I want to tell you about someone awesome that you have probably never heard of. Sally Menke was found dead this morning in a ravine among the canyons and hiking trails around the Hollywood Hills. The early speculation is centering around an accidental fall possibly triggered by heat stroke during yesterday’s record-shattering 113-degree weather.
Hiking in the hills there is a favorite activity for a lot of people in that area. I had my own favorite trail up to the top of Mt. Chapel when I lived in Hollywood, and my former agent says she used to see Bob Barker every morning on her jog. Celebrities walk their dogs up there, horse-lovers organize trail rides – it’s one of the closest places around where LA can actually access a little nature in our backyards. It’s also dangerous, because of the steep ravines, because of occasional mountain lions; and mostly, because of the heat.
Sally Menke was a film editor, and most well-known for her work with Quentin Tarantino. She was the sole editor on every one of Tarantino’s features – not even longtime producer Lawrence Bender can say he has worked on every Tarantino movie (he didn’t take part in Grindhouse). But Menke was there from Reservoir Dogs on; and if you pay attention during a making-of documentary or a long interview with Tarantino, it’s a good bet that somewhere along the way he’ll acknowledge an idea or suggestion from “Sally” that made the film better.
When I first got sent the leaked copy of the Inglourious Basterds screenplay, I stopped reading after the opening dairy farmer scene – partially because I didn’t want the rest of the movie ruined for me, but also because I just couldn’t wrap my head around how this thing was going to WORK. I’m an okay writer and I was a very good script reader in my development days, but this thing pushed so hard against the rules – pages, DOZENS of pages, of just talking. I already knew that Tarantino’s primary weapon as a filmmaker was the orchestration of frenzied anticipation. Like Sergio Leone, he knows that it’s the wind-up that makes the payoff unforgettable, and the more he’s embraced his Leone side, the better a director he has become. But I have to confess – I didn’t think even he could stick the landing on a scene like that. Brother, did he ever stick it, though.
And who is most responsible for the hands-on orchestration of tension like that? Who assembles the angles and the many takes of the actors, who times the silences (you think it’s just the actors creating dramatic pauses?); who ultimately creates the crescendos of rhythm and intensity that results in one of those moments we remember for the rest of our lives? Not even the most dictatorial director makes every editing decision themselves – not even Mr. James Cameron.
The editor didn’t used to be considered an “artistic” position. In the earliest days of film, “cutters” were treated like secretaries, gathering and organizing and assembling the footage, and so by that accident of perception it was one of the few female-dominated divisions at a studio. Then, as the visual language of film evolved, as directors asserted more control over shot setups and had multiple options to choose from within a scene in post-production, the more creative aspects of editing began to be recognized. The tragic irony was, now that it was “artistic”, a lot of the women got crowded out. The exceptions – legends like Thelma Schoonmaker (Scorsese’s editor for nearly his entire career) and Verna “Mother Cutter” Fields (an unsung mentor for George Lucas on American Graffiti and Steven Spielberg on Jaws), in a way had to re-pioneer a field that had once been theirs.
I have long believed that the power of film is in its collaborative nature. It is what Wagner used to call his opera – gesamtkuntswerk: the union of many art forms into a grand whole. Editors are among the most intimate and influential collaborators with the director in shaping the feel and pacing and quality of the picture. Quentin Tarantino was a genius before he met Sally Menke. But you can bet that the reason that she was there on every one of his films was that she was great in her own right; and made him better.
Too often, someone like an editor or a DP or a composer leaves behind a legacy never attached to their name. That’s their lot, fair or no. People who know nothing about film think the actors just make it all up, people who know very little about film think the director comes up with everything. But people who really know and love film, whether they realize it or not, honor the collaboration. When I treat myself to yet another viewing of Pulp Fiction, I want to remember to send a little gratitude into the beyond for Sally, without whom my life as a film lover would be filled with a little less awesome.