Jim Clark (film editor)


Jim Clark was a British film editor with more than forty feature film credits between 1956 and 2008. Clark also directed eight features and short films. Among his most recognized films are Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man, The Killing Fields, and Vera Drake. In 2011, Clark published Dream Repairman: Adventures in Film Editing, a memoir of his career.

Early life

Clark was born in 1931, and grew up in Boston, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Oundle School in Northamptonshire and founded the Oundle Film Society in 1947.

Career

Clark moved to London, and in 1951 began work as an assistant editor at Ealing Studios. Subsequently he worked as a freelance assistant editor on two films directed by Stanley Donen and edited by Jack Harris. When Harris declined the opportunity to work on Donen's subsequent film, Surprise Package, Donen gave Clark the job. As Clark later wrote,
He received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for the editing of The Killing Fields ; he received a second BAFTA Award for editing The Mission. Clark was also nominated for BAFTA Awards for his editing of the films Marathon Man and Vera Drake. In 2005, Clark received the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award.
Responding to a question about the major influences on his editing, Clark said
As a director he was responsible for Every Home Should Have One, Rentadick and Madhouse.

Personal life and memoir

Clark lived in Kensington with his wife Laurence Méry-Clark, likewise a film and television editor. They married in 1961 and had three children. Clark's autobiography Dream Repairman: Adventures in Film Editing was published in 2011, receiving warm reviews from The Guardian and The Observer.