PortraitAt 91, he is one of the oldest practicing filmmakers. And also one of the most prolific. Since his beginnings, the American, whose last film “Cry Macho” hits theaters on November 10, has brought together dedicated collaborators around the same vision of cinema.
At 79 years old, Joel Cox is one of the last specimens of an endangered species. The editor is one of many Hollywood studio employees who, in the early 1960s, started at the bottom of the pyramid and gradually rose to the top. At the time, film schools hardly existed, and production houses assumed the responsibility of training and hardening their employees. Joel Cox thus started in the mail service of Warner, before becoming assistant editor on several house productions.
It was in 1975 while assisting Ferris Webster, then Clint Eastwood’s official editor, that Joel Cox worked on Josey Wales, outlaw. The director had just moved the offices of Malpaso, his production house, from Universal to Warner. And he intrigued Hollywood. Because he was as much the star of the violent Inspector Harry (1971) that the author to the heightened sensitivity of Breezy (1973). Because he systematically called for a Republican vote in the presidential election and, at the same time, insisted on having more black comedians in front of the camera or had as a regular musician on Josey Wales, outlaw, Jerry Fielding, formerly blacklisted for his Communist sympathies by Senator McCarthy.
“We went to Clint’s, in Carmel [ville du nord de la Californie dont il fut un temps maire] for post-production, remembers Joel Cox. Ferris Webster not being fully available, I worked on the edit with Clint. When our work was done, he said to me: “I don’t know what your plans are in life, but my plan would be for you to work on all the films that I will do.” We can say that we have made a few. ” The two men have collaborated on more than thirty films in forty-six years of professional life together. Their latest, Cry Macho, where Eastwood plays a fallen rodeo star, releases November 10 in France.
A job for life
The offices of Malpaso are still located in those of the Warner, in Burbank, not far from Hollywood. This is a bungalow, a small house, similar to so many others on the studio campus. An office where the director goes by helicopter from Carmel. This ride has become a habit over the decades. One example among many others of the fidelity of the filmmaker. Influenced by the master of the western John Ford – a frequent subject of discussion with his editor Joel Cox – Clint Eastwood has developed the habit of working regularly with the same actors and the same technicians. Until setting up a structure in which some have been employed, sometimes for several decades.
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