EDITOR RECEIVES LIFETIME CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Jerry Greenberg was honored last night with a Lifetime Career Achievement Award at the 65th annual American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Awards. Deadline's Ross A. Lincoln and Erik Pedersen report that "Carol Littleton presented Greenberg with his career nod. The Oscar-winning editor of The French Connection has a résumé of required viewing spanning decades, but watching his tribute reel tonight, it stuck out that, if editing is the most important part of completing a film, he is one of the most quantifiably influential people in the past 40 years. Not only on film, but given his work on Scarface, the man is partly responsible for an enormous amount of hip-hop. Greenberg was double Oscar nominee in 1980 for Apocalypse Now and Kramer Vs. Kramer, and his dozens of editing credits also include The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three, The Untouchables, Christmas Vacation, American History X and Get Carter."Aside from Scarface and The Untouchables, Greenberg worked with De Palma on Dressed To Kill, Body Double, Wise Guys, and the music video for Bruce Springsteen's Dancing In The Dark. In Susan Dworkin's 1984 book Double De Palma, De Palma said of Greenberg, "I can just talk to him on the phone, and he'll know exactly what I want. And can even do it better."
According to the bio on the ACE press release, Greenberg "began his career in his native New York in 1960 where he learned how to edit music and began familiarizing himself with the Moviola, splicers, synchronizers and recorders. He was ready for his big break and he got it when he was offered an apprenticing job for the legendary Dede Allen on Elia Kazan’s America America. By 1967, Greenberg and Allen were working closely together and on Bonnie and Clyde, Greenberg was given the task of editing a couple of the shootout scenes and worked closely with Allen and director Arthur Penn on them. Not soon after, his career was off and running. He cut his first solo feature Bye Bye Braverman for director Sidney Lumet in 1971 and won the Oscar® and BAFTA for editing William Friedkin’s The French Connection a year later. The infamous car chase from that film has been dissected and taught at film schools ever since."