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coatesBorn December 12, 1925 in Surrey, England, Anne V. Coates grew up thinking she’d like to be a horse trainer. After graduating college, however, she served as a nurse in Sir Archibald McIndoe’s pioneering plastic surgery in East Grinstead, but found it a harrowing experience. From there she gravitated toward film, where she worked with a company called Religious Films. There she spliced together film prints of various religious films and sent them out to various British church tours. She also did projectionist and sound recording work. This eventually led to a job as an assistant editor at Pinewood Studios.

Coates’ first credited film as an editor was 1952’s The Pickwick Papers. Other early successes included 1958’s The Horse’s Mouth and 1960’s Tunes of Glory, two major film from director Ronald Neame, who started out as David Lean’s cinematographer, leading to Lean’s hiring her to editing 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, which earned her an Oscar. Other films of the period include 1964’s Becket (her second Oscar nod), 1965’s Young Cassidy and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.

Married to director Douglas Hickox from 1958 to his death in 1988, the couple had three children, all of them with careers in the film industry.

Coates’ philosophy of life is that “You have the courage of your convictions. When you’re editing you have to make thousands of decisions every day and if you dither over them all the time, you’ll never get anything done.” She has also said “I like to take time off between films. I think it’s important to live your life. I don’t think that if you are just an editor all the time that you are going to be a good editor. You’ve got to go out and experience things, see things and travel.”

Her later accomplishments include her work on 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express (her first BAFTA nod), 1980’s The Elephant Man (BAFTA and Oscar nods), 1981’s Ragtime, 1992’s Chaplin, 1993’s In the Line of Fire (BAFTA and Oscar nods), 1998’s Out of Sight (her fifth Oscar nod), 2000’s Erin Brockovich (her fourth BAFTA nod), 2002’s Unfaithful and 2015’s Fifty Shades of Gray.

Another of Coates’ quotes is “I seem to get the rhythm from the performances. I like to feel I’m very much an actor’s editor. I look very much to the performances and cut very much for performances rather than the action. I think that’s important, what’s in the eyes of the actor.” On directors, she had said “I don’t care if a director tells me to take 10 frames off—because I don’t take 10 frames off. I take off what I think would be appropriate. Most directors have no idea what 10 frames looks like. If you work with Sidney Lumet, he knows what 10 frames are. Milos Forman does, too. But most directors, when they say “take 10 frames off,” they’re just kind of showing off to you. I’ve learned through the years you just do what you think is right. And they’ll think that’s great because they’ll never count the frames”.

Anne V. Coates was given an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement at a special ceremony on November 12, 2016, one month before her 91st birthday.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, directed by David Lean (1962)

Lean was himself one of the screen’s great editors before turning to direction. Ronald Neame, who had been the cinematographer on some of Lean’s early films had himself become a first-class director who worked with Coates on two of his best films, The Horse’s Mouth and Tunes of Glory which were recommendation enough for Lean to entrust Coates with the editing of his masterpiece. Lean’s direction, Freddie Young’s breathtaking cinematography, Coates’ crisp editing and Maurice Jarre’s thrilling score accounted for four of the film’s much deserved seven Oscars.

BECKET, directed by Peter Glenville (1964)

Glenville was an actor and distinguished stage director who made few films, but those that he did were choice, as were the films that Coates edited. Here she helped put to together some of the most striking images of any stage-to-screen adaptation, receiving another much-deserved Oscar nomination for helping to make Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole and company look good, ultimately losing to the showier Mary Poppins. There was no showy editing in Becket, or any of her films. Coates’ editing was always at the service of the actors more than the action.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, directed by Sidney Lumet (1974)

Coates received her first BAFTA nomination for her superb editing of Lumet’s definitive film version of this Agatha Christie masterpiece. Her previous Oscar nominations could not be duplicated by BAFTA as the British Academy had only established its Editing award four years earlier. Murder on the Orient Express lost the Editing award to The Conversation, both of which figured in the Oscar race in other categories, but not Editing. Conversely, The Towering Inferno which would later receive BAFTA nods in other categories, but not Editing, won the Oscar for Editing.

ERIN BROCKOVICH, directed by Steven Soderbergh (2000)

Once again BAFTA nominated Coates for a film while AMPAS didn’t. Both had nominated Soderbergh’s other 2000 film, Traffic for editing which Oscar honored with a win. BAFTA went with Gladiator which had also been nominated by BAFTA. Such are the musical chair games played at awards ceremonies. Julia Roberts, the film’s star won both the Oscar and the BAFTA as well as the Golden Globe. The Globes don’t have an award for editing. All three nominated the film for Best Picture, with AMPAS and BAFTA both awarding Gladiator and the Globes awarding Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (2015)

Coates, still working in her 90th year, did a yeoman-like job piecing together the elements of this notoriously panned box-office bonanza, but hers was one of the few contributions to the film that escaped derision. The film was nominated for six Razzie Awards and won five including Worst Picture of the Year in a tie with Fantastic Four, as well as Worst Actor (Jamie Dornan), Actress (Dakota Johnson), Worst Duo (Dornan and Johnson) and Worst Screenplay. Taylor-Johnson escaped winning Worst Director, losing to Fantastic Four’s Josh Trank. The Razzies don’t have an award for editing.

ANNE V. COATES AND OSCAR

  • Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – Oscar – Best Film Editing
  • Becket (1964) – nominated – Best Film Editing
  • The Elephant Man (1980) – nominated – Best Film Editing
  • In the Line of Fire (1993) – nominated – Best Film Editing
  • Out of Sight (1998) – nominated – Best Film Editing
  • Honorary Award (2016) – Oscar – Lifetime Achievement

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