Faces to Watch

A group of film editors calling themselves the "Dartmouth Editing Mafia"—Tom McArdle '91, Stephen A. Rotter '62, John Gilroy '81, Bill Johnson '82 and Peter B. Ellis '84 is taking over Tinseltown. The group traces its current success to Dartmouth's film studies department, which taught them the fundamentals, and the venerable Dartmouth Film Society, which exposed them to foreign and esoteric films. Most importantly, they say Dartmouth's longstanding emphasis on academic discipline and independent thinking helped steer them to the cutting room. "The school does sort of open your mind to different avenues of pursuit and surrounds you with peers who are thought-provoking," says Rotter, whose credits include The World According to Garp, TheRight Stuff (which earned him an Oscar in 1983) and the Jack Nicholson /Diane Keaton film, Something'sGotta Give, released in December. "Editing is the final rewrite," says Johnson, who has edited for television's Robbery Homicide Division,Ally McBeal and The West Wing, for which he won an Emmy. "The best preparation I got was as an English lit major, learning about the structure of a story." It's more than academics that inspired McArdle: "Editing can be a pretty solitary job with many hours spent sitting alone in a dark room watching footage over and over again on an editing machine. And Dartmouth is pretty isolated. It may attract certain types." McArdle saw his latest nationwide release, The Station Agent, win big on the festival circuit last year and make the National Board of Review's Top 10 film list for 2003. Gilroy, who won recent praise for his work on the highly regarded Narc and edited the newly released Miracle, a recounting of the U.S. hockey team's improbable victory over the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics, says he derived professional inspiration from his father, Frank Gilroy '50, a playwright and director. Ellis, who has been busy editing HBO's newest drama series, Carnivale, thinks that whatever accomplishments lie ahead, the Mafia's shared experiences in Hanover remain the group's common bond. "Dartmouth gives me a context, a common language and a common set of values," says Ellis. "It feels like a home base."

The Good Fellas (from left): Gilroy, McArdle, Ellis and Johnson.