Schoonmaker '61 wins her third Oscar for work with director Martin Scorsese
By Daniel Aloi
Film editor Thelma Schoonmaker '61 has another Oscar to show for her career-long collaboration with director Martin Scorsese.
Schoonmaker won her third Academy Award on Feb. 25 in Los Angeles for her work on the Boston crime drama "The Departed," which also won statues for Best Picture, for Scorsese as Best Director and for screenwriter William Monahan, who adapted the Hong Kong thriller "Infernal Affairs."
Schoonmaker visited Cornell in November 2005 to show clips from and talk about her work for Scorsese and the films of her late husband, British director Michael Powell.
"He was very intense in those days, very driven," she said of Scorsese, recalling the time they met at New York University and he asked her to edit his student film.
Her previous Oscar wins were for editing Scorsese's "Raging Bull" (1980) and on "The Aviator" (2004). She also won her fourth Eddie Award for drama Feb. 18 from the American Cinema Editors for "The Departed." Her previous Oscar nominations were for editing Michael Wadleigh's "Woodstock" (1971), on which Scorsese was an editor and assistant director, and Scorsese's "Goodfellas" (1990) and "Gangs of New York" (2002).
"My taste is his taste, really," she said in 2005. "He also thinks like an editor when he's writing and directing. Being in the editing room with Marty is ... one of the greatest film courses there is."
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