Thelma Schoonmaker Toast Michael Powell during the questions and answers of Edinburgh
“How do you replace Robert de Niro’s voice?” The veteran editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, pointed out this evening during a long question and answer session at the Edinburgh Film Festival.
The triple winner of an Oscar, who appeared in Edinburgh to discuss the work of her late husband, Michael Powell, used the rhetorical question to illustrate what she described as her frustration with the practice of solid dubbing on the releases of international films.
“It is simply impossible,” she said, answering her question.
“One of my problems as a publisher is the dubbing that takes place when you send a film to Germany or France,” she continued, describing the practice as “painful” for her as an editor.
Schoonmaker’s remarks were part of a broader story she told the public in Edinburgh on the passionate belief of Michael Powell by promoting a world cinema community that has made films for an international audience.
“Someone asked him once, what do you think of the British film industry now? And he said, why should there be a British film industry? We should make films for the world,” said Schoonmaker about Powell.
She continued: “He estimated that in the silent era, you could send a film to Japan, because the silent films had a card between you tell you what had just happened. The Japanese could simply translate this card, and the film remained exactly the same. While when the sound entered, Michael felt that we lost something.”
Schoonmaker described Powell as an accomplished optimist who never got tired despite the difficulties he encountered by trying to collect funds for projects from 1960, after the disastrous reception of his now feminine element Peeping Tom.
“He has never become bitter, which, I think, is incredible. I think it is one of the great victories of his life that he has never become bitter,” said Schoonmaker about his late husband. “He continued to write ideas for films and tried to sell them. He had nearly 100 projects he led throughout Europe trying to do.”
Powell died in 1990 in England after having lived in the United States for many years with Schoonmaker, which he married in 1984. The couple was initially presented by Martin Scorsese, who was largely responsible for the contemporary interest in the work that Powell created with his long-standing collaborator Emeric Pressburger.
Powell and Pressburger have collaborated with more than a dozen feature films, many of which are considered some of the best films ever produced on the British coast. The list includes The red shoes, the life and death of Colonel Blimp, And Black narcissus.
“No British director came to his funeral,” said Schoonmaker about the time after Powell’s death. “Bernardo Bertolucci came, and Martin Scorsese flew through the Atlantic to be there and launched the first dirt club on Michael’s grave.”
She added: “Their friendship was remarkable.”
The Edinburgh Film Festival takes place until August 20.
