Jay Rabinowitz (film editor)
Jay Rabinowitz is an American film editor and commercial editor. He is certified by the American Cinema Editors.
Rabinowitz studied at New York University, where he graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the undergraduate Cinema Studies program. During the program he learned of a film in pre-production that needed an intern, which turned out to be Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986). He is credited as the assistant editor for several films in the next years, including Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989-edited by Melody London).[1]
Starting with Night on Earth (1991), Rabinowitz has been the editor for seven of Jarmusch's films: Dead Man (1995), Year of the Horse (1997), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005), and The Limits of Control (2009). Rabinowitz was nominated for an "Eddie" award of the American Cinema Editors for Year of the Horse (Best Edited Documentary Film category).[2]
His other credits as film editor include Mark Webber's directorial debut Explicit Ills; Todd Haynes' I'm Not There; Frank Oz' The Stepford Wives; Adam Bhala Lough's Bomb the System (for which he was honored with the Best Editing award at the Milan Film Festival) and Weapons; and Curtis Hanson's Academy Award-winning 8 Mile.
Mr. Rabinowitz' editing for Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000) won best editing awards from the Phoenix Film Critics Society and from the Online Film Critics Society. The film was listed as the 29th best-edited film of all time in a 2012 survey of members of the Motion Picture Editors Guild.[3] He was nominated for the Online Film Critics' award for Mr. Aronofsky's The Fountain (2006).[4]
He also functioned as music editor on Explicit Ills; Bomb the System; Weapons; Big Bad Love; Requiem for a Dream; When Pigs Fly; and Mr. Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, Coffee and Cigarettes, and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.
For Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, he edited numerous episodes of the television series Oz and Homicide: Life on the Street. Mr. Rabinowitz worked with legendary photographer Robert Frank on the latter's film Last Supper.
In the year 2000 Rabinowitz was awarded at the Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Editing for his work on Requiem for a Dream and in 2011 for his work on The Tree of Life.[5]
In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild included two films edited by Rabinowitz in its listing of the best-edited films of all time. Requiem for a Dream (2000) was 29th, and The Tree of Life (2011) was 65th.[6]
In 2019, he received the Sophia Lifetime Achievement Award from the Portuguese Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences (Academia Portuguesa das Artes e Ciências Cinematográficas).
Filmography
The directors for some of these films are indicated in parentheses.
- 1991: Night on Earth
- 1992: Last Supper (Robert Frank)
- 1993: Clean, Shaven
- 1993: When Pigs Fly (Sara Driver)
- 1994: Jimmy Hollywood
- 1995: Dead Man
- 1996: Mother Night
- 1997: Year of the Horse
- 1997: Affliction
- 1993–1998: Homicide: Life on the Street (TV series)
- 1999: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
- 2000: Requiem for a Dream
- 2001: Big Bad Love
- 2002: 8 Mile
- 2002: Bomb the System
- 2003: Coffee and Cigarettes
- 2004: The Stepford Wives
- 2005: Dawn Anna (TV movie)
- 2005: Broken Flowers
- 2006: The Fountain
- 2007: Weapons
- 2007: I'm Not There
- 2008: Explicit Ills
- 2009: The Limits of Control
- 2009: Women Without Men
- 2011: The Adjustment Bureau
- 2011: The Tree of Life
- 2011: Rampart
- 2014: Rosewater
- 2016: Junction 48
- 2016: Codes of Conduct (TV series)
- 2017: The New Radical (Adam Bhala Lough)
- 2018: Boy Erased
- 2020: Irresistible
- 2021: The United States vs. Billie Holiday
- 2021: Oslo
- 2022: Beast
References
- ^ Feld, Rob (September–October 2005). "Method Man: Jay Rabinowitz Finds that the Film Tells Him How to Edit It". Editors Guild Magazine. Vol. 26, no. 5. Motion Picture Editors Guild. Archived from the original on October 21, 2012. Retrieved November 26, 2012.
- ^ Jay Rabinowitz at IMDb
- ^ "The 75 Best Edited Films". Editors Guild Magazine. 1 (3). May 2012. Archived from the original on March 17, 2015.
- ^ "2006 Awards (10th Annual)". Online Film Critics Society. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
- ^ OFCS Awards 2011 at ofcs.org, retrieved December 12, 2012
- ^ "The 75 Best Edited Films". Editors Guild Magazine. 1 (3). May 2012.
Further reading
- A short biography and links to six video clips with Rabinowitz: "Artists in Residence: Jay Rabinowitz". Manhattan Edit Workshop. Archived from the original on February 28, 2018. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
- Tim Dirks includes the concluding scenes from Requiem for a Dream in his list "Best Film Editing Sequences". See Dirks, Tim. "Best Film Editing Sequences: 2000 - now". filmsite.org.
- An appreciation of the editing in Requiem for a Dream: Wohl, Michael (2002). Editing Techniques with Final Cut Pro. Peachpit Press. p. 132. ISBN 9780201734836.
- Another appreciation of the editing in 'Requiem': Rabin, Nathan. "Requiem For A Dream is intense, but is it great?". The Dissolve.
And if Requiem For A Dream isn't the best-edited American film of the past 25 years, then it's at least a formidable candidate for one of the most edited films of the past quarter-decade.