Get the Tickets: Honoring Thelma Schoonmaker

Thelma Schoonmaker will be honored with a Coolidge Award at 8:00 pm on Wednesday, April 11, at 8:00 pm. Tickets are $35 ($30 for Coolidge members). Coolidge Corner Theater will also hold a panel to discuss The Departed at 7:00 pm on Thursday, April 12. Tickets are $20 ($15 for Coolidge members).

Director Martin Scorsese is a legend who finally won his long-overdue Oscar with The Departed, but would his movies be as good without editor Thelma Schoonmaker? Perhaps, but editors add more to a movie's style than we realize. The job is more than splicing shots together - editors can rescue whole scenes and performances, and they control the rhythm of the film.

Schoonmaker is being honored at the Coolidge for her editing talents, which helped make the visual style of The Departed so distinctive that she won an Oscar (her third) for it. You can applaud Schoonmaker in a glamorous soiree on April 11, or you can get down to the nitty-gritty by hearing her observations on her work on April 12.

Coolidge Corner says a few tickets remain for both events. If you were planning on going, you should make a move now - tickets are available only through the Coolidge Corner box office. Any good film buff will want to check this out. Screenwriter William Monahan, who won an Oscar for The Departed script, will speak at the award ceremony, as will Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers, who will also helm the panel discussion about The Departed.

Image of Thelma Schoonmaker from the Coolidge Corner website.