Interview: Affonso Gonçalves and the Art of Editing Great Actresses

Affonso Gonçalves with this ACE win for editing True Detective (2014)Affonso Gonçalves is a man that every actress lover ought to both thank and envy. Over the course of his career in TV and film he has been privvy to a consisently vivid series of strong and sometimes downright iconic performances by several of our greatest actress. He's helped shape the way we see them, too.

His career began in earnest with as an assisant editor on Todd Solondz's cult hit about a nerdy teenager Dawn Weiner in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and soon thereafter he was editing multiple films for Ira Sachs and other independent minded directors. In the 20 years since his debut he's edited performances by Tilda Swinton (Only Lovers Left Alive), Kate Winslet (Mildred Pierce), Kerry Washington (Night Catches Us), Michelle Williams (The Hawk is Dying), Kim Basinger (The Door in the Floor), and  Patricia Clarkson (Married Life). More famously he's edited two star-making young performances that went on to be Oscar nominated for Best Actress in Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone (2010) and Quvenzhané Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). Next week he'll likely be able to add two more Oscar nominated performances to his editing triumphs with Cate Blanchett & Rooney Mara's duet in Carol.

I had the pleasure recently of grilling him about watching and shaping these Best Actress performances in Winter's Bone, Beasts of the Southern Wild and Carol. Here's our conversation (edited for length and clarity) with very mild Carol spoilers if you haven't yet seen it. The film opens in additional theaters this weekend. More after the jump...

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Spirit Award Winners

Since they aren't airing the show live (it comes on at 10 PM EST) we shan't live-blog -- seriously in this day and age no live airing? Epic stupidity -- but we can share winners and talk about highlights after zee fact late tonight or tomorrow as we just skim through the show.

Jennifer Lawrence and Nicole Kidman, both nominated

Best First Screenplay Lena Durhman Tiny Furniture. Though she's already won the true prize: an HBO pilot deal. Tiny Furniture is quite singular and funny so check it out when you can.

Best Cinematography Matthew Libatique Black Swan. Yay! Single best thing about Black Swan if you ask me. He also won our gold medal.

Best Supporting Actress Dale Dicky in Winter's Bone. She puts the hurt on Lawrence so beautifully.

Best First Feature Aaron Schneider for Get Low. (Scott Cooper won this last year for Crazy Heart. Moral of the story: Find an old grizzly acting legend and you're newbie gold!)

Best Actor James Franco in 127 Hours. I'm so glad Colin Firth wasn't eligible. Firth was good in The King's Speech but so were a lot of people this year.

Best Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop. Mr Brainwash accepts the prize. Apparently goes on and on. Honestly I feel like I'm live blogging blindfolded. I hate tape delay. This is 2011. This is not my childhood with 3 television stations and friends who had something exotic called "cable"

Best Foreign Film The King's Speech.  I guess it's too much to ask the masses to vote for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. And the masses can vote on the Spirits if they join. Which is, I think, why it's more like the Oscars than not of late.

Robert Altman Award to Please Give. Yay. It also made our best ensemble nominations. Have you seen it yet?

poll by twiigs.com

Cassavettes Awards Daddy Longlegs

Best Supporting Actor John Hawkes for Winter's Bone. It's turning into quite a "Weekend in the Ozarks" here. Is it too much to hope that Jennifer Lawrence wins too? A nice change of pace that'd be. And when there are so many hundreds of awards to win each year, why do they all gotta go to the same things?

Mark Ruffalo tweeted a beautiful congrats to his "opponent" and apparently friend.

John Hawkes is the Man. Congratulations brother. All our days in shitty little theaters back in the day paid off. Blessings!!

And he also snapped a photo of Lisa Cholodenko and her woman Wendy. The Cholodenkos Are All Right. Speaking of...

Best Screenplay Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg for The Kids Are All Right

Best Actress Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Director Darren Aronofksy, Black Swan

Best Feature Black Swan

It started as a Winter's Bone evening and then sported a rash that quickly turned into black swan feathers.

And that's it. Now the show is but an afterthought. What strange programming decisions stations make of late. The things that IFC felt were more important to show during the actula awards were The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) and Boondock Saints (2000) which they have undoubtedly shown hundreds of times already.

Stranger still it seems my IFC is not working. Dang. I was really not meant to watch this. I shall dutifully wait to see YouTube videos of Dale Dickey and John Hawkes winning their well deserved prizes.

See also: THE NICOLE KIDMAN SPIRIT SHOW