Robert Wise, 1914 - 2005.

Robert Wise, a four-time Academy Award winner whose epic 65-year career ranged from editing Orson Welles's Citizen Kane to directing the quintessential 1960s musical The Sound of Music to launching the first Star Trek film, died Wednesday of heart failure. He was 91.

Duane Byrge and Gregg Kilday, the Hollywood Reporter.

A particular admirer of Mr Wise's editing was Martin Scorsese, the director who was instrumental in getting Mr Wise the American Film Institute's life achievement award in 1998. "His films became increasingly fascinating to me because of the editing style, a very crisp, clear style of editing that kind of points the audience toward where to look in a scene," Mr Scorsese said.

New York Times.

Robert Wise was in 1989 president of the jury at the San Sebastian Film Festival. This year's edition has scheduled a retrospective exhibition of his work... [The] opening ceremony will become a painful tribute to the well-known American director. The San Sebastian Film Festival decided to dedicate this year's retrospective exhibition to Wise since "his assorted films represent all the history of Hollywood, from B-movies to the greatest pictures."

EiTB24.

To make it acceptable for kids to be dancing in the streets. That's not a normal activity... And I started to wonder what the city would look like from a helicopter just straight down. That's how we got the opening. It was New York, and a real New York, it was a New York that even New Yorkers hadn't seen from that angle. And I think, because it was kind of an abstract, I think it put the audience in the frame of mind to accept the kids dancing in the street just a few minutes later, a few beats later after we get out of the playground.

Robert Wise on West Side Story, in conversation with Harry Kreisler in 1998 at Berkeley.

Update: Dennis Cozzalio and the Pop View.

Posted by dwhudson at September 15, 2005 2:14 AM