Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/462877
46 CINEMONTAGE / WINTER 2015 As everyone in the industry is well aware, Columbia Pictures' The Interview was the cause célèbre of the just-passed holiday season — yet no one in the press writing ad nauseam about the hot-button movie ever got around to asking the editors for comment. Until now. And contrary to popular perception, the editors say they were not forced to make changes to the film in the cutting room for political reasons before its limited release in theatres and by digital video-on-demand in late December. "There was absolutely no censorship on the movie in editorial," claims picture editor Zene Baker in a recent exclusive interview with CineMontage. "We knew that there would always be controversy, but there never was a moment when anyone said, 'We need to scale this back,' or 'You have to cut this down,' 'You have to take this joke out,' 'That's too offensive' — none of that happened.'" Baker and co-editor Henke gave separate interviews to CineMontage on their role in editing the film, a screwball comedy directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg that depicts the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. This grim chapter in Hollywood history ensued in December, when Sony Pictures Entertainment made the last-minute and unprecedented announcement to pull the film from theatrical release, with no further plan for its distribution, after the studio's computer system had been hacked and the hackers later threatened 9/11-style violence in cinemas that screened the film, causing the country's four largest theatre chains to decline to show The Interview. After online outrage about the decision, as well as sharp criticism of Sony by free-speech advocates, Hollywood stars and even the White House, the studio ultimately relented, making the film available for digital streaming and download on Christmas Eve, and releasing it in some 300 independent theatres on Christmas Day. "I've been on 'special' or controversial films before," Henke explains. "I was on Inglourious Basterds [as first assistant editor]. But never has a film I'd worked on taken over the cultural landscape like this. Everyone is talking about this film — and it's definitely broadened the conversation about North Korea." When news of The Interview moved off the arts page and onto the front page, and Sony suffered the domestic brickbats, Baker Previous spread: Zene Baker, left, and Evan Henke, photographed at The Lot, Hollywood. Zene Baker. by A.J. Catoline portraits by Wm. Stetz F ilm editing may be known as "the invisible art," but picture editors Zene Baker and Evan Henke never expected that all their work cutting The Interview was in danger of becoming invisible itself.