Copyright by Alexis Leigh Carreiro 2010 The Dissertation Committee for Alexis Leigh Carreiro Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation (or treatise): Script-to-Screen: Film Editing and Collaborative Authorship During the Hollywood Renaissance Committee: Janet Staiger, Supervisor Tom Schatz Mary Kearney Don Howard Barry Brummett Script-to-Screen: Film Editing and Collaborative Authorship During the Hollywood Renaissance by Alexis Leigh Carreiro, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2010 Dedication To Paulianna. (And Madison, too.) Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the Radio- TV-Film department at the University of Texas. In particular, I would like to thank Joesph Strabhaar for taking me under his wing during my first semester in 2002. With his help, I received a teaching assistant position as a first-year Masters student and, for me, that sealed the deal. That semester, I fell in love with teaching and have never looked back. (Thanks Joe!) Also, Michael Kackman courted me to work on Flow (both the on- line media studies journal and the inaugural conference) for several months before I finally agreed. His passion and persistence won me over, and I am so grateful for the experience. Flow opened up a world of opportunities for me, and I have Michael (along with co-founders Avi Santo and Chris Lucas) to thank for it. Several other faculty members have been instrumental to my success as a graduate student. My advisor, Janet Staiger, supported my research for years. Her ability to compassionately provide insightful, constructive criticism is an art form. I have greatly benefited from her accessibility, scholarship, and encouragement and I cannot thank her enough. Throughout the years, Mary Kearney and Tom Schatz have been incredible mentors and gracious friends. They have pushed me harder and farther than where I originally wanted to go as a graduate student, but I am forever grateful for it. To think v that we are now colleagues is an honor. I also appreciate Don Howard’s contributions my dissertation. As an editor, he provided me with practical advice and insight on the craft. And, I would like to offer a very special thank you to Barry Brummett for participating on my dissertation committee. Although I don’t think I ever told you in person, I enjoy you Dr. Brummett. I really do. In addition to the stellar faculty at UT-Austin, the Radio-TV-Film department has some of the most extraordinary graduate students on the planet. To Avi Santo, Jennifer Peterson, Hector Amaya, David Uskovich, Allison Perlman (our adopted RTF’er), Elliot Panek, Matt Payne, Peter Alilunas, Elissa Nelson, Carolyn Cunningham, Jean Lauer, Holly Custard, Chris Lucas, Alisa Perren, Kyle Barnett (and Lisa, too) - I am happy to stand among you and call you my friends. I would also like to thank everyone at The Omelettry. Being a graduate student and writing a dissertation is damn hard work, but waiting tables is no easy task. You all have my utmost admiration and respect. Believe it or not, our crazy-busy Sundays kept me grounded and sane, and sometimes I laughed more with you on that one day than I did all week. It was a really special time in my life, and I’ll never forget it. (Also, I would like to offer a very special thank you to Angeles and The Carpenters. Angeles: thanks for all the love. Kenny: thanks for taking me in all those years ago. And Jesse: thanks for keeping me around. You have no idea how much it means to me.) Finally, I would like to offer a very humble thank you to my family and friends back home and across the country. Your love, encouragement, friendship, laughter, and kindness have carried me through the loneliest and toughest parts of this process. So, in vi case I have not said it enough – thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I truly appreciate your generosity and support, and I could not have done it without you. vii Script-to-Screen: Film Editing and Collaborative Authorship During the Hollywood Renaissance Publication No._____________ Alexis Leigh Carreiro, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: Janet Staiger Abstract: Hollywood film editing remains on the theoretical margins of contemporary film scholarship, and the cause of this is three-fold. First, despite advances in collaborative authorship studies, the Hollywood film director is still largely regarded as the sole creative lynchpin upon which the film’s success or failure ultimately lies. Second, Classical Hollywood film editing—commonly referred to as the continuity aesthetic—is considered successful if it remains unnoticed, if it remains invisible. Therefore, within this continuity aesthetic, the editor’s ultimate goal is to hide his or her own labor. Third, determining exactly how and where a film editor contributed to a film text during post-production is an incredibly difficult task. So, what is the solution? This dissertation explores how film archives can contribute to knowledge about the cinematic post-production process. My central research questions are: what kinds of information do film archives contain regarding the creative collaboration between the director and the editor? And, what does available archive material tell us about the viii changes and creative revisions in post-production? To answer these questions, I conducted original archival research on the following Hollywood Renaissance films: Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Conversation (1974), Annie Hall (1977), and Raging Bull (1980). These films reflect a highly creative era in the Hollywood industry and are well- known for the collaborative relationship between the directors and the editors. To determine how and where collaborative authorship occurred in these films, I compared archival documents such as the storyboards and shooting scripts to the final film texts. These documents contain explicit instructions about how the scenes should be lit, decorated, and shot and how the film itself should be edited together. Therefore, I argue that any editing discrepancies between these documents and the final films were the result of a creative collaboration between the director and the editor. Ideally, this model of “script-to-screen” archival research will inspire other academics to investigate how and where a film’s creative revision occurs during post-production—and to what effect. ix Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION 1 Hollywood Editors’ Work Roles .............................................................................6 The Auteur Theory.................................................................................................16 Auteur Cinema and the Hollywood Renaissance...................................................22 Theoretical Framework and Methods ....................................................................32 Methods of Historical Analysis .............................................................................38 Chapter Outline......................................................................................................40 CHAPTER TWO - BONNIE AND CLYDE 44 Bonnie and Clyde’s Production History and Collaborative Authorship................45 Bonnie and Clyde’s Script-to-Screen Differences.................................................53 Summary................................................................................................................67 CHAPTER 3 – THE CONVERSATION 74 Francis Ford Coppola.............................................................................................75 Walter Murch.........................................................................................................83 The Conversation: Context, Collaboration, and Claims........................................86 Archival Evidence..................................................................................................90 Summary..............................................................................................................104 CHAPTER 4: ANNIE HALL 107 Allen and Rosenblum: From Anhedonia to Annie Hall.......................................110 Rosenblum’s Claims Versus Archival Evidence .................................................114 Summary..............................................................................................................125 x CHAPTER 5 - RAGING BULL 128 Scorsese and Schoonmaker: Biography and History...........................................128 Raging Bull: History and Production Context .....................................................133 Claims and Archival Evidence.............................................................................137 The Cerdan Fight .................................................................................................140 The Dauthuille Fight............................................................................................144 The Robinson Fight..............................................................................................151 Summary..............................................................................................................170 CONCLUSION 174 APPENDIX A 183 APPENDIX B 185 APPENDIX C - The Conversation Case Study –- Final Script vs. Film Scenes 190 APPENDIX D The Conversation Deleted Scenes from the Final