NEWS
The 57th Orange British Academy Film Awards
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Winning the 2005 Orange British Film Academy Award for Best Film Editing on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a big step forward in Valdís Óskarsdóttir’s career––ironically for a movie that spends most of its running time backpedaling both mentally and chronologically. Director Michel Gondry chose Óskarsdóttir to cut his film of Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay about the richness of memories because he loved her work on The Celebration, a 1998 Danish film that was the first–and arguably the best–of the Dogme films, a style that informs Eternal Sunshine. Gondry also felt that she would better be able to handle the feminine sensibilities that Kate Winslet’s character brought to the story.
“I’ve always been a big fan of Charlie Kaufman, so for me it was like winning a world championship when I received the script,” Óskarsdóttir said from her home in Reykjavik, where she is a consultant with the Icelandic Film Center’s feature film department. She described her relationship with Gondry as an “extreme case of love-hate,” as she whittled down 110 hours of film into a series of reverse narrative trajectories, jump cuts and inventive scene transitions.
 Valdís Óskarsdóttir |
“It was fun film to cut, but it was not easy. There was a lot of laughing and crying and head banging,” Óskarsdóttir says. “It’s great to get a film like this, but it wasn’t like making The Sound of Music. Because of the confusing nature of some of the individual sequences, we were constantly re-editing and moving scenes around. The sequence where Jim Carrey comes home, takes the sleeping pill and begins the erasing process comes to mind, because it wasn’t clear at first that all this was happening in his mind. Then, as we were about to lock the picture, Jim thought it wasn’t funny enough, so I sat down and re-cut yet again.”
However, she says, the ten-month experience of cutting on location in New
York and Montauk was an extremely rewarding experience: “I love the
story, I love the characters, and I love the film. And when you feel that
way about your work, I think a film will love you back. I’ve worked
on shows that drained every last bit of blood from me. That was not case with
Eternal Sunshine. I looked forward to coming to work every day. That is the
best kind of relationship to have with a movie.”
Michael Kunkes
This year, BAFTA half-predicted the US Academy, awarding its all-encompassing Best Sound Award (combining sound mixing and sound editorial) to the soon-to-be-Oscared team from Ray: Scott Millan, CAS, Greg Orloff and Bob Beemer, with Steve Cantamessa. Only this time, Ray’s sound editorial supervisors Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg were also honored.
“I believe awards give the crew the recognition that they deserve;
we win awards because of the crew that we work with,” says Landers,
who likes the way BAFTA “combines the different disciplines” between
sound editorial and sound mixing. “It feels very much like a team effort
between editorial and mixing and it wouldn’t bother me if the Academy
in the US did the same. BAFTA really respects the craft of sound mixing and
editorial in London. The British Academy seems to have a pure respect for
filmmaking as a craft. It’s extremely refreshing.”
Sharon Benoit
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