Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1512899
Where are you working? Does it vary from film to film? "It depends on the movie. Sometimes, if I'm on location, I can be very close or maybe half an hour away, depending on the facilities available. But on Killers, I couldn't be in Oklahoma because of COVID, and Apple had a very excellent system of keeping everybody safe from COVID, and they wanted as few people as possible in Oklahoma, so we stayed in New York, and Marty and I would look at dailies on Zoom all the time. That worked out fine, and I've done that before. When he was shooting in Morocco, for example, on two films, I couldn't go to Morocco, so we work it out. It's not really a problem." What is your preferred editing system? "I work on Lightworks, actually. I was trained on it by a very excellent fellow editor of mine — Scott Brock. He trained me on it and I liked it. And because he stayed with us, and worked on all our films, he's been able to support me and keep it going. And there are certain things I love about it, so we've [used] it for many, many years." Is there a scene that you would call attention to in this film? "Yes, (the) brilliant speech by Everett Waller, who plays Paul Red Eagle in the tribal council. He's the assistant chief. It was terribly hot down there, and he was going into his camper, just to get a little break from the heat, and Marty said to Everett, 'Could you speak to the people who are in the tribal council here, so we can shoot some cutaways of their reac- tions?' And when he started to speak, he was so powerful that Marty decided to shoot him on-camera — completely unscripted at all. It's his beautiful use of the language and his intense passion for what the indigenous natives of America have gone through with us taking their land away from them. It's so beautiful. And then Marty said, maybe we should keep the strength up of this beautiful speech, (and) intercut it with the autopsy of Anna, who has been murdered, and then go back to the rest of his speech. And that way, I think, we gave the sec- ond part of it as much power of the first part. So that was an interesting decision in the editing room." I thought the passing of Molly's mother was also an interesting and powerful edit. "That's right! Being 'taken home' is what they call it — being taken home by her ancestors. The man you see first, with the beautiful orange paint on his face and the headdress, and then her parents are standing, waiting for her to join them, too. They have a beautiful smile on their face, and she has a beautiful smile on her face as she passes them, because she is back with her parents again. Yeah, it's such a beautiful moment. Marty did it so simply, and it just works like crazy. I mean, it's my favorite thing in the movie." Then it cuts back to the real world. "Her children are grieving — everybody is grieving. It's beautiful. Absolutely. And the way the young ancestor, who ges- tures to her at first, that's based on a fa- mous painting of an Osage. Every eˆort was made to make sure that was all very authentic. It's a beautiful idea, that they come to take her home. And Marty just wanted to hold on the shot as she joins her parents and they walk oˆ together into the beautiful countryside. It's just a lovely way to do the passing." This film, perhaps unintentionally, has brought up the conversation of using intermissions. Do you have any thoughts on that? "Most of the people I've talked to have no problem with the length at all. They love the movie. So that is really wonderful. With The Irishman, and the build you see in these longer movies, it's the build that's important — the slow build that is aˆecting you and you don't even know it. To put an intermission in would break that build. "With something like Lawrence of Arabia…they were carefully crafted to have an intermission. They were specif- ically shot a certain way so there would be one. Whereas this film has a beautiful, slow build to it. That is very important. An intermission was never planned for this movie — ever!" I understand that your late husband's work is very important to you? "I have a pet [project], which is the diaries of my husband, Michael Powell. They're very, very important, and I'm working to get them published. Any time I'm not editing, that's what I'm doing." EDITING www.postmagazine.com 37 POST NOV/DEC 2023 Lily Gladstone, who plays Mollie, with director Martin Scorsese during production.