Generous with anecdotes about his many collaborations, starting with the sacred monsters of Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott, two-time Oscar winner Pietro Scalia revealed the secrets of the craft to us at a long meeting in Locarno 2023.
Clearly not used to interview sessions, Pietro Scalia is tiredbut does not lose his smile when he asks: “But how do actors do it?”. The Oscar-winning editor, who is of Sicilian origin but emigrated to Switzerland with his family when he was only a year old, has always loved the arts, especially film and drawing, and managed to fulfill his dream of studying in the USA thanks to a Swiss scholarship. And he is at home in Switzerland, so he is honored to receive the Ticinomoda 2023 Vision Award from Film Festival in Locarno.
Candid and heartfelt, with a frankness that allowed Oliver Stone to appreciate the constructive criticism of this young employee, who challenged some places in the film’s script. Wall StreetScalia made a name for himself in Hollywood film after film. Strongest of two Oscars won for Kennedy AND Black hawk downto which are added nominations for Will Hunting AND Gladiatorthe editor managed to stand up to two giants such as Oliver Stone and Ridley Scott. “I’m not so easily intimidated” he explains. “I listen to what they ask me, but if I have something to say, I say it. I don’t see work as a battle.”. Scalia then focuses on the differences in working methods between Scott, Stone and Bertolucci, with whom he collaborated for Little Buddha AND i dance alone: “Two opposite worlds. Oliver is a fighter, he fights with studios, with producers and has a lot of demands. He creates an atmosphere of tension. Ridley Scott chases the perfect aesthetic, and I love the roughest things. Bertolucci was more poetic, he came into the room with newspapers and read the headlines to me, he was generous with compliments. He deeply loved cinema and felt happy doing this work “.
From Spider-Man to Morbius through Star Wars
Throughout his career, Pietro Scalia has worked closely with writers, but he has also experienced the world of movie comics by editing two The Incredible Spiderman AND Morbiuswith whom the critics have not been kind. “When Scorsese says that cinematics are not movies, I agree with him.” Scalia confesses. “It’s a completely different way of working. I had the freedom to create and love movies by working with writers, while movie comics are based on marketing, they are products, there are a lot of people involved. learn a new technique: edited a 3D film with glasses, this has never happened before. But the stories are always the same, a hero who fights evil. They make too many, but as long as they cash out, they will continue. “.
In terms of commercial products, Pietro Scalia recalls the “weird” experience with Solo: A Star Wars Story and the “poisonous” sci-fi saga fandom: “I was supposed to take a break from work, but suddenly I was called to go to England for five weeks when the film was in production. When I arrived in London, I discovered that the editor had been fired. they left for a couple of weeks to shoot another thing, and in the meantime I started working on the material. A month later they call me and say that the directors are fired. A few weeks later Ron Howard was announced who kept the same film crew, but rewrote 80% of the film. I didn’t mind the movie, but it came out too fast, without proper marketing support, and the fans rejected it.”.
Martin Scorsese returns to comic book talk: ‘It’s a different form of cinema’
Regrets? Gladiator 2 and Little Buddha
After the first Oscar for John F. Kennedy, received with great effort, Pietro Scalia vowed that he would not “go back to hell”, but he did it for Black Hawk Down, which earned him a second Oscar. “I hated this movie” he confesses. “Usually action movies are filmed piece by piece because of the complexity, explosions, helicopter crashes… But Ridley wanted to shoot continuously, he used up to 11 cameras, two helicopters, two steadicams. They blocked the roads to film 8 minutes in 10. times of footage 88 minutes of footage, and who’s watching it?”. Despite his efforts, Scalia is very close to Ridley Scott and admits he regrets not being in Gladiator 2 because he was busy with Michael Mann: “I wanted to do it, I really care about it, but when I spoke to Ridley, he told me that he had already offered the movie to Claire Simpson.”.
However, the editor’s biggest regret is with Bertolucci’s Little Buddha, which some critics considered “not entirely successful”. Scalia reveals the backstory of the project and clarifies: “The first version was like a slowly flowing river, he was delighted. When Miramax took over distribution, Harvey Weinstein asked for many cuts. I invited Bertolucci to object, but he said: “I want it to be for young people.” I’m so sorry to see him so truncated. Even Alien: Covenant and Prometheus have cut scenes that hurt when you think about it.”. Another movie that deserves more luck among Scalia’s edits is Sam Raimi’s eccentric western Die Quick: “DiCaprio was produced by Sharon Stone with Gene Hackman. It was very young and was Russell Crowe’s first American film. Raimi is a delightful person, he used to call me “the butcher” jokingly. and from his questions. A film full of inventions, but it didn’t have a final cut either, and we ended up cutting out a lot.”.
Little Buddha: Keanu Reeves revealed a crazy diet for one of the movie scenes
The Future of Editing and AI
Naturally, with regard to the topic of artificial intelligence, which has been in the spotlight in recent months, Pietro Scalia also expressed his opinion, based on his many years of experience in the field of technology development. “Passed all formats” he explains. “8mm, 16mm, 35mm cinemascope. The Doors were edited with a now defunct system designed by George Lucas prior to digital. Evolution is constant. Today, with the unknown factor of artificial intelligence, we are at a critical juncture. know if the AI will learn to edit, editing is a language, but it’s a human, personal, complex, very subtle choice. Anyone who edits a film will get a different result, and I don’t think the human factor is interchangeable.”.