Pietro Scalia | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 17, 1960 |
| Education | University of California, Los Angeles (MFA) |
| Occupations | Film editor, producer |
| Awards | See below |
Pietro Scalia (born March 17, 1960) is an Italian-American film editor and producer, best known for his work with directors Ridley Scott, Gus Van Sant and Oliver Stone. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, for Stone's JFK (1991) and Black Hawk Down (2001), out of four total nominations. His other accolades include two American Cinema Editors Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and a Satellite Award.
He was born in Catania, Sicily, [1] and later emigrated to Aarau, Switzerland as a child with his parents. [2] There, he attended Swiss-German schools until high school.
After graduation, he decided to move to the United States to pursue his college education. He spent two years at the University at Albany, The State University of New York, after which he was accepted as an undergraduate at UCLA. The Swiss government's scholarship helped him through five years of UCLA and in 1985 he earned his Master of Fine Arts from the UCLA Film School. [3]
After his MFA, a couple of short films, a screenplay, two video documentaries, and a 16 mm thesis film, he returned to Europe to pursue his desire to become a film director. Shortly afterward, he returned to the United States on a work visa to pursue his career in Hollywood as a film editor. He began as an assistant editor on Andrei Konchalovsky's Shy People. Later, he received an assistant editor position working with Oliver Stone. However, it was not easy to get the job. Scalia admired Oliver Stone's work, especially Salvador , so he decided he wanted to work with that director. He got a contact through the sister of one of the assistant editors. Scalia worked on such films as Wall Street (1987) and Talk Radio (1988). He later continued as an associate editor on Born on the Fourth of July and as an additional editor on The Doors .
After five years of working with Oliver Stone, Scalia was finally asked to fully edit a film. It was JFK , for which Scalia and his co-editor, Joe Hutshing, were honored with an Academy Award for Film Editing. Craig McKay was nominated the same year for editing The Silence of the Lambs . Scalia edited a sequel to the movie, Hannibal ten years later. He also received a BAFTA Award and A.C.E. Award for his work. [4]
Pietro Scalia worked with Bernardo Bertolucci on Little Buddha (1993) and Stealing Beauty (1996), [5] as well as with Sam Raimi on The Quick and the Dead (1995). He earned two more Academy Award nominations: first in 1997 for Good Will Hunting and second in 2000 for Gladiator , [6] and a second Academy Award for director Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down . [7] He also edited G.I. Jane and a pilot episode of a TV series American Gothic in late 1990s.
In the recent years, Scalia edited such movies as Levity (2003) directed by Ed Solomon, a documentary entitled Ashes and Snow, The Great Raid directed by John Dahl, and Memoirs of a Geisha , one of the most publicized movies of 2005, directed by Rob Marshall. Scalia also worked on Hannibal Rising , a movie that tells a story of a teenaged Hannibal and his young sister Mischa Lecter after their parents are killed in World War II. It was directed by Peter Webber and released in 2007. He has a long lasting relationship with Ridley Scott working on movies such as American Gangster in 2007, Body of Lies in 2008 and Robin Hood in 2010. Most recently he worked with director Ridley Scott on The Martian , released in October 2015. In May 2017, Scalia replaced editor Chris Dickens on the film Solo: A Star Wars Story , which was released in May 2018. [8]
Scalia lives in Los Angeles with his wife Teresa Sparks and two children, Julian and Maia Scalia.
| † | Denotes titles that have not yet been released |
| Year | Film | Director | Contribution | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | Over the Summer | Teresa Sparks | Sound editor, camera assistant | |
| 1987 | Shy People | Andrei Konchalovsky | First assistant editor | |
| Wall Street | Oliver Stone | Assistant editor | 1st of 5 collaborations with Stone | |
| 1988 | Cameron's Closet | Armand Mastroianni | ||
| Haunted Summer | Ivan Passer | |||
| Talk Radio | Oliver Stone | |||
| 1989 | Born on the Fourth of July | Associate editor | ||
| 1991 | The Doors | Additional editor | ||
| 1995 | White Man's Burden | Desmond Nakano | Consulting editor | |
| 2004 | Incident at Loch Ness | Zak Penn | Actor | Role; as Himself |
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1995 | American Gothic | Episode: "Pilot" |
| Year | Title | Director |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Ashes and Snow | Gregory Colbert |
| 2007 | The 11th Hour |
|
| 2009 | 40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy | Robert Lemelson |
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | Breaking the Ice | Supervising editor |
| Institution | Year | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | 1992 | Best Film Editing | JFK | Won |
| 1998 | Good Will Hunting | Nominated | ||
| 2001 | Gladiator | Nominated | ||
| 2002 | Black Hawk Down | Won | ||
| American Film Institute Awards | 2002 | Editor of the Year | Nominated | |
| BAFTA Awards | 1993 | Best Editing | JFK [9] | Won |
| 2001 | Gladiator [10] | Won | ||
| 2002 | Black Hawk Down | Nominated | ||
| 2008 | American Gangster | Nominated | ||
| 2016 | The Martian | Nominated | ||
| Camerimage | 2008 | Special Award (for Editor with Unique Visual Sensitivity) | N/a | Won |
| Critics' Choice Movie Awards | 2016 | Best Editing | The Martian | Nominated |
| David di Donatello | 1996 | Best Editing | Stealing Beauty | Nominated |
| Locarno Film Festival | 2023 | Vision Award [7] | N/a | Won |
| Nastro d'Argento | 2006 | Special Award (for editing) | Memoirs of a Geisha | Won |
| 2014 | Best Editing | The Counselor, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 | Nominated | |
| Satellite Awards | 2001 | Best Editing | Gladiator | Nominated |
| 2007 | American Gangster | Won | ||
| 2016 | The Martian | Nominated |