Hank Corwin, a two-time Best Editing Oscar nominee for Adam McKay’s The Big Short in 2016 and Vice in 2019, reflects on his latest collaboration with the writer/director/producer–Don’t Look Up (Netflix), a satire with plenty of laughs and an underlying seriousness in which a planet-destroying comet is on a collision course with Earth. But the perilous problem doesn’t seem to rank as a top priority for the political powers that be or the public at large.
Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio star as astronomers who discover the comet, try to sound the alert but to no avail. Not even the President of the United States, played by Meryl Streep, and her chief of staff (Jonah Hill) seems all that concerned. And the media too detour into audience-building diversions as, for example, morning talk show hosts (Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett) can’t see the forest from the trees with Blanchett’s character more concerned with DiCaprio being a smoking hot astronomer. He becomes a media darling while Lawrence is reduced in the public view to being a hysterical alarmist. The cast also includes Timothee Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Rob Morgan, Ariana Grande and Michael Chiklis.
In this video, Corwin, founder of edit house Lost Planet, discusses his approach to cutting Don’t Look Up and his working relationship with McKay–who too is heard from with his take on Corwin’s artistry.
