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Master of the Hidden Cut
A Conversation with Editor Anne Coates
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During her more than 50 years in the craft, film editor Anne Coates has been a stealth collaborator and ally to many of the world's finest directors including Sidney Lumet, David Lynch, Milos Forman, Lawrence Kasdan and Steven Soderbergh. She has left her mark on a remarkable catalogue of films that contains more gems than the crown jewels of merry old England. Starting with The Pickwick Papers in 1954, Coates went on to edit such films as The Horse's Mouth, Lawrence of Arabia (for which she won an Oscar), Becket, The Elephant Man, Ragtime, Chaplin, In The Line of Fire, Out of Sight and Erin Brockovich.
Easygoing and totally unpretentious, Anne Coates is mindful of her good fortune, and will quickly tell you how lucky she is. Still, while luck may have played its part in her success, it can't possibly sustain a career marked by such a consistent level of excellence. Not one to sit around and analyze how she does what she does, Coates is more or less an intuitive artist. Her creativity comes forward in the thick of the process. Currently on the set of Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful, she talked about her Lawrence, Lean and getting off the ground in the unforgettable Red Shoes.
MM: You like to spend time on the set when cutting a picture. Why is that?
AC: Watching the director work helps me hugely because generally they don't have the time to tell you what they're thinking when they are in dailies or rushing from one place to another. But when you see them on the floor they'll often come up and talk to you about the scene they're doing. You see them directing the artists, so you see what they don't like and even though you don't necessarily hear what they're saying you can see the difference in the performances.
MM: When you think about your early work, what are some of things you remember learning?
AC: Well I was lucky with the first film that I worked on as an assistant which was called End of The River, which Mickey Powell and Emerich Pressburger produced because, unfortunately for the editor, they didn't like his work very much so Regi Mills, who was at that time cutting The Red Shoes - and one of the top editors in the world - took it over.
And, for some reason, he didn't want the first assistant to go up with him with the film. He wanted the second assistant, which was me. So I worked directly with him and of course learned a huge amount about editing, about storytelling and what was important.
MM: When you're working in different genres do you find that your approach to the cutting changes?
AC: I think so yes. I try very hard not to have a style, though I'm sure that to some extent everybody has a style. I like cutting quickly, and certainly today, the way stories are told, you can do that more and more; it's the influence of music videos and commercials. I worked with a director some years ago who was very slow - having come from theater - and I actually recommended that he go and do a few commercials and learn to tell a story in a minute, because I think that's wonderful training. It's wonderful training for editors too.
MM: Having worked with so many outstanding directors, what sort of advice might you give to new directors.
AC: People storyboard a lot these days and pre-visualize the way they see a scene going - which is commendable, I like that - but you've always got to allow for the fact that when you get the whole film together, a given scene may be too long or extraneous; you may find that it says what another scene later on says, so that you want to cut it down or use it in another place.
MM: How much time do you think you spend cutting versus just thinking about the film?
AC: That's interesting. I never really thought about it. They're interlocked with each other. I think about a scene before I start it and then, if I don't like the way it's going, I'll stop and rethink it. For me, a lot of the thinking time comes as I cut. I'm quite fast on the machine, but I can't fly as some people can. Though I cut quite fast, so I can think as I work. I came up working that way - with time to think, to talk to the director - but you don't see that as much these days. I sit with my back to the director, who will sit. Steven Soderbergh used to lie back on the sofa a lot of the time and talk to me.
I find a lack of communication is not good. Just chatting is good, it doesn't necessary have to be about what's happening. You can learn a lot by just talking to someone. I had a wonderful time with Steven Soderbergh because he is a walking encyclopedia. He used to talk about the old British films for hours; it was really great for me.
MM: How do you generally work with sound and music? How do you allow for the fact that it will change what you've done, change how a scene plays?
AC: You don't often get the chance to work on things like Lawrence of Arabia, where you have big open spaces for music and sound, but I often put a shot on the end or leave a little something on the beginning or even in the middle where I want a particular sound effect to come to enhance something. A simple example would be a bell in the distance that you want to create the mood; you might leave a little pause for that.
Music is very important but I think that 99 percent of the films made today have too much music; I don't like wall-to-wall music. If the emotion is there and the scene is playing, why throw music all over it? I find it really irritating and disturbing actually. [Music] should enhance the film. Steven Soderbergh had a very definite idea of what kind of music he wanted; you couldn't really put something on a scene that you liked unless it was really what he wanted.
MM: Any general thought on the way you open a film? I would think that you're going to be fairly concerned to set the right tone and pull your audience in as strongly as you can.
AC: Well, there have been so many. Erin Brockovich opens with a clasp of Julia [Robert's] face, which was extremely effective. If you've got Julia Roberts looking somewhat bedazzled, with her hair all fluffy, that's a very arresting opening to a movie. I don't think you necessarily need a lot of padding.
MM: When you use landscape or exteriors in a film - like for example the shot of the waterfall in the jungle interior in Farewell to the King - are you using them consciously to make a story point of some kind, or perhaps going by feel?
AC: They're generally related to the storytelling, or they should be. Setting the scene, giving you the atmosphere for the story; they shouldn't just be pretty pictures. They should be telling part of the story and you should use them that way. That's where somebody like David Lean was so brilliant because he could have those big expenses and then have two people in close up talking or whatever, in front of it.
MM: He was also brilliant with the POV shot, really bringing you into sympathy with a character by showing you his or her world. The power of POV seems sometimes overlooked or underutilized.
AC: Funny enough, there is a very interesting POV shot in [Unfaithful]. I hadn't visualized it when I read the script first - it wasn't a POV - and I hadn't registered that that was what it was. Interesting things like that Adrian will introduce into the film. I do agree with you, I think that it's very effective at times. I think a lot of long shots should tell that, even if they are not exact points of view; they should be a point-of-view for the storyteller, in any case.
MM: Do you ever concern yourself with what the production designer's agenda is?
AC: Not generally speaking. An interesting thing - going back to Lawrence of Arabia again - is the shot when Ali comes out of the mirage: if you look at the desert, John Box, who is a brilliant, added a bit of color to a strip of sand leading up to the horizon line; it leads your eye toward Ali as he approaches. These are the things that art directors do. That's a blatant example, but I think that art directors do that kind of thing in the smaller and more subtle way. It's getting exactly the right place for the prop. So, you do work closely with the production designer and with the cameraman. The cameraman will sometimes talk to me about a series of shots, and what he's trying to accomplish, which is why I find it helpful to visit the [set].
MM: How important can a single frame be for you as an editor?
AC: (Laughs) I'll tell you a funny story really that happened years ago on Lawrence of Arabia. David and I were having a little disagreement about where to cut on a very simple shot of someone going through a door and coming into a room. I felt you wanted to be surprised at where the subject was going. David wanted to cut it in a sort of conventional way, halfway through the door. We talked about it for a bit and ended up discussing which frame to cut on. He said that there was only one right frame to cut on and I said "Well, in that case, if I have a right frame and you have a right frame, who is right?' and he said "I'm the director, so mine is!' (Laughs) Of course, a frame is important, but you can't spend hours going crazy thinking about your frame - you just have an instinct about it.
MM: What have you learned about communicating with the director?
AC: Patience is one of the first things you learn. (laughs) I used to not think about what I was saying and fly off, but now I've toned down. You have to establish that relationship, find out where they're going and what their idea of film is. I'll hear the director talking to the actors when watching the dailies, in those moments before or after a take. He's near the mike and his comments come through. Mostly you talk to the director about the way he visualizes the film, but they don't necessarily tell you how to do it. They're employing you to come with your ideas.
MM: What do the best directors have in common?
AC: I think it's enthusiasm. Most of them have it in a way, but some have a bit extra. They really love their work; it comes through to you more.
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