In 1976, Hambling began a notable collaboration with the director Alan Parker that extended over nearly all of Parker's films. The three BAFTA awards noted above were all for films directed by Parker. Chris Routledge has described their collaboration as follows:[1][2]
The collaboration with Parker has ranged widely, from the musical Bugsy Malone, through the partly animated Pink Floyd The Wall, to the grim Angel Heart and the strange story of The Road to Welville. They have been particularly successful with musicals, Hambling's talent for creating the illusion of movement proving useful where musical performances appear in films such as The Commitments, which Lawrence O'Toole called "a great swim for the eyeballs." Perhaps because of their experience in advertising, Parker's slick and striking images combine well with Hambling's intuitive sense of pace and rhythm, for example in the otherwise problematic Fame, and in the much trailed, but poorly received Evita.
In addition to the three BAFTA Awards, Hambling had been nominated for the BAFTA award for three additional films (Fame, Another Country, and Evita). Six films edited by Hambling were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing (Midnight Express, Fame, Mississippi Burning, The Commitments, In the Name of the Father, and Evita). Hambling had been elected to membership in the American Cinema Editors.[3]Mississippi Burning won the ACE Eddie Award, and in 1998, Hambling was honored with the American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award.
According to Alan Parker, by the time Hambling retired in 2003 he was one of just two editors still cutting film manually using a Moviola machine; the other being Michael Kahn, Steven Spielberg's editor.[4] He died in 2013 at the age of 86.[4]
Filmography
The director of each film is indicated in parentheses.
^Routledge, Chris (2000). "Gerry Hambling," in Tom Pendergast and Sara Pendergast (editors), International Dictionary of Film and Filmmakers, Edition 4 (St. James Press), ISBN978-1-55862-449-8. Online version of article retrieved 12 December 2007.
^O'Toole, Lawrence (1992). "Uncommitted", review of The Commitments in Entertainment Weekly, Issue #118, 15 May 1992; online version retrieved 2008-06-19.
Perkins, Roy; Stollery, Martin (2004). "Hambling, Gerry (1926– )". British Film Editors: The Heart of the Movie. British Film Institute. This short biographical article notes Don Fairservice's analysis of Hambling's editing in Mississippi Burning.
