Gerald B. Greenberg facts for kids

Jerry Greenberg (July 29, 1936 – December 22, 2017) was a famous American film editor. He worked on over 40 movies during his career. Jerry won important awards for his editing. These included the Oscar and the BAFTA Award. He won them for the movie The French Connection (1971). In the 1980s, he edited five films with director Brian De Palma.

Greenberg started his career helping Dede Allen. She was a very important film editor. Dede Allen helped many young editors learn the ropes. Jerry Greenberg was one of the first editors she mentored. He worked as her assistant on America America (1963). This film was directed by Elia Kazan.

Greenberg was Allen's assistant again for Bonnie and Clyde (1967). Arthur Penn directed this movie. The editing of the famous ambush scene in Bonnie and Clyde was very influential. Dede Allen said Jerry Greenberg did the actual "cutting" for it. Greenberg later became an associate editor for Alice's Restaurant (1969). This was another film directed by Penn and edited by Allen. By then, Greenberg had also started his own editing work. His first solo movie was Bye Bye Braverman (1968). Sidney Lumet directed that film.

Early Steps in Film Editing

Jerry Greenberg grew up in New York. When he was young, he learned how to edit music. He also learned about film editing tools. These tools included the moviola, splicers, and synchronizers. In 1960, he got a job helping Dede Allen. This was for Elia Kazan’s movie America America (1963).

By 1967, he and Allen were working on Bonnie and Clyde. Jerry was given the job of editing some shootout scenes. He worked closely with Allen and director Arthur Penn. His first movie edited all by himself was Bye Bye Braverman. He worked on it for director Sidney Lumet in 1968.

Working with Director William Friedkin

Greenberg edited two films with director William Friedkin. These were The Boys in the Band (1970) and The French Connection (1971). The French Connection was a big success. It also won the Oscar for Best Picture.

Friedkin said that the film's success was greatly due to its editing. He wrote that the first version of the car chase was "terrible." He said it was "formless." He explained that Jerry Greenberg helped a lot. They removed or added shots. They changed the order of shots. They even changed single frames. Friedkin said, "The shooting was easy. The cutting and the mixing were enormously difficult."

The car chase in The French Connection is very famous. It has been called one of the best examples of montage editing. Montage is when many short shots are put together quickly. This creates a special effect or feeling. Greenberg won the Oscar and the BAFTA Award for this film. In 2012, The French Connection was named the tenth best edited film ever. This was by the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

Editing Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola produced, directed, and co-wrote Apocalypse Now. This movie came out in 1979. Filming took over a year in 1976 and 1977. The editing process took two years before the movie was released. Many editors worked on it. Richard Marks was the main supervising editor. He was also one of "Dede's boys."

Greenberg talked about his role in an interview. The film is known as one of the most important movies about the Vietnam War. The war ended in 1975. In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert said Apocalypse Now was "the best Vietnam film." He called it "one of the greatest of all films." He said it showed "the dark places of the soul."

In 2012, Apocalypse Now was rated the fourteenth best film ever. This was in a poll by Sight & Sound magazine. The editing of Apocalypse Now was rated third best of all films. This was on the 2012 list by the Motion Picture Editors Guild. Greenberg shared nominations for the Oscar, BAFTA, and ACE Eddie awards for this film. He shared them with Walter Murch, Lisa Fruchtman, and Richard Marks.

Working with Director Brian De Palma

Greenberg started working with director Brian De Palma in 1980. Their first film together was Dressed to Kill. This began a seven-year partnership. Greenberg edited five films with De Palma. Their last film together was The Untouchables (1987).

Bill Pankow was Greenberg's assistant editor on Dressed to Kill. Pankow worked on all these films. He was also a co-editor for The Untouchables. Later, Pankow became De Palma's main editor.

De Palma's films from this time became more respected. His earlier thrillers were very intense. But with films like Dressed to Kill, he started gaining more respect. He reached a high point in the late 1980s. This was with movies like The Untouchables. He was known for his "bold, often dazzling, visual flair."

Awards and Influence

Greenberg won the Oscar and BAFTA awards for The French Connection (1971). He was also nominated for the ACE Eddie award. With his co-editors, he was nominated again for the Oscar, BAFTA, and Eddie for Apocalypse Now (1979). In the same year, he was nominated for the Oscar and BAFTA for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). This was the first of two films he edited with director Robert Benton.

Greenberg was chosen to be a member of the American Cinema Editors. In 2015, this group gave him their Career Achievement Award. After he received the award, Ross Lincoln and Erik Pedersen wrote about him. They said if editing is the most important part of making a film, then Jerry Greenberg was "one of the most quantifiably influential people in the past 40 years." On the 2012 list of "best edited films of all time," Greenberg worked on three of the top ten. These were Bonnie and Clyde, The French Connection, and Apocalypse Now.

Partial Filmography (Editor)

This list shows some of the feature films Jerry Greenberg edited. The director and release date are in parentheses. Any co-editors are also listed.

• The Steps (Hirschfield-1966)
• Bye Bye Braverman (Lumet-1968)
• The Subject Was Roses (Grosbard-1968)
• Alice's Restaurant (Penn-1969; associate film editor)
• The Boys in the Band (Friedkin-1970)
• They Might Be Giants (Harvey-1971)
• The French Connection (Friedkin-1971)
• Come Back, Charleston Blue (Warren-1972; with George Bowers)
• The Stoolie (Avildsen/Silano-1972; with Stan Bochner)
• Electra Glide in Blue (Guercio-1973; with Jim Benson and John F. Link)
• The Seven-Ups (D'Antoni-1973; with Stephen A. Rotter)
• The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Sargent-1974; with Robert Q. Lovett)
• The Happy Hooker (Sgarro-1975)
• The Missouri Breaks (Penn-1976; with Dede Allen and Stephen Rotter)
• Apocalypse Now (Coppola-1979; with Lisa Fruchtman, Richard Marks, and Walter Murch)
• Kramer vs. Kramer (Benton-1979)
• Dressed to Kill (De Palma-1980)
• Heaven's Gate (Cimino-1980; with Lisa Fruchtman, Tom Rolf, and William Reynolds)
• Reds (Beatty-1981; additional editor)
• Still of the Night (Benton-1982; with Bill Pankow)
• Scarface (De Palma-1983; with David Ray)
• Body Double (De Palma-1984; with Bill Pankow)
• Savage Dawn (Nuchtern-1985; with George Hively)
• Wise Guys (De Palma-1986; Pankow was the associate editor)
• No Mercy (Pearce-1986; with Bill Yahraus)
• The Untouchables (De Palma-1987; with Bill Pankow)
• The Accused (Kaplan-1988; with O. Nicholas Brown)
• Collision Course (Teague-1989; with Sonya Polonsky)
• Christmas Vacation (Chechik-1989; with Michael A. Stevenson)
• Awakenings (Marshall-1990; with Battle Davis)
• For the Boys (Rydell-1991; with Jere Huggins)
• School Ties (Mandel-1992; with Jacqueline Cambas)
• Gunshy (Celentano-1998; additional editor)
• American History X (Kaye-1998; with Alan Heim)
• Reach the Rock (Ryan-1998)
• Inspector Gadget (Kellogg-1999; with Alan Cody and Thom Noble) (uncredited)
• Duets (Paltrow-2000)
• Get Carter (Kay-2000)
• Angel Eyes (Mandoki-2001)
• Trapped (Mandoki-2002)
• Bringing Down the House (Shankman-2003)
• Havoc (Kopple-2005; with Nancy Baker)
• Invincible (Core-2006)
• The Answer Man (Hindman-2009)
• Privileged (Salander-2010)
• Point Break (Core-2015; with John Duffy and Thom Noble)