John Scott

John Scott has been an editor since the early '70s. However, aside from his splendid work on "Roxanne," a hilarious modern send-up of the classic "Cyrano de Bergerac," he didn't hit his stride with critically acclaimed mainstream fare until the very beginning of the 21st century. It was especially his collaboration with director Phillip Noyce that drew him into projects eliciting extraordinary praise from critics and audiences alike. These included two films that both came out in 2002: "The Quiet American," an adaptation of Graham Greene's depiction of the early CIA's forays into French Indochina, and "Rabbit-Proof Fence," the odyssey of two Australian aboriginal girls desperately trying to return home to their families. The other major film to which Scott contributed during that time period was the 2000 British crime film "Sexy Beast," which called for a frenetic editing style, in stark contrast to the more languid, contemplative pace of "The Quiet American." The visuals of "Sexy Beast" were intended to mirror the short fuse of mob enforcer Ben Kingsley's personality. Those of "The Quiet American," on the other hand, evoked just the opposite, as the film tracked the slow burn of Michael Caine's passive, detached reporter gradually finding he could no longer remain uninvolved in the foreign policy mess unfolding around him.