Introduction
Christopher Russell Rouse (born November 28, 1958) is an American film and television editor and screenwriter who has about a dozen feature-film credits and numerous television credits. Rouse won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, the BAFTA Award for Best Editing, and the ACE Eddie Award for the film The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).
Life and career
Rouse was born in Los Angeles, California. His father, Russell Rouse, was a writer, director and producer. His mother was actress Beverly Michaels. In the 1980s, Rouse worked as an assistant editor on numerous films, commencing with All Summer in a Day (1982). His first editing credit was for Desperate Hours (1990), which was directed by Michael Cimino. Much of Rouse's work in the 1990s was for television. He edited the mini-series Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2002) for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award.
Rouse has worked on six films with director Paul Greengrass. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) was their first collaboration. Rouse had previously been an "additional editor" on the initial film in the Bourne series, The Bourne Identity (2002), that had been directed by Doug Liman. Frank Marshall, who co-produced the Bourne series, recommended Rouse to Greengrass. The editing of their second feature together, United 93 (2006), received the BAFTA Award as well as nominations for the Academy Award and the ACE Eddie Award. Rouse won the Academy Award, the BAFTA Award, and the ACE Eddie for his third collaboration The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). He edited Greengrass' 2010 film Green Zone.
Several interviews of Rouse have been published where he discusses the editing of Greengrass' films. Greengrass is noted for a "cinéma vérité" style of filmmaking that uses several handheld cameras, and that creates opportunities for innovative editing. Ellen Feldman has written a detailed analysis of the editing of United 93. David Bordwell has discussed this aspect of the films as a further extension of "intensified continuity", which is a perspective on filmmaking that Bordwell has been developing for some years.
Rouse has been elected as a member of the American Cinema Editors.
Awards and nominations
- 2008
- Won: Academy Award for Best Film Editing - The Bourne Ultimatum
- Won: BAFTA Film Awards Best Edited Feature Film - The Bourne Ultimatum
- Won: ACE Eddie Best Edited Film - Drama - The Bourne Ultimatum
- 2007
- Nominated: Academy Award for Film Editing - United 93
- Won: BAFTA Award for Best Editing - United 93
- Nominated: ACE Eddie Best Edited Film - Drama - United 93
- Won: Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Editing - United 93
- 2006
- Won: San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Editing - United 93
- 2001
- Nominated: Emmy Award - Anne Frank: The Whole Story