Beaks here...
For the most part, great editing is difficult to celebrate because, at its very best, it is invisible. It's about hiding the seams, therefore allowing viewers to get lost in the thousands of feet of film flickering before them. It's conjuring. And few in the history of motion pictures have cast as seductive a spell as Michael Kahn.
Kahn received a richly deserved LIfetime Achievement Award from the American Cinema Editors society last Saturday, and, according to filmmaker Edgar Wright, the seven-minute montage paying tribute to his half-century career elicited gasps from everyone in attendance. Of course it did. As Steven Spielberg's trusted collaborator since CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Kahn has literally spliced together some of the most indelible images of the last forty years (he only recently stopped editing on an upright Moviola). He's also teamed with Robert Zemeckis (USED CARS), Richard Donner (THE GOONIES) and the ever-underrated Adrian Lyne (FATAL ATTRACTION). And then there's his early-'70s work on such blacksploitation triumphs as TRUCK TURNER, BLACK BELT JONES, TROUBLE MAN and THE SPOOK WHO SAT BY THE DOOR.
Though Kahn's efforts have been recognized many times throughout his career (including Oscars for RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), it isn't often that us non-professionals pause to consider the staggering breadth of his work. Fortunately, Carsten Kurpanek posted the ACE's montage online today, so please click on the below video and give thanks to one of the greatest film editors of all time.
Tribute to Michael Kahn, A.C.E. from Carsten Kurpanek on Vimeo.
And since there's no USED CARS in that montage...
