The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
‘WE ARE ESSENTIAL, AND WHAT WE DO IS UNIQUE’
American Cinema Editors career achievement honoree Richard Chew looks back on his favorite film memories — and shares concerns about where the industry is heading
Richard Chew’s body of work includes iconic films such as Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, for which he earned a BAFTA Award (shared with Walter Murch); Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, for which he earned another BAFTA (shared with Lynzee Klingman and Sheldon Kahn); and Star Wars, which delivered an Oscar to Chew, Marcia
Lucas and Paul Hirsch. Actors turned directors have also gravitated toward the skilled and humble editor, including Jack Nicholson (Goin’ South), Forest Whitaker (Waiting to Exhale, Hope Floats) and Tom Hanks (That Thing You Do!). Here are some of his experiences.
On working as a camera operator at Woodstock
My first industry experience was as a documentary cameraman. I had the good fortune of being a last-minute replacement at Woodstock. I don’t think anybody anticipated the scale of it. But among the people I got to see and be within 10, 20 feet of was The Who, and to see Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend onstage — I had never anticipated that.
On working with Jack Nicholson in Mexico
I met Jack Nicholson on the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and several years later he offered me the job to edit Goin’ South. We went on location in Mexico. Jack lived in a grand hacienda, and that’s where the editing rooms were set up. On weekends, he would host dinners and invite cast, some department heads, different people. Jack liked to hold court, and he was brilliant at that.
Once in a while, he would call me out to the set, and [on one of those days] — it was probably July or August, so it was hot — we were going to ride back to town at the end of the shooting day. It started to rain and Jack asked his longtime driver to stop [the RV]. He pulled over and Jack said to [DP Néstor Almendros] and me, “This is going to be great.” He has us climb up the ladder on the side of the RV, gets into the middle, and he has us lay down on both sides of him. He said, “Hold on to the railing.” I grabbed the side rail. Jack linked arms with Néstor on one side, me on the other, and then Jack shouted, “Let’s go!” It was raining and we started going down this two-lane highway, and Jack said, “Isn’t that great?” Then
Jack said, “OK, guys, let’s sit up.” I don’t know how fast we were going; it seemed like 50 miles an hour and those raindrops were like needles digging into our faces. And I’m thinking, “This is crazy.” I mean, come on, I’m with Jack Nicholson riding like this.
On editing Star Wars
It was a walk in the dark, really. When you think of it, it was fabricated in the pre-digital age. Our editing team was up in San Rafael, which is where the initial Lucasfilm headquarters and Industrial Light & Magic were based in a warehouse. [Fellow editors] Marcia Lucas and Paul Hirsch and myself were working on different sections of the film. George [Lucas] assigned to me the sequence where Han and Luke and Princess Leia, along with Chewy, jump onto the Millennium Falcon and try to escape, and they have to shoot the TIE fighters. Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford were in separate shots against a greenscreen. Princess Leia and Chewbacca are looking out the cockpit windows, and that’s also greenscreen. They’re reacting to directions from George from offscreen on which way to turn and which way to look up. When George asked me to put it together, I had to follow the cues of the direction. It was a pretty crazy exercise for me, having come off straight dramatic films.
It was my third “movie movie” — it was a job, it wasn’t trying to create something iconic. I remember after one screening, we were looking at a couple of reels that included the robots. I’m a much more literal guy than George, and George has this fantastic mind. After the screening, I remember making some crack to George, like, “Well, you know, if it doesn’t work out, you could also market some toys based on what these guys look like.”
On the state of the industry
I’m deeply concerned about how the industry is going … more so as evidenced by recent negotiations for the renewal of the IATSE contract. I feel that we’re not valued as we should be. There are sacrifices that we practitioners make for ourselves, for our families — sometimes [they] cause irreversible damage, as we see in the case of Rust. We are essential, postproduction workers, and what we do is unique. There’s nothing, no other art form, that uses what we use in marrying image and sound and music and putting it together in a time flow. I’d just like to see editors being recognized. And that’s what’s so great about ACE. ACE has been working constantly to put the work of editors to the forefront so that the viewing public and the producers and the production companies and all these streaming services realize that there would be no product without the major contributions of editors.