Elmo Williams

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Elmo Williams

Cover of Elmo Williams: A Hollywood Memoir
Born James Elmo Williams
April 30, 1913 (1913-04-30) (age 95)
Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
Occupation film editor
Spouse(s) Lorraine Williams

Elmo Williams (born April 30, 1913 in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma) is an Academy Award-winning veteran film and television editor, director, producer, and executive.[1]

[edit] Career

Among the films that Williams edited are High Noon (1952), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), and The Vikings (1958). Williams was involved in the production of The Longest Day (1962) and Cleopatra (1963),[2] and he was a producer of the film Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). From 1971-74 Williams was the Head of Production for 20th Century Fox.

Williams edited the film Design for Death (1947), which won an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Williams won the Academy Award for Film Editing for his work on High Noon (directed by Fred Zinneman - 1952), and was nominated again for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (directed by Richard Fleischer - 1954). In 1971, Williams was honored with the "Golden Eddie" award as Filmmaker of the Year from the American Cinema Editors, which honored him again in 1990 with its Career Achievement Award.

In 2006, Williams published Elmo Williams: A Hollywood Memoir.[3] The book includes a detailed discussion of the editing of High Noon; James Berardinelli has characterized Williams' editing of this film as "brilliant".[4] Williams indicates that the well-known montage in the film as the clock ticks down to "high noon" was specifically edited to accommodate the music that had been composed for the scene by Dimitri Tiomkin; Williams wanted to edit the montage differently, but Tiomkin objected and prevailed. Williams explains that the film's director, Fred Zinneman, had moved on to other projects after filming was complete, and had little involvement in the editing. This level of autonomy for a film's editor would be surprising for a contemporary film, but (as Williams made clear in a 2005 interview) it wasn't atypical of that era (the 1940s and 1950s) of filmmaking.[5] Lastly, Harry Gerstad, who was credited on the film as its co-editor, had only a nominal involvement in the editing. By the rules of the Academy Awards, Gerstad nonetheless shared in the Academy Award for the editing of High Noon.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Elmo Williams Biography", webpage archived at WebCite from this original URL on 2008-03-09.
  2. ^ "Films by Elmo Williams", webpage archived at WebCite from this original URL on 2008-03-09.
  3. ^ Williams, Elmo (2006). Elmo Williams: A Hollywood Memoir (McFarland). ISBN 0786426217
  4. ^ Berardinelli, James (2003). ReelViews: The Ultimate Guide to the Best 1,000 Modern Movies on DVD and Video (Justin, Charles, & Co.), p. 567.
  5. ^ White, Rusty and Williams, Elmo (2005). "A Conversation with Oscar Winning Film Editor Elmo Williams", Entertainment Insiders webpage archived at WebCite from this original URL on 2008-03-09.

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Williams, Elmo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Williams, James Elmo
SHORT DESCRIPTION film editor
DATE OF BIRTH 1913-4-30
PLACE OF BIRTH Lone Wolf, Oklahoma
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH


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