Thelma Schoonmaker has edited every Martin Scorsese movie since 1980’s “Raging Bull,” which is considered not only one of the best movies of all-time, but also one of the best edited.
If you’ve seen “The Irishman” then you would know that Scorsese’s longtime Oscar-winning editor has pulled off the best film editing job of the year. There’s no doubt about it. The film, which clocks in at a monstrous 209 minutes, speeds by like a bullet train. You don’t even have time to check your watch and, before you know it, the film has entered its final and slowly meditative epilogue.
Schoonmaker has been nominated for the Best Editing Oscar seven times in her career, for 1970’s “Woodstock,” 1980’s “Raging Bull,” 1990’s “Goodfellas,” 2002’s “Gangs of New York,” 2004’s “The Aviator,” 2006’s “The Departed” and 2011’s “Hugo.” She’s already won that award three times. “The Irishman” will, most likely, be her fourth win. Why am I so sure about a Schoonmaker win? Because I do believe that Schoonmaker’s work in “The Irishman” is one of the most crucial qualities of the film, without it the movie may have felt much much slower. She keeps Scorsese’s quiet and sumptuously eye-opening narrative moving forward, all throughout its 3 and half hour runtime. There’s nary a moment wasted in Schoonmaker and Scorsese’s confident hands.
That’s the greatest achievement of “The Irishman,” how it uses time and pacing in ways I have never before in film editing. It’s a landmark work not just for Scorsese, but for Schoonmaker as well.