Thelma Schoonmaker Given Coolidge Award
Scorsese collaborator honored for work in film editing
By: Charles Giuliano - Apr 12, 2007
Last night, the feisty Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts, which is about to enter its 75th year of screening movies, presented its fourth annual Coolidge Award, for lifetime achievement in film editing, to three time Academy Award recipient and long time Martin Scorsese collaborator, Thelma Schoonmaker. Recently, they won Academy Awards for "The Departed" which was shot on location in Boston and modeled on fugitive hood and former FBI informant, Whitey Bulger. She has been nominated for her work on "Gangs of New York" "Goodfellas" and "Woodstock" and won Academy Awards for "The Departed" "The Aviator" and "Raging Bull."
During a speech accepting The Coolidge Award, Schoonmaker informed the audience that when "Marty was scouting locations for the film in South Boston during the summer he was horrified to find trees and grass. 'This doesn't look like a ghetto,' he said. Marty hates trees and grass." She also informed us that Scorsese's friend, Stephen Spielberg, warned him not to film anyone wearing Red Sox baseball caps. "But Marty used lots of Red Sox caps in the film."
Leading up to her warm and insightful remarks several individuals associated with the non profit theatre read letters in tribute to her by actor, Daniel Day Lewis, who worked with her on "Gangs of New York" and "Age of Innocence," screenwriter, Jay Cocks, who wrote "Age of Innocence" and "Gangs of New York," actress Lorraine Bracco, who appeared in "Goodfellas," screenwriter, Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote "Goodfellas" and "Casino." Composer Howard Shore who worked on "The Aviator" and "Gangs of New York" flew in from Toronto where he is working on a film to pay tribute to an old friend and collaborator. Tonight, the program continues with a screening of "The Departed" followed by a panel discussion and, weather permitting, Schoonmaker stated that Scorsese was planning to attend.
This represents quite an accomplishment for a small, local, movie house to attract such legendary figures through its ambitious programming. The Coolidge Award was initiated in 2004 honoring Foreign Language Film Director Zhang Yimou. In 2005 the award focused on Cinematography recognizing a master of lighting, Vittorio Storano. Last year's Coolidge Award was presented to actress Meryl Streep. Significantly, the committee decision to honor Schoonmaker was made last November well before "The Departed" was nominated during the busy awards season.
Interspersed between the testimonials were segments of clips from a selection of key moments from her many films. It started with one of her first efforts "Woodstock." That film famously pioneered the split screen technique with innovative impact. While some 500,000 individuals actually attended three days of love, peace and happiness in Bethel, New York, including myself, based on that marvelous film, the number of those who claim to have been there has swelled to an entire generation of the "Woodstock Nation." It is the best kind of tribute to the power of film to change our lives.
It was particularly poignant to be sitting in the restored Art Deco theatre as it was my local movie house as a kid growing up in Brookline. We lived on Beacon Street about equidistant to two theatres, The Coolidge Corner, and Cleveland Circle. There was also the wonderful and exotic The Egyptian a short drive away in Brighton. It was built like an Egyptian tomb and it was there that, appropriately, I saw the wonderful production of "King Solomon's Mines." Unfortunately, that theatre disappeared as have so many of the great period palaces when movies were so much a part of American life. The new theatres, such as the recently opened North Adams Movieplex, have none of the fantasy and romance of those movie palaces of old. Significantly, the Coolidge was built during the Depression when Americans longed for relief from hard times and found it in the escape of the silver screen. Today, the Coolidge interior, except for comfortable new seats, looks just like it did when I was a goggle eyed kid munching on pop corn in the dark. My friend Mark Favermann has designed the Art Deco marquee which makes the old theatre such a landmark. A maquette of his design has also been created as the award given to Coolidge recipients.
Last night, through a series of clips and her remarks, we learned something about film editing and its crucial role in the success or failure of a film. Out of the bits and pieces shot by the director she shapes and gives structure and rhythm to the film. She warmly described the great material provided to her by "Marty" and the superb performances of the actors and their characters. But there is a larger mandate to tell the story and combine all the post production elements such as music and color processing as well as digital editing. The clips from "Raging Bull" and "The Aviator" powerfully conveyed her role and its importance to realizing the vision of her great friend and collaborator.
We also learned the amazing role that raw luck had in forming her career. Originally she studied Russian and aspired to the Foreign Service but was turned down as too radical in her political thinking. She answered an ad for a horrible job helping to cut, in reality, hack up foreign films for late night screening on a television station. She hated doing that to a film but it gave her hands on experience of cutting or chopping up a film. During a summer school course on filmmaking at Columbia a fellow student was desperate. The instructor asked if anyone knew how to cut film. She volunteered to help and the fellow student was Martin Scorsese. They have been working together ever since. Thank God.