Roderick Jaynes explains how he became the Coen brothers’ go-to editor: “I decided to accept”
As the writers, directors, and producers of their own movies, Joel and Ethan Coen have been constantly spinning several plates since the beginning of their careers. They can’t do everything themselves, so the siblings made the wise call to enlist Roderick Jaynes as their go-to editor early on.
The reclusive Englishman co-cut the Coens’ debut feature, Blood Simple, alongside Don Wiegmann, and quickly became a key weapon in their cinematic arsenal. Notching two Academy Award nominations for his work, Jaynes managed to work on 15 of the brothers’ pictures without being spotted in public, a remarkable achievement in the information and technology age.
A veteran of the industry with decades of experience, one of Jaynes’ earliest brushes with Hollywood was when he was hired to edit director George Marshall’s 1956 adventure flick, Beyond Mombasa, starring Cornel Wilde and Donna Reed. Unfortunately, he was fired after less than a week, but he proved himself and then some when he was welcomed into the Coens’ inner circle three decades later.
Despite living a quiet existence in Haywards Heath, a small town 50 miles outside of London, Jaynes agreed to collaborate with the first-time filmmakers. Relayed by the Coens’ official biographer, Ronald Bergan, he explained how he was lured out of Hollywood exile by Blood Simple.
“I decided to accept under two conditions,” he explained. “That I be left alone in the cutting room, and that I not be asked to read the script before starting in cutting. Given a free hand on Blood Simple, I was rather proud of my first cut, but when I screened it for the lads, they responded to the action scenes with silence and to the dramatic scenes with alarming asthmatic laughter.”
“They took the picture away,” he lamented. “And, along with a friend of theirs named Don Wiegmann, made rather a mess of things, I’m afraid, but due to union rules, my name remains on the picture.” It wasn’t the greatest start, but Jaynes nonetheless impressed the Coens enough to become a semi-permanent part of the team.
When he notched a second Oscar nomination for Fargo, he didn’t bother turning up to the ceremony, with the Coens saying he was “back at home in Haywards Heath watching cricket on TV” instead. Of course, Jaynes doesn’t exist and never has, and it wasn’t until the buildup to the ceremony that everyone found out.
One plan was for the Coens to send Albert Finney in disguise as a friend of Jaynes’ to accept the award on his behalf if Fargo won for ‘Best Editing’, but according to the Coens: “The Academy wouldn’t let us do that because of Marlon Brando,” so they had to come clean.
With such an elaborate backstory in place and the Coens’ mischievous nature, it’s not really all that surprising that the ruse was maintained for so long. Then again, it’s hard to imagine anyone pulling the wool over the industry’s eyes like that again, especially on the same level.
