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“In a way, I’ve never looked at myself as a woman in the business. I’ve just looked at myself as an editor.” — Anne V. Coates, #BOTD, responsible for one of the most famous cuts in cinema. "Is there any reason we can't just leave it as is?" she and David Lean said to each other.
One of the best gigs I've ever had was being asked to write the narration (read by Diane Lane) for the tribute reel played at Anne Coates’ Lifetime Achievement Oscar ceremony. What an honor.
David Lean said that Coates was the only editor he worked with where he watched her first pass on a sequence and didn’t change it b/c it was how he would have done it.
Lawrence of Arabia was just the beginning. Her final editing gig was 50 Shades! When asked what she thought of the film, she said, "I thought it should have been more raunchy." You and me both, Anne.
Here's one of my favorite sequences edited by Anne Coates - she spoke a lot about how they decided to put together this scene in Out of Sight - which nobody forgets, once they've seen it.
I love that Scorsese put Anne Coates in THE AVIATOR as one of the over-worked editors for Hell's Angels.
Coates' work is memorable for its boldness. The Lawrence cut. Diane Lane’s train scene in Unfaithful - another fave - great acting, but the editing makes it. AC did not play it safe. She talked a lot about feeling the rhythm of a scene. She died in 2018. Attention must be paid.
Oh, and after "the cut" comes an equally famous dissolve, to-die-for. I could go on and on. Look up her credits, and think about the editing choices she made. Directors chose her for her boldness/rhythm. So many good sequences.
One more clip from Anne Coates' career: from THE ELEPHANT MAN. There's the famous shot starting at around the 1:30 mark: now of course film is a collaboration, you can't assign full responsibility to just one individual - HOWEVER: (to be cont.)
... a shot like that is one of the reasons why she was known as an "actor's editor." She did not make unnecessary cuts. She REALLY cared about performance, and the integrity of the performance. And so the "reveal" of the Elephant Man is only on Anthony Hopkins' face.
