- In a sense, editing a film is doing the final rewrite. It's the chance to change lines or replace them in a different sequence. An editor is also dealing with time, which is more a concern in the musical arts. Only film and music require that an audience comprehend the details of a work of art over a given period of time.
- [about the unexpected success of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)] I won an Academy Award for "Star Wars" before I'd even started thinking about winning an Academy Award.
- [on Obsession (1976)] The film was turned down by every major studio when it was originally finished. I then had the idea of substituting a single shot in the film, and convinced De Palma [director Brian De Palma] and the producer to do it. It was then picked up by Columbia. How changing one shot [switching a wide shot to a close-up of the star] changed the meaning of the story, and transformed a picture no one wanted to distribute into one they did, is an interesting example of the significance of editing.
- [on director Brian De Palma] Brian taught me a lot about the difference between cutting trailers and cutting features. And my two other great teachers were trial and error.
- Context is everything. You can take the most affecting moment of a four-hankie movie and cut it into the middle of a broad comedy, and it will seem absurd. [2019]
- [on writing his book "A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away"] It's really about explaining what it is to be an editor, what kind of life you have if you're an editor. I'm not really interested in how-to books. My aim was to entertain people, tell them a good story and explain what we do. [2019]
- [on his work as an editor] I control the pace for a while. There's a period where I'm acting autonomously. But when the director gets finished with production, we start working together to edit the film to produce the final result. At best, I'd say it's a co-authorship, but I don't want to give myself too much credit because I'm in the idea business. Maybe the director accepts my ideas, and I've been very fortunate in people endorsing my choices to a great extent, but I still wouldn't consider myself an author. [2019]
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