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Peter Taylor is a Editor British born on 28 february 1922 at Portsmouth (United-kingdom)

Peter Taylor

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Birth name Peter John Brough Taylor
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 28 february 1922 at Portsmouth (United-kingdom)
Death 17 december 1997 (at 75 years) at Rome (Italie)

Peter Taylor (1922 – 1997) was an English film editor with more than 30 film credits. Perhaps his best remembered contribution is the editing of the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai.

In his obituary for Taylor, Tony Sloman gives several examples to illustrate Taylor's editing. He writes:By 1963 the British New Wave had beached, and Peter Taylor edited the superb This Sporting Life, the debut feature of the cine-literate director Lindsay Anderson. It is a remarkable study of working-class angst, with a cutting style like no other British feature before it, an ever-underrated achievement by Taylor, as Anderson received all the credit, as directors do. This Sporting Life remains, with The Bridge on the River Kwai, the supreme testament to Peter Taylor's craft and talent.

Taylor won an Academy Award for Film Editing for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which was placed as the 36th best American film ever made in the 2007 American Film Institute listing. David Lean directed the film, about whom Ken Dancyger has noted that, "Lean may have made few films, but his influence has far exceeded those numbers. The role of editing in his films may help explain that influence." Lean himself had begun his own career as a film editor. Sloman comments on the relationship of Lean, Taylor, and the film's editing: ...film industry wags may assert that the editing Oscar came with the letter of engagement on a David Lean film - and in later years it is certainly true that Lean, a former editor, would himself dictate the precise nature of the cutting - none the less, Peter Taylor had served a long apprenticeship with Lean. His Oscar for Kwai was an honest vindication of his talent, for Taylor physically edited the film into shape, working closely with Lean only on the final cut.

Taylor moved to Rome, Italy around 1966. He cut three films with Italian director Franco Zeffirelli; both La Traviata (1983) and Otello (1986) were nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Film.

Biography

Peter Taylor débute comme assistant monteur, notamment sur Hamlet de Laurence Olivier (1948) et Le Mur du son de David Lean (1952).

Devenu monteur sur un premier film sorti en 1950, il retrouve à ce poste le réalisateur David Lean pour trois autres films, dont Vacances à Venise (1955, avec Katharine Hepburn et Rossano Brazzi) et Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï (1957, avec William Holden et Alec Guinness). Suivent entre autres La Marque de Guy Green (1961, avec Maria Schell et Stuart Whitman) et Le Prix d'un homme de Lindsay Anderson (1963, avec Richard Harris et Rachel Roberts).

Installé en Italie vers 1966, il contribue ainsi à trois réalisations de Franco Zeffirelli, dont La Mégère apprivoisée (1967, avec Elizabeth Taylor et Richard Burton) et le film d'opéra La traviata (1983, avec Teresa Stratas et Plácido Domingo). Citons encore Nina, dernier film de Vincente Minnelli (1976, avec Liza Minnelli et Ingrid Bergman).

Le dernier de ses trente-trois films (britanniques, italiens ou en coproduction) comme monteur est Devenir Colette de Danny Huston (1991, avec Klaus Maria Brandauer et Mathilda May). Toujours pour le grand écran, s'ajoute un documentaire de Hugh Hudson sorti en 1980, consacré au pilote automobile Juan Manuel Fangio.

Pour la télévision (britannique principalement), Peter Taylor est monteur sur dix séries à partir de 1953, dont le feuilleton Emmerdale (quarante-six épisodes, 1973) et The Darling Buds of May (sa dernière série, deux épisodes, 1991).

Le Pont de la rivière Kwaï précité lui permet de gagner en 1958 un Oscar du meilleur montage.