Thelma Schoonmaker is an American film editor. She was born on January 3, 1940, in Algiers which at that time was part of French Algeria. During World War II, her family had to evacuate to Aruba. She also spent part of her childhood in Portugal.
In 1957, she began studying political science and Russian at Cornell University.
She began working in film editing during her postgraduate studies at Columbia University. At first, she edited European films to bring their timing in line with television length standards in the United States. She later enrolled in a 6-week filmmaker's course at New York University, where she met Martin Scorsese. She is best known for her collaboration with this director. This is what she said about working with him: "He is a great editor and taught me everything. He felt he could work with me; that it would be a collaboration, it wouldn't become an ego battle. If we have a significant difference, we screen it his way and then my way with friends. We ask them what they think and make a decision. But that happens rarely.(Giardina 2017).
Their first film together was "What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?".Her career was difficult at the beginning because the Motion Picture Editors Guild did not want to accept her without five years as an apprentice and three as an assistant, and without it she could not work on feature films. In the 1980s, thanks to Scorsese's help, it was finally accepted into the Union.
She was awarded an Oscar three times: in 1980 for "Ragging Bull", in 2004 for "The Aviator" and in 2006 for "The Departed". Three of her films were included in the list of the best edited films of all time published by the Motion Picture Editors Guild.Her editing approach is sometimes referred to as "postmodern," because she combines classical continuity editing with more independent forms such as music-video editing, varied montages, jump cuts, temporal ellipses, and so on. All of these odd tactics were successfully incorporated into a narrative film. Schoonmaker's technique is often regarded as very original, intricate, and ever-changing.
“ People intuitively understand what directors, actors and cinematographers do, but not so much the job of an editor,”(Barborová, 2012).
References
Giardina, C. (2017). Marty’s Major Right-Hand: Film editor Thelma Schoonmaker’s epic collaboration. Hollywood Reporter, 423(4), 85.
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