to mind where you really admire how they were put together as well as other editors whose work you admire?
CB: Films that specifically hit me were Day of the Jackal, Fred Zinnemann’s film, edited by Ralph Kemplen. That film to me is a masterpiece. You know what the outcome is going to be because Charles de Gaulle did not die. And yet, the tension is unbelievably great. The rawness, the documentary quality of it all, the performances, it’s a beautiful piece of work. In the Name of the Father, Gerry Hambling’s editing work. Everything I ever saw Gerry Hambling do was so strong. A film that I think is absolutely wonderful and it is all about editing is Duel, edited by Frank Morriss—good God, it’s beautiful. And I liked Charley Varrick. And I was also influenced by Dede Allen’s work in the ‘60’s. Jim Clark for Darling and The Killing Fields.
TO: If you weren’t editing what would you be doing?
CB: Cinematography still holds that fascination. I’m not sure. Medical? Airline Pilot? (Both laugh)
Richard Chew, ACE
Los Angeles, CA
Partial Credits: Music, War and Love, The Way, The Runaways, Bobby, The New World, I Am Sam, Shanghai Noon, Hope Floats, That Thing You Do!, Waiting to Exhale, Singles, Men Don’t Leave, Clean and Sober, Real Genius, Risky Business, My Favorite Year, Goin’ South, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Conversation, The Redwoods (Documentary Short).
Richard has had an amazing career and is still at the top of his game. The first feature? The Conversation, working alongside Walter Murch. Then Cuckoo’s Nest. Then Star Wars. All back to back! Each decade has brought memorable films and timeless work from this soft-spoken and talented editor.
TO: Richard, you are an Academy Award and two-time BAFTA recipient for Best Editing. You received your Academy Award for Star Wars and your BAFTA Awards for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Conversation. What led you to editing?
RC: I really enjoyed shooting documentaries, interacting with those subjects and travelling and seeing places as a cameraman. I shot a documentary called The Redwoods, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary short back in 1967.
TO: I didn’t know that.
RC: When I got into the editing room with Trevor Greenwood, who was the director, he showed me what he was doing with the images. And the images took on a different meaning in editing than when I was on location shooting. You can talk about it. You can read about it. Then when you’re doing it, you become intoxicated with the power of it.
TO: You’ve edited many different genres. Do you have a favorite?
RC: I would probably favor comedy because you have to be so much more adept at timing. Comedy has its own subtleties and timing. My new interest is a style of narrative and I think it’s nonlinear versus linear storytelling.
TO: Can you explain?
RC: Well, the moviegoer has been conditioned to see stories in a linear fashion.
TO: Beginning, middle, and end.
RC: Right. Something happens to our protagonist and there’s a conflict and this is what he does in response to it. And then the villain does this, the protagonist does that, and there’s a resolution and an ending. In the last 10 to 15 years, we’ve seen the growth of much more sophisticated storytelling. You take these events that seemingly are not associated with each other at the beginning of the film and you begin to interweave them in a way that makes sense to you at the end of the picture—like Babel.
TO: Great example. In the past, audiences could understand flashbacks and then flash- forwards, but it took some conditioning.
RC: It’s much more demanding of the viewer.
TO: 1973 to 1977. The Conversation, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Star Wars.
RC: I was in the Bay Area when Francis Coppola, Milos Forman, and George Lucas were in the prime of their careers. What sticks in my mind is how much I learned from each of those films and those directors. I was pretty naïve about the power of editing.
TO: Can you give some examples?
RC: I had the good fortune to work with Walter Murch on The Conversation. I began to put together the first cut because e Walter was unavailable. After I put the film together in the order that it was scripted, Walter showed me, with the encouragement of Coppola, how to restructure the scenes and create scenes from fragments of other scenes. And we worked on that film for almost a year and a half.
TO: What do you think when you see the film today?
RC: What I learned when I see it now is the flexibility—the plasticity—of structure and how editing can accomplish that. On Cuckoo’s Nest, Milos Forman is a director who is a really good editor. And I learned how to use reaction shots. How to use the characters that did not have dialogue and incorporate them into a scene. On the ward, most of the dialogue was from the McMurphy character—Jack Nichols on—and Nurse Ratched. Milos taught me where to put the reaction shots of the other patients —Billy Bibbit, Cheswick, Harding— these other people who then contributed to the atmosphere of Nurse Ratched’s dominance of the ward.
TO: The reaction shots are so perfectly placed throughout that film.
RC: Yeah. And I thought it was wonderful—you’re advancing the story and the characters by the use of these wordless moments. Milos shot all these other characters with two cameras. If the main camera was on Jack Nicholson, then a second camera would be on Brad Dourif, who played Billy Bibbit, as an example.
TO: Real Genius is like that as well—characters react without saying anything and it is very funny.
RC: Right. On Star Wars, what I learned was the power of cross-cutting. When I was putting together the first cut, especially the opening third of the movie when the Storm Troopers invade Princess Leia’s spacecraft, the script had them as extended scenes. In working with my co-editor Marcia Lucas, I learned the power of cross-cutting from her. We broke up those extended scenes into sections that were ten to twelve seconds long. And then we would intercut them as parallel action. So, that was a new device for me to learn how to use. When I think back, not only did I have the chance of working with really good directors, but also with really good editors. Whether it was Walter Murch or Paul Hirsch or Marcia Lucas or Lynzee Klingman. It was a wonderful way for me to start my feature career.
TO: With Star Wars, were you surprised at winning?
RC: Yes. Some of the other nominees that year were Michael Kahn and Walter Murch. These guys are kinda superstar editors. It’s really a tribute to George Lucas, his imagination, his unique vision.
TO: Bobby is a great film. It didn’t get the attention it deserved.
RC: It was a remarkable experience. Another one that has endured is the sequence in Risky Business where Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay make love on the train. And I think that people react to the sensuality of it. It’s very mesmerizing and seductive.
TO: Are there
