- I think the most wonderful thing about editing
is that you're given all this raw material
and it's your job to make choices.
In this case, along with Scorsese.
Into how to focus the scene.
You know, when do you cut to a closeup?
When do you use wide shots?
A lot of people think editing should be invisible,
but we've never felt that way.
We always like to slap the audience in the face.
I've known him since he was in his last year at New York University.
And worked with him then on his
first feature film called "Who's That Knocking".
But we had been working together on documentaries
about the war in Vietnam
and supporting Martin Luther King.
But that documentary style has affected our work very much.
We like a certain roughness sometimes at
maybe a Hollywood editor wouldn't like.
Hollywood editors tend to like a slick style of editing
where all the bumps are removed,
but sometimes Marty and I like to keep in those bumps.
Because they add a certain grittiness to the film, a certain reality.
Are we like maybe to shock the audience
with a cut they're not expecting.
- One!
Two!
Three!
My name is Jordan Belfort.
Not him.
Me.
- Which will refresh them
and make them look at something in a new way.
- Hi, mom. What do you think?
- There's a scene in "Goodfellas", for example.
The marriage scene.
And it's a Jewish wedding.
And in the Jewish wedding, the groom breaks a glass under his foot.
And the way we cut that, if you look at that sequence,
you'll see, it's very, jaggedly cut
in order to accentuate the violence of the breaking of the glass.
We forcibly made a what was
some people were considering an Orthodox cut or a bad cut.
Some people might consider a bad cut,
but we like that kind of thing.
- Maybe we could work something out.
- That was quick. You think he's dead already?
- You know, Marty usually has a concept drill, I say,
for the whole film.
What we do is we get the first loose cut,
and then we start trying to shape it
in terms of the concept he has.
I jumped on my timeline
and I experiment all the time.
So sometimes I'll give Marty six edits to look at instead of one.
The more jagged abrupt cutting of "Shutter Island", for example.
Because "Shutter Island" was about someone who's deeply disturbed.
We did want to make the cutting jarring and uncomfortable.
- I have to go. - No.
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- When we're in dailies together, that's a very important time for me.
He's very tough about what he will accept from an actor.
He hates any devices that an actor might use,
for example, eyebrows or one of his big things.
He will not allow eyebrows to be moved.
Sometimes, but not usually.
Because he feels that's fake and that's a crutch.
Let me put it that way.
Part of, uh, an editor's job
is to make sure an actor's performance is properly put together
so that it works on the screen.
In "Irishman", the powerful scene in which he says, I have to call Hoffa's wife
after he has killed Hoffa.
- I should call Jo.
- You haven't called Jo yet?
- Hello.
- Hello?
- Hello.
- Jo. Jo.
- And there's a jump cut there,
which you normally are not supposed to do.
- Yeah.
- But the take in which DeNiro hears her voice on the phone,
she says, hello, was so perfect.
And then the take where he actually carries out the whole conversation
with her was from another take.
And we tried to morph it.
We can do that sometimes.
We can make it look as if there isn't a cut.
But we finally gave up and Marty said, just leave it as a jump cut.
So we did.
- Hello? - Hello.
Jo. Jo.
Yeah. Yeah.
- There are quite a few jump cuts in this movie.
- What are you going to do now, Jimmy?
- Well, the first thing I'm going to do is register
with the Federal Probation Office,
then I'm going down to Florida with my wife.
- And that was his concept for the film stripped down.
- Very plain.
No fancy editing.
No fancy camera moves.
The violence very quick.
Over with quickly
and shot very blandly often in wide shots.
He wanted the movie very, very simple
so that the characters were what you latch on to.
- ...your million-five, whatever it is,
But mine's gone?
- Yeah. Mine's still there.
- But we're both in here.
- That's right. Only we're sitting here for different things.
You're sitting here for extortion.
I'm sitting here for fraud.
- What's the difference?
- I didn't threaten anybody. You did.
- That makes no sense. - What do you mean?
- Think about it. - I'm thinking about it.
Don't f*ck with me. Just do something about it.
- What do you mean do something about it?
- One of the things Marty's always encouraged us to do
is to sometimes hold just a little bit too long.
Where the audience is beginning to get a little worried.
- Franky.
We did all we could for the man.
- That happens earlier in the movie
where the DeNiro character has been hired to blow up a laundry.
And then he's called about it by Harvey Keitel.
- What're you doing in Delaware?
- Bombing out a laundry place.
- And the editing and that scene is very slow.
Because the deadly pauses is making you understand
that DeNiro realizes he's in big trouble.
- Putting this place out of commission.
- For who?
Now is not the time to not say.
- So normally you would have cut that scene faster,
but the richness of the acting,
it was our job to make sure that we honored that
and that we got the absolute best thing of it.
I think editors need a strong sense of discipline.
A musical sense,
which fortunately I had.
I had been trained to play instruments and the piano.
So that is very important.
- And the winner is
Thelma Schoonmaker.
- But you also have to not let your ego play too much of a role
in this because your job is to do what's right for the film.
They have the best job in the world.
I mean, I... collaborating with Marty is so special.
Anyone who works with him will tell you this.
I mean, the reward is huge.
You work terribly hard, it's exhausting,
but it is worth it.
I just want to go on and on as long as I can.
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