Thelma Schoonmaker

Thelma Schoonmaker has, for over five decades, been Martin Scorsese’s cutting room collaborator. Having edited his first feature film in 1967, she has worked on every Scorsese movie since Raging Bull, including Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, Wolf Of Wall Street, right up to his most recent features The Irishman and Killers Of The Flower Moon. As the widow of the legendary British filmmaker Michael Powell, she has also played a key role in the restoration of classic Powell and Pressburger films including The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus and A Matter Of Life And Death. Thelma Schoonmaker has won three Academy Awards, more than any other film editor.

Thelma tells John Wilson how enrolling on a six week film making course as a young graduate in New York led to her meeting and helping Martin Scorsese edit a short film he was making. He then asked her to edit his 1967 feature film debut, Who's That Knocking at My Door and their partnership began in earnest. She recalls how she and Scorsese were part of the editing team on Michael Wadleigh's music festival documentary, Woodstock for which she received her first an Oscar nomination for Best Film Editing - the first documentary ever to be nominated in that category. Thelma reveals the process of working with Scorsese in the cutting room and how, through him, she met her late husband Michael Powell, whose films with Emeric Pressburger, both she and Scorsese had so admired from childhood.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Archive and music used: The Red Shoes, Powell & Pressburger, 1948 Who's That Knocking at My Door, Martin Scorsese, 1967 I Can't Explain, The Who, Live at Woodstock, 1969 See Me. Feel Me, The Who, Live at Woodstock, 1969 Star Spangled Banner, Jimi Hendrix, Live at Woodstock, 1969 Raging Bull, Martin Scorsese, 1980 Cutting Edge: The Magic of Movie-editing, BBC4, 30 August 2005 Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, Peter Gabriel Sunshine of Your Love, Cream Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, Pietro Mascagni Love Is Strange, Mickey & Sylvia Layla, Derek & The Dominos A Matter of Life and Death, Powell & Pressburger, 1946 Michael and Martin, BBC Radio 4, 30 June 2005