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" I just happened to see an ad saying 'Willing to train an assistant editor,' and I learned enough from that to go to NYU for just one summer course. That's all that I could afford. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Summer
Enough
Go
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" I do think there's not enough film history being taught and appreciated. Maybe it's being taught, but I've heard from professors that young kids don't want to look at black-and-white movies. And that's 85 years of film history, with masterpiece after masterpiece. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Look
Think
Black-And-White
" I think everyone loves 'The Departed.' That was a movie that had a lot of problems structurally. And we had to battle with it. Fight. Experiment. Try different things. And I think finally we hit it. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Battle
Think
Fight
" Scorsese has very defined ideas about how to shoot a scene, and he's an editor himself - we cut together. It means he's constantly thinking about my problems while he's filming. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Together
Problems
Ideas
" Editing is really like plumbing a good deal of the time. You put two things together, and a current runs through it. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Time
Editing
Good
" Throwing things out is one of the most difficult and important things you ever have to do. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Difficult
Most
Things
" Cutting improvisation is really hard, because things don't match, and you end up with some bad cuts sometimes. But we'd rather have the bad cuts and the great improv. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Bad
You
Sometimes
" An actor's performance can be improved or shaped - or ruined - by what takes you use, how long you are on the actor's face, what line you put on the other actor's face, and when do you use close-ups or wide shots or two shots. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Line
You
Two
" Film, if properly cared for, will last almost 100 years, but digital will not. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Digital
Almost
Film
" When you're a film-maker, sometimes you have to be a slave to continuity. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Continuity
You
Sometimes
" In 'Silence,' there was no improvisation at all; really, you're dealing with a script and a 17th century way of speaking. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Really
Improvisation
Silence
" There are more women editors than people realise. I think we're more able to keep our eye on what the film needs. Between men, sometimes it's a real ego battle, and that's very bad for the film. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Ego
Eye
Men
" In 'Casino,' there was this scene where Bob De Niro tape-records Sharon Stone's phone call. Then he asks her about where she's going, and he catches her in a lie. It was a great scene, especially for Bob's work, but we found that, in light of the whole film, it wasn't needed. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Stone
Work
Great
" You have to have a great director to make a great movie. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
You
Make
Director
" With Technicolor restorations, it's about getting the color right. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
About
Getting
Color
" I started in documentaries, and that was a great help to me with improvisation, because with documentaries, you're handed a big lump of footage, and you have to shape it and make it into a story - which I love doing. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Great
You
Story
" In certain fight scenes in 'Raging Bull' - for example, the shorter ones - I literally just took the head and tail of the shot and put it together, and it all worked beautifully. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Head
Bull
Example
" The difference between a film that ends up three hours and a film that is envisioned as three hours is that it's written that way. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Film
Hours
Three
" From the moment I met Martin Scorsese in 1962, he educated me about the films that had taught him so much about filmmaking. He had been deeply affected, even as a child, by great films that stretched his mind and struck into his heart, and he was eager to share them with friends and people who worked with him or with actors who were in his films. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Heart
Me
Moment
" I won the Oscar for 'Raging Bull' for those fight sequences. If you look at those fight sequences, those were so incredibly storyboarded and shot in an incredible way - that is the conception a good director has to bring. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Good
Way
You
" Some young filmmakers, unfortunately, don't have the ability to resist attempts to maybe cut their films down unfairly. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Ability
Young
Some
" That's the great thing about filmmaking: Things happen you don't know are going to happen at the end. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
End
Know
Great
" I don't think you can be a great director without knowing a lot about editing. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Great
Knowing
Lot
" I know a lot of editors who are very bitter about the directors they work with. They feel they could have done a better job, and I say to them, 'Oh really? Why don't you go try - it's not easy.' "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Know
You
Better
" I can access footage much quicker, yes. But in terms of living with a film and knowing what's right, digital doesn't do that for you. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Digital
You
Living
" Having been raised overseas, I wanted to become a diplomat. But the State Department thought I was too 'liberal' to be happy with that job. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Liberal
Be Happy
Thought
" I have a great relationship and the highest respect for Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio. But working with De Niro has been simply incredible. While I was editing 'Raging Bull,' I was literally unable to take my eyes off him. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Relationship
Great
Eyes
" We do documentaries on the history of cinema in between our feature films. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Documentaries
History
Our
" If I hadn't met Scorsese, I would never have become a filmmaker. He has taught me everything I know about editing and has given me the best job in the world. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Me
Know
Best
" One of our big tools is screening. We screen usually 12 times, which is much more than most filmmakers do, and we recut in between each one, because we really need to feel how the audience is reacting to the movie. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Tools
Audience
Big
" I love being around great artists, and I've been around a few of them. "
Thelma Schoonmaker
Love
Great
Few