79 Quotes by Thelma Schoonmaker

Like a lady who has lost weight and she’s just getting to that point where she can fit into that favourite dress, you get the film down to just about the right cut. You can feel it when it happens.

You have to keep banging away at something until you get it to work. I think women are maybe better at that.

Jack Cardiff – the greatest cameraman who ever worked in colour – was a lab boy to start with so he knew Technicolor from the inside out.

Michael’s Powell art director was a painter and they had a wonderful friendship and artistic understanding. Michael himself, in the way he designed his own house, it was always with bright colours. Very un-English!

'Silence,' I think, was the hardest, because it's so different from everything we've done before and required very delicate handling and trying to find the right meditative pace.

It's hard for people to understand editing, I think. It's absolutely like sculpture. You get a big lump of clay, and you have to form it - this raw, unedited, very long footage.

With Technicolor restorations, it's about getting the color right.

Editing is really like plumbing a good deal of the time. You put two things together, and a current runs through it.

I particularly remember with 'Casino,' everyone was like, 'It's not 'Goodfellas!'' No, it's not 'Goodfellas.' That's right: it's a different movie. Now, everyone thinks 'Casino' is a masterpiece.