio,
Speaker 1: more from the studio, actually not from the without naming names.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone he ever takes their counselors or a
Speaker 1: producer he's ever relied on for any information. Well, the
Speaker 1: great thing about Marty is he will listen, but he
Speaker 1: will not do anything that conflicts with what he thinks
Speaker 1: is right. He will burn the film first, and I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding of Ques. It's a little hard to burn
Speaker 1: digital now, so it could be done. But but he will.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen him take that stand. But what
Speaker 1: happened is that he learned very early on to walk
Speaker 1: the type role between art and commerce very cleverly, because
Speaker 1: I think to a certain extent, you know, he said,
Speaker 1: I grew up in a neighborhood where power was around
Speaker 1: all the time, and I under stand it. I know
Speaker 1: how to work it. Um, He's been in situations, I
Speaker 1: think the taxi driver where he said he was going
Speaker 1: to kill ahead of the studio. This is already documented
Speaker 1: by the Philips who were the producers. But now what
Speaker 1: he does is he knows how to talk them out
Speaker 1: of it, or you know, I get the notes first,
Speaker 1: and I only tell him anything I think that he
Speaker 1: should hear, and he will listen. But he also is
Speaker 1: able to defend his position extremely well, and I've seen
Speaker 1: him do it over and over again. One time I
Speaker 1: was with him and uh, it was a subject matter
Speaker 1: that I've done some research on by myself, and he
Speaker 1: thought I might be involved in this meeting, and somebody said,
Speaker 1: you know what we should do. We should take the
Speaker 1: plot of Gone with the Wind and inserted into this script.
Speaker 1: And I was just about to walk out of the
Speaker 1: room when I heard that, and Marty was brilliant. He said, well,
Speaker 1: that's a very good idea, George, but I couldn't make
Speaker 1: that movie, which was very kind. You know, he didn't.
Speaker 1: He wasn't. However, I have seen him also when he'll
Speaker 1: storm out, you know, just say it's your movie or mine.
Speaker 1: You take it, you put your name on it, I'm
Speaker 1: taking mine off. I've I've seen that happen several times.
Speaker 1: I've also seen him do something wonderful, which is to
Speaker 1: just wear them down by telling them long stories about
Speaker 1: gang chiefs that he knew in his neighborhood. Um, there
Speaker 1: was one particular time where we were in a room
Speaker 1: whether your conditioning was very cold, no one had brought
Speaker 1: water in, and everyone was getting hungry, was getting towards twelve,
Speaker 1: and he was going on in these long stories about
Speaker 1: crazy mafia guys, and finally he just wore They just
Speaker 1: gave up. And his two agents were texting each other
Speaker 1: and one of them said, where is he going with this?
Speaker 1: But he knew what he was doing. No. You you
Speaker 1: have been married to filmmaking and editing and your famous
Speaker 1: counterpart for years and years and then you got married.
Speaker 1: Tell us about where did you meet him? Well? Um, interestingly,
Speaker 1: because I had seen Life and Death of Colonel Bloom
Speaker 1: made by my husband Mike Paul when I was, you know, sixteen,
Speaker 1: and it stayed in my head. When Marty started educating
Speaker 1: me on Raging Bull, he started educating me about the
Speaker 1: films of palem Pressburger because he had just gone and
Speaker 1: found Michael Powell living in poverty and really forgotten. Unbelievable
Speaker 1: he was in England. Um. In this little cottage I
Speaker 1: still own. UM. The British Film Institute was trying people
Speaker 1: like Ian Christie, Kevin goff Yates and even bertrompt Vernier
Speaker 1: and France were trying to revive the films. But Marty,
Speaker 1: with his high profile, was able to bring Um Michael
Speaker 1: to tell your ride re enter Peeping Tom into the
Speaker 1: New York Film Festival and had never been properly distributed
Speaker 1: here and just revived the whole cannon. So that was
Speaker 1: going on then. It was it was a great miracle, UM.
Speaker 1: But I saw Michael stand in front of audiences and
Speaker 1: see his films come back to life. It was heaven.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you. Marty was so dedicated to that,
Speaker 1: so he was educating me. We were cutting Raging Bull
Speaker 1: and Michael Powell came over to the Museum of Modern
Speaker 1: Art did the first big retrospective on him in America.
Speaker 1: Marty said to me, I want you to go to
Speaker 1: the MoMA, not work, which was amazing. I go to
Speaker 1: the moment and look at the life and death of
Speaker 1: Colonel Blimp and Michael Powell was there and I went
Speaker 1: up to him and I said, I'm Marty's editor. But
Speaker 1: he was very distracted because I think he was thinking
Speaker 1: about the great love of his life, Debra car who
Speaker 1: was in that movie. That's when they fell in love
Speaker 1: and then broke up after it. But then Marty said,
Speaker 1: he's coming to dinner. Would you like to meet him
Speaker 1: because you're so much in love with their movies now,
Speaker 1: And I said yes, And well, when I met him,
Speaker 1: I just fell in love with him immediately. He was
Speaker 1: so astounding. I wish you'd met him. He was an
Speaker 1: amazing human being, and he didn't talk much, but when
Speaker 1: he said something, it was very interesting. And then he
Speaker 1: came back after the dinner. I was cutting Raging Bull
Speaker 1: in a bedroom in Marty's apartment where he was living
Speaker 1: with Isabella Russellini. He had an extra bedroom and we
Speaker 1: had film works in the bathtub in the adjoining bathroom.
Speaker 1: My husband thought that was one of the funniest things.
Speaker 1: He just roared when he saw that. So he came
Speaker 1: back to talk to me and we started having lunch,
Speaker 1: and then things developed and then we had to tell everybody.
Speaker 1: So he came to live with me in New York
Speaker 1: on King of Comedy Um and Isabella, Marty's wife at
Speaker 1: the time, Isabella Rossellini, came and said to me, Selmam,
Speaker 1: Michael should come live with us. There's no neason for
Speaker 1: you to have to put him up in your hotel
Speaker 1: room here. And I said, well, I don't think you
Speaker 1: quite understand. I have to tell you we're actually living together. Oh,
Speaker 1: Marty will be so thrilled. Well, Marty of course was
Speaker 1: a bit stunned. Everybody was. I mean, there was thirty
Speaker 1: years difference in us, but it didn't matter because Michael
Speaker 1: had the heart of a sixteen year old. So we
Speaker 1: had ten blissful years. But Marty, it was a shock
Speaker 1: from Marty because he knew then that I would maybe
Speaker 1: at certain times want to go home and cook dinner
Speaker 1: from Michael, the man in your life. But the director,
Speaker 1: he loved having Michael with us, and it was such
Speaker 1: a wonderful friendship to watch. I can't tell you, uh,
Speaker 1: and Michael had a great influence on on our movie.
Speaker 1: Did your relationship wind up costing you any editing assignments
Speaker 1: with Marty? Did you ever miss any job you've You've
Speaker 1: edited every one of Marty's movies. No, so. Um we
Speaker 1: made Woodstock and Marty left Woodstock early and went to
Speaker 1: bust In in Hollywood, and Um, we finished woodstock the
Speaker 1: mix of woodstock out there, but we were not appreciated
Speaker 1: by the unions and they didn't like the fact that
Speaker 1: New Yorkers because we were two separate editing unions at
Speaker 1: that point and they didn't like us being there. And
Speaker 1: then Marty wanted me to work with him, but I
Speaker 1: the union said no because she's not in our union,
Speaker 1: and she's going to have to start as an apprentice
Speaker 1: for five years and then five years as an assistant
Speaker 1: and then she'll be allowed to just been nominated for
Speaker 1: woodstock for an oscar. So I said, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do it. So he couldn't work with me until
Speaker 1: Raging Bull, when Erwin Winkler, the producer, got me in
Speaker 1: the union. So those films prior to Raging Bull were
Speaker 1: that's where they were. Boxcar, Bertha, Main Streets Alice, New York,
Speaker 1: New York and Taxi Driver. I didn't cut any of
Speaker 1: those movies. Who cut Taxi Driver? Marsha Lucas. The three
Speaker 1: editors were actually working with him. Them. Marsha Lucas, who
Speaker 1: is George Lucas's wife was at the time um so
Speaker 1: he had he was working with multiple editors and sometimes
Speaker 1: editors who did not want the director in the editing room.
Speaker 1: That's why he wanted to work with me again, because
Speaker 1: he felt that. So that's was the impetus of your marriage,
Speaker 1: if you will, with the two of you, yes, because
Speaker 1: he wanted you around. What happened is that he felt
Speaker 1: that from the very beginning that I would be a
Speaker 1: collaborator and I wouldn't be ego. Battles over who's got
Speaker 1: the right idea about this cut or not, which who
Speaker 1: knows more about editing often happens between directors and editors,
Speaker 1: and that's very bad for a movie when that when
Speaker 1: they're fighting or and you made very few movies with
Speaker 1: other attractors, You've only made a couple of correct Allison Andrews,
Speaker 1: you in a movie. Yes, at Marty's request, he was
Speaker 1: executive producing it. So I helped with that. But then
Speaker 1: on Raging Bull, I was allowed to come back as
Speaker 1: long as there was a stand by editor on both coasts.
Speaker 1: But still they terrorized us out there. If we were mixing,
Speaker 1: say until twelve o'clock at night, they would turn on
Speaker 1: the lights of our cars and the radio so that
Speaker 1: our batteries would be dead when we came up that
Speaker 1: went on all the time. We had to get a
Speaker 1: bodyguard from Marty actually um and things like Raging bullshit
Speaker 1: on the squirrel down the walls. But finally that ended
Speaker 1: and now we're all one local, one happy local, and
Speaker 1: there's no problems like that anymore. Well, two things. One
Speaker 1: is roles for women in Marty's films. I mean, women
Speaker 1: have their place in Marty's films because they're you know,
Speaker 1: men are their protagonists and the women like in Raging
Speaker 1: Bull or Casino. And then you see a movie like
Speaker 1: Age of Innocence where he's got a female lead in
Speaker 1: the film and one of the biggest stars of her day.
Speaker 1: Was it different for him to direct women or to
Speaker 1: develop roles for women in his films. I didn't sense that.
Speaker 1: I kind of like the women in those films. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Cathy Moriarity is wonderful and Raging Bull went
Speaker 1: on a writer, is absolutely stunning in Age of Instance,
Speaker 1: And I don't have a problem with the women. I
Speaker 1: am a problem with him. Yeah, he hasn't made a
Speaker 1: lot of films with female leads when I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's maybe that's not his his daily I guess not.
Speaker 1: That's okay now, The last thing I want to ask
Speaker 1: you is there's so many facets to filmmaking. There's so
Speaker 1: many elements to filmmaking. Not just the things that are
Speaker 1: camera centric, you know, like the like the lighting and
Speaker 1: the cutting and everything, but there's wardrobes and sets and
Speaker 1: actors and editing and pacing and stuff where there's so
Speaker 1: much that goes into it. What's a film that comes
Speaker 1: to mind of his when you think about that, all
Speaker 1: those aspects of filmmaking come together in your mind and
Speaker 1: just the sets and then everything, and it's that painting.
Speaker 1: It's art. I always say it's very hard because as
Speaker 1: I hate to have to pick one and I love
Speaker 1: them all for different reasons. But because working on Reagon
Speaker 1: Bull was my first major feature film on a on
Speaker 1: a big Hollywood set, I didn't even know how to
Speaker 1: I'm location, I didn't know how to behave UM. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I had an assistant and I used to put my
Speaker 1: own trims away. Now I have three assistants, and it
Speaker 1: was weird. Marty said, don't worry, I'll help you through it.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. But for me, that movie was so astounding.
Speaker 1: When I saw the dailies, I just couldn't take my
Speaker 1: eyes off to narrow. It was such brilliant direction, such
Speaker 1: brilliant cinematography, the black and white cinematography, such brilliant acting,
Speaker 1: and improvisation. I love improvisation. It's very hard to cut,
Speaker 1: but I love it. And the challenge that that de
Speaker 1: Niro and Paschi gave me was amazing. It was the music,
Speaker 1: the use of music, the power, the strength of the
Speaker 1: movie all over it made it the one that I
Speaker 1: think is actually the perfect film. And I screened it recently.
Speaker 1: I go to Seattle onto the Seattle Art Muse him
Speaker 1: a lot to do, show Michael Powell Films and um
Speaker 1: that we screened a really good print from the Academy
Speaker 1: of Film print of Raging Bill, and I could not
Speaker 1: get over it was burned into the screen. It was
Speaker 1: just one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: So I have to say that that is overall the
Speaker 1: one that I think. Everything just clicked together in an
Speaker 1: amazing way. Do you know that for me, the memories
Speaker 1: of Marty are all the things you say, that opening
Speaker 1: title sequence, the horror of him going into the jail
Speaker 1: cell and punching the wall. That's so it's so you
Speaker 1: know that that that that man. He was. He was
Speaker 1: like a sick animal. And I've known people like that.
Speaker 1: But my other favorite moment, because it's so opaque and
Speaker 1: it's so brilliantly weird, is that moment when de Niro
Speaker 1: tries to brush Lorraine down into that building. He's down there,
Speaker 1: it's down there. We go go on in there. Nothing's
Speaker 1: on the money, nothing said. That gesture, that hand gesture
Speaker 1: is just well, he's He's just amazing, you know. I.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could just look at that film over
Speaker 1: and over again and never get tired of it. It's
Speaker 1: it's because to watch him when he's questioning his brother,
Speaker 1: you know, about his wife. Oh my god, I mean
Speaker 1: the way Bob, what he did with his face there
Speaker 1: is just astounding. Uh. You know, nobody improvises like Bob
Speaker 1: and Joe Peschi together. They kick each other off in
Speaker 1: the most amazing ways that I love it. It's hard,
Speaker 1: but it's like putting a puzzle together, you know, And
Speaker 1: I love that. In a recent interview with The l A. Times,
Speaker 1: Scorsese he equated his and Thelma schoolmakers editing to a
Speaker 1: process so singular that it's quote almost like making home
Speaker 1: movies unquote Lucky for us, they decided to share. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing.