{"id":7895,"date":"2017-08-16T23:31:20","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T21:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/camernew.klienci.052b.com\/nagroda-camerimage-dla-montazysty-trafi-do-2\/"},"modified":"2017-08-28T08:35:13","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T06:35:13","slug":"nagroda-camerimage-dla-montazysty-trafi-do-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/nagroda-camerimage-dla-montazysty-trafi-do-2\/","title":{"rendered":"CAMERIMAGE AWARD TO EDITOR GOES TO\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Let us start with a riddle. What is the connection between a blood-soaked\u00a0Sissy Spacek<\/strong>\u00a0unleashing a school massacre, the Rebel Alliance pilots desperately attacking the Death Star,\u00a0Kevin Bacon<\/strong>\u00a0dancing vigorously to his own beat,\u00a0Matthew Broderick<\/strong>\u00a0clowning around in Chicago,\u00a0Michael Douglas<\/strong>\u00a0going berserk with guns on Los Angeles streets,\u00a0Tom Cruise<\/strong>\u00a0hanging down on a line from a ceiling or Burj Khalifa sky-scraper, and\u00a0Jamie Foxx<\/strong>\u00a0working wonders on a piano? The obvious remark is, of course, the inexpressible magic of cinema, but there is also a less abstract answer: the connection is the editor. A man who made sure the abovementioned moments from\u00a0Carrie<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Footloose<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Falling Down<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Mission: Impossible<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol<\/em><\/span>, and\u00a0Ray<\/em><\/span>\u00a0were not only a series of moving pictures but also absorbing, internally coherent sequences that arose from what happened earlier in the given film and foreshadowed what would follow next.<\/div>\n
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Paul Hirsch<\/strong>, as he was the editor of all of these films, has been working in the film industry for half a century, and collaborated with such filmmakers as\u00a0Brian De Palma<\/strong>,\u00a0George Lucas<\/strong>,\u00a0Irvin Kershner<\/strong>,\u00a0Herbert Ross<\/strong>,\u00a0John Hughes<\/strong>,\u00a0Joel Schumacher<\/strong>,\u00a0Taylor Hackford<\/strong>, and\u00a0Duncan Jones<\/strong>. In the past, he worked with Moviola and other tools available for editors, creating the given picture\u2019s rhythm, mood and audiovisual character by physically cutting and pasting bits of film; now he works with the latest editions of expensive computer software but his style and editor\u2019s creed did not change a bit. What is important is the story and the characters that make it what it is and move forward, irrespective of the film\u2019s genre; the same applies to the low-budget shocking 70s thriller\u00a0Sisters<\/em><\/span>\u00a0and recent Hollywood\u2019s fantasy spectacle\u00a0Warcraft<\/em><\/span>\u00a0about a war between the orcs and the humans.<\/div>\n
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During his distinguished career\u00a0Paul Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0was honored with numerous awards and accolades, including an Academy Award\u00ae<\/sup>\u00a0for\u00a0Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope<\/em>\u00a0(shared with\u00a0Marcia Lucas<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Richard Chew<\/strong>). We are therefore proud to announce that in a couple of months\u00a0Paul Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0will personally come to Bydgoszcz to accept\u00a0Camerimage Award to Editor with Unique Visual Sensitivity<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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Paul Hirsch,<\/em><\/div>\n
photo from Paul Hirsch’s personal archive<\/em><\/div>\n
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Hirsch\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0mentor and the filmmaker who shaped him as an editor and helped in perfecting his skills was\u00a0Brian De Palma<\/strong>. Starting with 1970’s\u00a0Hi, Mom!<\/em><\/span>\u00a0they have so far made together eleven feature films, the last being 2000’s\u00a0Mission to Mars<\/em><\/span>. Their projects are often considered masterworks of the art of editing. Like in 1981\u2019s\u00a0Blow Out<\/em><\/span>, a tale about a sound engineer who is accidently implicated in a politically-motivated murder, in which\u00a0Hirsch and De Palma<\/strong>\u00a0created, in parallel with a standard narrative, an amalgam of images and sounds that establishes new ways of interpretation and significantly alters how the story is perceived. Another brilliant example of their work is 1996\u2019s\u00a0Mission: Impossible<\/em><\/span>, a classic spy thriller made and told in ways of then-modern action films \u2013 as in the thrilling and suspenseful sequence of a bold break into the CIA headquarters, or the breathtaking sequence with a helicopter, a train and a narrow tunnel.\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0stated in one of his interviews: \u201cBrian taught me a lot about the difference between cutting trailers and cutting features. And my two other great teachers were trial and error.<\/em>\u201d<\/div>\n
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Before\u00a0Paul\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0started working as a feature film editor, he had to go through a number of different jobs and learn different ways of his craft. He began his career quite modestly, in a New York-based shipping room. There, he met a negative cutter who took him under his wings as a trainee and taught how to use Moviola, among many other things. This new set of skills opened\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0many possibilities, and made it possible to start working for film trailer editor\u00a0Chuck Workman<\/strong>. He gave\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0a task of cutting down a featurette about the making of\u00a0Norman Jewison\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0The Thomas Crown Affair<\/em><\/span>, and afterwards let him do on his own the same type of material for\u00a0Ken Hughes\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0Chitty Chitty Bang Bang<\/em><\/span>. Then,\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0moved onto editing trailers for films like\u00a0Peter Medak\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0Negatives<\/em><\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Brian De Palma\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0Greetings<\/em><\/span>, the latter being produced by his brother,\u00a0Chuck Hirsch<\/strong>.<\/div>\n
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Still from “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope”<\/em><\/div>\n
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Still from “Blow Out”<\/em><\/div>\n
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This was the real beginning of\u00a0Hirsch and De Palma\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0successful, decades-long collaboration that resulted in countless moments of cinematic joy for viewers around the world. And because\u00a0De Palma<\/strong>\u00a0was friends with\u00a0Scorsese<\/strong>,\u00a0Spielberg<\/strong>,\u00a0Lucas<\/strong>\u00a0and other rebels of the\u00a0New Hollywood<\/em>, soon\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0has found himself working on much bigger projects. One of them, the most famous space opera in the history of cinema, made him legendary; he started working on\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0as one of three editors, but finished the work on his own. Among the many scenes he was personally responsible for, we can find the annihilation of Alderaan, the famous Mos Eisley cantina duel, the fight for life and death between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, as well as most of the sequence of the daredevil attack on the Death Star. Academy Award\u00ae<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0for\u00a0Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0changed not only\u00a0Hirsch\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0personal and professional life, but also altered the way of thinking of the American film industry that fell in love with this style of editing, elevated soon by\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0himself when he worked for\u00a0George Lucas<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Irvin Kershner<\/strong>\u00a0on the sequel,\u00a0The Empire Strikes Back<\/em><\/span>.<\/div>\n
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Paul Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0always stayed true to his editing creed of adjusting the rhythm and the sense of time and space to the film\u2019s story and the characters\u2019 personalities and emotional arcs. He also made his work invisible to the viewer\u2019s eye, just as any editor should. That is precisely why, after the success of\u00a0A New Hope<\/em><\/span>, he did not want to lose himself in cutting the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Instead he looked for interesting challenges. He found them aplenty in films such as\u00a0Herbert Ross\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0popular musical\u00a0Footloose<\/em><\/span>,\u00a0John Hughes\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0buddy comedy\u00a0Planes, Trains & Automobiles<\/em><\/span>, and\u00a0Joel Schumacher\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0urban thriller\u00a0Falling Down<\/em><\/span>\u00a0in which he assisted the director and actor\u00a0Michael Douglas<\/strong>\u00a0in infusing the story with the kind of raw energy that made the protagonist\u2019s anger and internal struggle even more palpable. But then\u00a0Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0also used his skills in many other genres, including\u00a0Steve Miner\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0horror-comedy\u00a0Lake Placid<\/em><\/span>, or\u00a0Herbert Ross\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0comedy-drama\u00a0Steel Magnolias<\/em>. He reached another milestone of his career with\u00a0Taylor Hackford\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0Ray<\/em><\/span>, in which the way and the rhythm of cutting were made accordingly with the personality and musical style of Ray Charles. For his work on that film he earned another Academy Award\u00ae<\/span><\/sup>\u00a0nomination.<\/div>\n
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Still from “Mission: Impossible”<\/em><\/div>\n
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Still from “Ray”<\/em><\/div>\n
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During the last couple of years\u00a0Paul Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0have worked mostly on big-budget Hollywood spectacles, but the American editor did not forget the essentials of his job: character motivation and drama, and storytelling that will make the audiences sitting in a dark screening room forget about the problems of everyday life. We are excited that\u00a0Paul Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0will soon visit Bydgoszcz for the\u00a025th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary of the International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography CAMERIMAGE<\/strong>. By accepting our\u00a0Award to Editor with Unique Visual Sensitivity<\/strong>\u00a0he will join the ranks of such eminent editors as\u00a0Walter Murch<\/strong>,\u00a0Martin Walsh<\/strong>,\u00a0Joel Cox<\/strong>,\u00a0Alan Heim<\/strong>,\u00a0Chris Lebenzon<\/strong>,\u00a0Thelma Schoonmaker<\/strong>,\u00a0and\u00a0Pietro Scalia<\/strong>. Additionally,\u00a0Paul Hirsch<\/strong>\u00a0will meet the festival\u2019s participants during a Q&A session after the screening of his film, to which event we already sincerely invite everyone attending\u00a0Camerimage<\/strong>.<\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let us start with a riddle. What is the connection between a blood-soaked\u00a0Sissy Spacek\u00a0unleashing a school massacre, the Rebel Alliance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wiadomosci"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7895"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7895"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7924,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7895\/revisions\/7924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}