How Jennifer Lame Cut Best Picture Winner 'Oppenheimer'
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Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. All of our readers, reminder that next week is our Get Lit with All Of It book club event with author Xochitl Gonzalez. We're spending the month reading her novel Anita de Monte Laughs Last. On Thursday, we'll gather at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library to celebrate. Xochitl will be there, along with special guest Caridad De La Luz, spoken word poet, singer, and songwriter, and executive director of the famed Nuyorican Poets Café. Tickets are free, but you have to reserve them in advance, so head to wnyc.org/getlit to find out more. On to today's show.
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Kousha Navidar: Today, we're going to be presenting a special Producer Picks show. That's when the excellent producers from Team All Of It come on the show to introduce some of their favorite segments. Today, you're going to hear from producers Jordan Lauf and Simon Close. In honor of Women's History Month, they've selected segments that feature female trailblazers, focus on significant women from history, or spotlight the work of female artists and creatives.
Let's kick things off with one of those awesome female creatives who is now a newly minted Oscar winner. Here is Producer Jordan Lauf to tell us more about film editor Jennifer Lame, who just took home the award for best editing for her work on Oppenheimer. Jordan, take it away.
Jordan Lauf: Thanks, Kousha. One of my favorite parts of every year is Oscar season when I help put together our lineup for our annual series, The Big Picture. That's a series of conversations with below-the-line Oscar nominees, people who worked behind the scenes to create movie magic. We speak with costume designers, cinematographers, and production designers. I was so excited to book editor Jennifer Lane for the show, and not just because of her work on Oppenheimer. Her filmography is crazy and filled with some of my favorite movies. She edited Hereditary, Manchester by the Sea, Tenet, and worked for years with Director Noah Baumbach on films like Marriage Story and Frances Ha.
Jennifer had a really big job for Oppenheimer. She had to cut for film and for IMAX. She had to make a three-hour movie move quickly. She had to cover decades of history, and of course, edit that mind-blowing Trinity Test sequence. I thought the interview was really great, and I was so thrilled to see Jennifer take home the Oscar this year for best editing. Here's Alison's conversation with Jennifer Lame.
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Alison Stewart: Before we discuss the details of Oppenheimer, how would you describe the responsibilities of a film editor?
Jennifer Lame: Ooh, that's a tough question. You'd think I'd gotten better at this point. I think my responsibility is just putting the movie together, and preserving the initial reaction I get from the script, and talking to the director in the beginning. Then obviously, I'm usually there the whole shoot, so I see how things are evolving and issues that have come up. Then we have the movie that's shot. We're trying to emulate as best as we can that script. It's the feeling of the script as opposed to the exact scenes and lines. Obviously, my job is a lot of changing all of that and putting together the best film that's been shot, if that makes sense.
Alison Stewart: What's the first thing you do when you get a script?
Jennifer Lame: It varies based on director. You mentioned Noah Baumbach, who I worked with for a very long time. He's incredible. I would get a script. He would send me a script really early and we would workshop the script and I would almost edit the script with him. With Chris Nolan, I go and reread it at his house. It's very close to shooting and it's very locked in. The two times I've read his scripts, there was not much editing to be done. I just was like, "Shoot the script." He asked me, "Is there anything to be cut?" The two times I've read his scripts, there was nothing. It's always a different process based on what a director needs from you on that level, the script level.
Alison Stewart: Which is why I thought it was so interesting. They both make great films, but a Noah Baumbach film is very different from a Christopher Nolan film. [chuckles]
Jennifer Lame: Yes. [laughs]
Alison Stewart: That speaks to your talent, your ability to be flexible and go in between and work with different kinds of people. Is that just a skill you've acquired over time, or is that just who you are?
Jennifer Lame: My first film was Frances Ha with Noah Baumbach, which is an incredible movie.
Alison Stewart: What a great movie.
Jennifer Lame: I love that movie. I just saw Greta last night. It was a great first film as an editor because Noah's so experimental in the editing room and we got to do so much cool stuff on that film. I think getting to work with a writer/director, I've actually mostly worked with writer/directors and it's a specific thing that I've think I've grown quite fond of and great quite comfortable working with writer/directors. That's the through line. Even though the films are all quite different, it's a specific personality and type that I really enjoy working with.
Alison Stewart: Once you have made your first rough cut of a film, you have the first rough cut, what are you hoping to accomplish? What are some of the aims for the very first pass-through?
Jennifer Lame: I think for me it's just getting to know the footage and working it and learning all the performances. In this particular film, there was just an insane amount of amazing performances all the way from, obviously, Robert Downey Jr., Cillian, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon. Then you have all the scientists and they're all incredible actors. The ensemble in this cast was incredible. For me, it's just really getting to know each character, and each performer, and all the takes and the different stuff they've given me. Then just structurally starting to put it together. It's like baby steps.
You can't think about the big picture right away. You have to take baby steps and just get to know each character and slowly start piecing it together and learn all the footage. It's my first step. The assembly is really just getting to know the movie. I'm not trying to put together a great film. That's impossible. Chris is really great about that. Whenever I do my assemblies, he's like, "Just know the footage and work it and experiment, but obviously, it's going to take a while to edit the film."
Alison Stewart: Is there a particular scene or a moment in the film that looks very different from how it first was presented, how you first assembled it?
Jennifer Lame: That's interesting. Yes, there was a scene when Cillian and Emily are having a confrontation, after he finds out about Jean's death and he goes into the woods and she finds him. Really early on in my assembly, I had put this incredible performance by Cillian, where he's staring right at her and he is sobbing. It's this beautiful performance, but as we kept refining the film, we started to realize that it didn't make sense. Cillian gave so many performances where he's looking down and he's not even crying so hard. He's just in shock. We played more of the scene on Emily, Kitty's character, and it really made their relationship more interesting and you really felt this care they had for each other.
The scene always worked, but it didn't get to the next level till really late when we replaced that take and played more of it on Kitty and messed with the Jean cut. That was a really fun scene to keep tweaking. It feels like a small scene, but it's such a huge turning point. The two female characters in that scene are just so important to his journey.
Alison Stewart: When you're working on a film like this, how many different types of media were you working with?
Jennifer Lame: I just work on the computer in the Avid. Then I have an amazing team of people. A lot of them New Yorkers, actually. Transplant New Yorkers that come, and I have editorial team that helps me with the Avid material not to get too in the weeds. Then there's a whole film department that's cutting film as I'm cutting. That's something I'm very conscious of. Every cut I make, there's a person named Tom Foligno who's cutting the film. We show the director's cut on film with pieces of tape. At any point, it could break and it's terrifying, [chuckles] but it's terrifying in a great way. It's like this adrenaline rush of watching this. You can see your cuts. You can see your splices. It's very it's incredible.
Alison Stewart: We actually got someone who sent us a text or a call who is very into the segment right now and said he wanted to ask Jennifer her approach to using the music of Ludwig Göransson, the composer.
Jennifer Lame: Oh my God. He's fantastic. I've been lucky enough to work with Ludwig now three times. Him and Chris, they start working on the music really early on right before the shoot and during the shoot. Ludwig is constantly doing stuff. Chris doesn't use temp music, so I cut my assembly with no music. Then pretty early on as Chris and I start working, he'll start playing me stuff that Ludwig has sent and we lay it in.
The Trinity sequence, we had that piece of music basically when we started cutting it. It's an incredible piece of music. I feel so lucky to work with Ludwig. He's constantly experimenting. He's constantly popping over to the edit room and watching scenes, and then he'll try something new. It's a really amazing process working with him.
Alison Stewart: Let's talk about the Trinity scene since we're there. The Trinity Test, when the team finally tests to see if the bomb works. There are so many different cuts to characters, or you're building tensions. There's shaking hands and buttons. There's sound that goes on for a moment, goes out. It's just quiet. Let's start with all the different perspectives. How does using all the different perspectives build tension?
Jennifer Lame: I think, like I said about the ensemble cast, leading up to Trinity, I feel like all the scientists and their faces and their slight-- they don't get too much screen time, but their personalities really shine. I feel like when we get to the Trinity sequence, their faces become so important, and their nervousness and when they're in that room and they're doing the measurements and they make jokes to each other. I think for me, what's so amazing about that sequence is how young these guys are and how scared they are and you feel like you're there.
I really wanted to create that kind of environment as did Chris obviously. Yes, just really showing all the little machinations to build to this moment that's terrifying for these guys. That was really important, playing it on these faces and showing these guys, and how hard they worked and how nervous they are. Then obviously all the amazing stuff that Ruth, the production designer did with the bomb and the tent and all the little, and the mattress rolling under that like crazy that they were just rolling mattresses in case it fell. We wanted to just highlight all these details to really show you how rough it all was and experimental.
Alison Stewart: What was a tough decision to make in that particular scene for you?
Jennifer Lame: In the Trinity sequence?
Alison Stewart: Yes. Because that's the one you got to get right. [laughs]
Jennifer Lame: Yes. It's so funny because that one to me was the most fun to cut.
Alison Stewart: Oh wow.
Jennifer Lame: Chris and I had that music. I think the hardest scene in that whole section was the part when Chris Cikowski comes in the tent and he says that thing failed. There's just a lot going on in that tent, and it's raining and the phone rings and the guys are making bets about whether they're going to ignite the atmosphere. That tent sequence that sets it all off. The second half of the Trinity section, like the night half when it starts raining, that particular scene we cut many, many different versions of, and there's just a lot going on.
Once we lift off after that tent scene, I feel like the rest it was just putting in the pieces and tinkering around and it was more just fun. That sequence was really like the machinations of it all and getting all the little pieces right. We were constantly tweaking it, but it was really just putting it together. Whereas other sections of the film I find were more challenging editorially speaking than that one.
Alison Stewart: Like what?
Jennifer Lame: I think the first 20 minutes of the film and after the bomb goes off for me that, especially when I was reading the script, that section of the movie I find the most interesting, but as an editor, the most challenging of how do you keep an audience absorbed after the bomb goes off? Because that's what everyone's waiting for and then the bomb goes off. How do you keep everyone's attention all the way to the end? Because that's some of my favorite stuff. I think that was a challenge in a good way. Because I loved all this stuff, but it's a challenge.
The pacing of that last third of the film was a constant stress and challenge of making sure everybody was locked in. Because it's a three-hour film and as an editor, you got to keep people's attention.
Alison Stewart: Pacing is so interesting because pacing doesn't necessarily mean quick. [chuckles]
Jennifer Lame: No.
Alison Stewart: It's actually almost musical in that way. It's a flow, right?
Jennifer Lame: Exactly.
Alison Stewart: When you're thinking about pacing, if you think about the flow of the film, the flow of the story, how can you tell when pacing isn't working? What's your Jennifer test?
Jennifer Lame: Well, luckily, Chris has this great thing he's always done where every Friday very early on, we invite like one or two people to the edit room and sit with those people and watch the whole film whatever kind of stage it's in, even if it's pretty rough. That's the greatest test. Is sitting in a room with another person, you can feel whether they're checked out, whether they're bored, whether something's confusing. I swear every time the lights go up, Chris and I both know what the person's going to say before they even say it because you can kind of feel it. That's a great test.
I think just my own gut instinct of when I'm watching something, I can tell if I feel things, something's too rushed or something doesn't feel natural. I think particularly with the pacing of this film, it's baked into it when things need to be rushed and when you need to feel the anxiety for Oppenheimer of things are out of control or right after the bomb when he is waiting for the call and he is wondering what's going on. Things slow down because things are slowing down for him, and no one's giving him information. I think, yes, you're right when you say it's musical.
It's this gut instinct, musical kind of ebb and flow of you have to take the audience on the highs and the lows with the character so they never get off the train. Like they never get off the ride, so you have to keep the ride having the ups and downs. It can't be up all the time obviously because that gets boring. It's incredibly difficult to talk about, but it is this constant calibration and tweaking it all the way till the end on the sound stage. I would notice things sitting on the stage with the mixers, I'm like, "Oh, this isn't good. I can tell these guys are checked out." You're just constantly tweaking it and shaping it.
Alison Stewart: What's something that's important for an editor to keep in mind when you have a film that has a lot of dialogue? Interrogation scenes, there's courtroom drama, there's planning in the labs. What's important to keep in mind when with dialogue-heavy moments in films?
Jennifer Lame: They're obviously my favorite stuff. I love that. I think because I came up under the great Noah Baumbach who's so good at dialogue, heavy scenes and he also shoots a lot of takes, which is great because actors get lost in their characters and these performances. I think for me, it's all about the footage. If I feel like a scene isn't popping for me or doesn't have that moment, I just keep watching the dailies. Even if it's like one word or one sentence or one look or someone touching someone, it's just I never give up on making something better. I always go back to the footage as if it's like I'm an archeologist and I'm excavating.
I feel like I find new and interesting things all the way at the end. I think as an editor, a big thing is to know that you're always going to do so many passes. Again, you have to stay looking at the minutiae of it, not the big picture because you'll get overwhelmed. Because I know that I can change something all the way till the end, so we do character passes. This week we'll do this character and next week we'll do this character. If you see something bad with another character, you just have to put it out of mind and you'll get to it. You just have to compartmentalize that stuff and know that you can always fix something and find something great.
Alison Stewart: Cillian Murphy has a great face. You look at a lot of faces. What is it something that he does as an actor, just with his face? He's born with that face, that's genetics, but actors really use their bodies. What's something that he does that is unique to him? You've looked at him a lot. [chuckles]
Jennifer Lame: I have looked at him a lot. I don't know because I don't know what he does because I don't know much about acting. I just know what I think is authentic to the characters that I'm creating, but he is brilliant. The fact that he was able to make-- When I was going through the dailies and making my assembly, I couldn't look away from him. He just brings you in, and even though he's playing this character that no one really knew what they felt or what they thought, half the time, you just become so locked in and obsessed with who this person is and you don't want to leave a room with him.
I don't know how he did it, but he had that enigmatic quality that I think Oppenheimer did where people were drawn to him, but you also couldn't totally figure him out. He just nailed it. I don't know, maybe that's a little bit part of his personality because he's a little bit like that, but I think he's just a brilliant actor and he just nailed that performance. I was nervous because obviously Oppenheimer the person is, everyone says no one really knew who he was. That's a tricky part to play, but he really nailed it.
Kousha Navidar: That was Allison Stewart's conversation with Film Editor Jennifer Lame, who just took home the award for best editing at the Oscars for her work on Oppenheimer.[music] Up next, another Oscar nominee, documentarian Nisha Pahuja, who was nominated for her film, To Kill a Tiger, which focuses on one family's fight for justice in the wake of a brutal sexual assault in rural India. That's after a quick break. Stay with us.
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