Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling. Film editing is the only art that is unique to cinema, separating film-making from other art forms that preceded it (such as photography, theater, dance, writing, and directing), although there are close parallels to the editing process in other art forms like poetry or novel writing. Film editing is often referred to as the "invisible art"^[1] because when it is well-practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that he or she is not even aware of the editor's work.

On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique, and practice of assembling shots into a coherent whole. A film editor is a person who practices film editing by assembling the footage. However, the job of an editor isn’t simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut off film slates, or edit dialogue scenes. A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively "re-imagine" and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole. Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film.

With the advent of digital editing, film editors and their assistants have become responsible for many areas of filmmaking that used to be the responsibility of others. For instance, in past years, picture editors dealt only with just that—picture. Sound, music, and (more recently) visual effects editors dealt with the practicalities of other aspects of the editing process, usually under the direction of the picture editor and director. However, digital systems have increasingly put these responsibilities on the picture editor. It is common, especially on lower budget films, for the assistant editors or even the editor to cut in music, mock up visual effects, and add sound effects or other sound replacements. These temporary elements are usually replaced with more refined final elements by the sound, music, and visual effects teams hired to complete the picture.

Film editing is an art that can be used in diverse ways. It can create sensually provocative montages; become a laboratory for experimental cinema; bring out the emotional truth in an actor's performance; create a point of view on otherwise obtuse events; guide the telling and pace of a story; create an illusion of danger where there is none; give emphasis to things that would not have otherwise been noted; and even create a vital subconscious emotional connection to the viewer, among many other possibilities.

Early experiments[link]

Edwin S. Porter is generally thought to be the American filmmaker who first put film editing to use. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. Early films by Thomas Edison (whose company invented a motion camera and projector) and others were short films that were one long, static, locked-down shot. Motion in the shot was all that was necessary to amuse an audience, so the first films simply showed activity such as traffic moving on a city street. There was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. When Edison's motion picture studio wanted to increase the length of the short films, Edison came to Porter. Porter made the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was among the first that had a plot, action, and even a closeup of a hand pulling a fire alarm.

Other films were to follow. Porter's ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery is still shown in film schools today as an example of early editing form. It was produced in 1903 and was one of the first examples of dynamic, action editing - piecing together scenes shot at different times and places and for emotional impact unavailable in a static long shot. Being one of the first film hyphenates (film director, editor and engineer) Porter also invented and utilized some of the very first (albeit primitive) special effects such as double exposures, miniatures and split-screens.

Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language: that the screen image does not need to show a complete person from head to toe and that splicing together two shots creates in the viewer's mind a contextual relationship. These were the key discoveries that made all non-live or non live-on-videotape narrative motion pictures and television possible—that shots (in this case whole scenes since each shot is a complete scene) can be photographed at widely different locations over a period of time (hours, days or even months) and combined into a narrative whole.^[2] That is, The Great Train Robbery contains scenes shot on sets of a telegraph station, a railroad car interior, and a dance hall, with outdoor scenes at a railroad water tower, on the train itself, at a point along the track, and in the woods. But when the robbers leave the telegraph station interior (set) and emerge at the water tower, the audience believes they went immediately from one to the other. Or that when they climb on the train in one shot and enter the baggage car (a set) in the next, the audience believes they are on the same train.

Sometime around 1918, Russian director Lev Kuleshov did an experiment that proves this point. (See Kuleshov Experiment) He took an old film clip of a head shot of a noted Russian actor and intercut the shot with a shot of a bowl of soup, then with a child playing with a teddy bear, then with a shot an elderly woman in a casket. When he showed the film to people they praised the actor's acting—the hunger in his face when he saw the soup, the delight in the child, and the grief when looking at the dead woman.^[3] Of course, the shot of the actor was years before the other shots and he never "saw" any of the items. The simple act of juxtaposing the shots in a sequence made the relationship.

History of film editing technology[link]

The original editing machine: an upright Moviola.

Steenbeck film editing machine rollers

Before the widespread use of non-linear editing systems, the initial editing of all films was done with a positive copy of the film negative called a film workprint (cutting copy in UK) by physically cutting and pasting together pieces of film, using a splicer and threading the film on a machine with a viewer such as a Moviola, or "flatbed" machine such as a K.-E.-M. or Steenbeck. Today, most films are edited digitally (on systems such as Avid or Final Cut Pro) and bypass the film positive workprint altogether. In the past, the use of a film positive (not the original negative) allowed the editor to do as much experimenting as he or she wished, without the risk of damaging the original.

When the film workprint had been cut to a satisfactory state, it was then used to make an edit decision list (EDL). The negative cutter referred to this list while processing the negative, splitting the shots into rolls, which were then contact printed to produce the final film print or answer print. Today, production companies have the option of bypassing negative cutting altogether. With the advent of digital intermediate ("DI"), the physical negative does not necessarily need to be physically cut and hot spliced together; rather the negative is optically scanned into computer(s) and a cut list is conformed by a DI editor.

Post-production[link]

Editor's cut[link]

There are several editing stages and the editor's cut is the first. An editor's cut (sometimes referred to as the "Assembly edit" or "Rough cut") is normally the first pass of what the final film will be when it reaches picture lock. The film editor usually starts working while principal photography starts. Likely, prior to cutting, the editor and director will have seen and/or discussed "dailies" (raw footage shot each day) as shooting progresses. Screening dailies gives the editor a ballpark idea of the director's intentions. Because it is the first pass, the editor's cut might be longer than the final film. The editor continues to refine the cut while shooting continues, and often the entire editing process goes on for many months and sometimes more than a year, depending on the film.

Director's cut[link]

When shooting is finished, the director can then turn his full attention to collaborating with the editor and further refining the cut of the film. This is the time that is set aside where the film editor's first cut is molded to fit the director's vision. In the United States, under DGA rules, directors receive a minimum of ten weeks after completion of principal photography to prepare their first cut.

While collaborating on what is referred to as the "director's cut", the director and the editor go over the entire movie with a fine-tooth comb; scenes and shots are re-ordered, removed, shortened and otherwise tweaked. Often it is discovered that there are plot holes, missing shots or even missing segments which might require that new scenes be filmed. Because of this time working closely and collaborating – a period that is normally far longer, and far more intimately involved, than the entire production and filming – most directors and editors form a unique artistic bond.

Final cut[link]

Often after the director has had his chance to oversee a cut, the subsequent cuts are supervised by one or more producers, who represent the production company and/or movie studio. There have been several conflicts in the past between the director and the studio, sometimes leading to the use of the "Alan Smithee" credit signifying when a director no longer wants to be associated with the final release.

Continuity[link]

Continuity is a film term that suggests that a series of shots should be physically continuous, as if the camera simply changed angles in the course of a single event. For instance, if in one shot a beer glass is empty, it should not be full in the next shot. Live coverage of a sporting event would be an example of footage that is very continuous. Since the live operators are cutting from one live feed to another, the physical action of the shots matches very closely. Many people regard inconsistencies in continuity as mistakes, and often the editor is blamed. In film, however, continuity is very nearly last on a film editor's list of important things to maintain.

Technically, continuity is the responsibility of the script supervisor and film director, who are together responsible for preserving continuity and preventing errors from take to take and shot to shot. The script supervisor, who sits next to the director during shooting, keeps the physical continuity of the edit in mind as shots are set up. He is the editor's watchman. If shots are taken out of sequence, as is often the case, he will be alert to make sure that that beer glass is in the appropriate state. The editor utilizes the script supervisor's notes during post-production to log and keep track of the vast amounts of footage and takes that a director might shoot.

Methods of montage[link]

In motion picture terminology, a montage (from the French for "putting together" or "assembly") is a film editing technique.

There are at least three senses of the term:

1. In French film practice, "montage" has its literal French meaning (assembly, installation) and simply identifies editing.
2. In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s, "montage" was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.
3. In classical Hollywood cinema, a "montage sequence" is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion.

Soviet montage[link]

Lev Kuleshov was among the very first to theorize about the relatively young medium of the cinema in the 1920s. For him, the unique essence of the cinema — that which could be duplicated in no other medium — is editing. He argues that editing a film is like constructing a building. Brick-by-brick (shot-by-shot) the building (film) is erected. His often-cited Kuleshov Experiment established that montage can lead the viewer to reach certain conclusions about the action in a film. Montage works because viewers infer meaning based on context.

Although, strictly speaking, U.S. film director D.W. Griffith was not part of the montage school, he was one of the early proponents of the power of editing — mastering cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations, and codifying film grammar in other ways as well. Griffith's work in the teens was highly regarded by Kuleshov and other Soviet filmmakers and greatly influenced their understanding of editing.

Sergei Eisenstein was briefly a student of Kuleshov's, but the two parted ways because they had different ideas of montage. Eisenstein regarded montage as a dialectical means of creating meaning. By contrasting unrelated shots he tried to provoke associations in the viewer, which were induced by shocks.

Montage sequence[link]

A montage sequence consists of a series of short shots that are edited into a sequence to condense narrative. It is usually used to advance the story as a whole (often to suggest the passage of time), rather than to create symbolic meaning. In many cases, a song plays in the background to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed. One famous example of montage was seen in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, depicting the start of man's first development from apes to humans.

Continuity editing[link]

What became known as the popular 'classical Hollywood' style of editing was developed by early European and American directors, in particular D.W. Griffith in his films such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. The classical style ensures temporal and spatial continuity as a way of advancing narrative, using such techniques as the 180 degree rule, Establishing shot, and Shot reverse shot.

Alternatives to continuity editing (non-traditional or experimental)[link]

Early Russian filmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov further explored and theorized about editing and its ideological nature. Sergei Eisenstein developed a system of editing that was unconcerned with the rules of the continuity system of classical Hollywood that he called Intellectual montage.

Alternatives to traditional editing were also the folly of early surrealist and dada filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel (director of the 1929 Un Chien Andalou) and René Clair (director of 1924's Entr'acte which starred famous dada artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray). Both filmmakers, Clair and Buñuel, experimented with editing techniques long before what is referred to as "MTV style" editing.

The French New Wave filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut and their American counterparts such as Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes also pushed the limits of editing technique during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. French New Wave films and the non-narrative films of the 1960s used a carefree editing style and did not conform to the traditional editing etiquette of Hollywood films. Like its dada and surrealist predecessors, French New Wave editing often drew attention to itself by its lack of continuity, its demystifying self-reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they were watching a film), and by the overt use of jump cuts or the insertion of material not often related to any narrative.

Editing techniques[link]

Vsevolod Pudovkin noted that the editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of film making originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording), but editing is the one process that is unique to film.^{[citation needed]} Kubrick was quoted as saying: "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit."^[4]

• Edward Dmytryk stipulates seven "rules of cutting" that a good editor should follow:^[5]
  • "Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason."
  • "Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short."^[6]
  • "Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'."^[7]
  • "Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'."^[8]
  • "Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action."^[9]
  • "Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'."^[10]
  • "Rule 7: Substance first—then form."^[11]
• According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first, with notional percentage values.):
  • Emotion (51%) — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
  • Story (23%) — Does the cut advance the story?
  • Rhythm (10%) — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'" (Murch, 18)?
  • Eye-trace (7%) — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame" (Murch, 18)?
  • Two-dimensional plane of the screen (5%) — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
  • Three-dimensional space of action (4%) — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?

Murch assigned the notional percentage values to each of the criteria. "Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom."-Murch

References[link]

Bibliography

Notes

Further reading

See also[link]

• 180 degree rule
• 30 degree rule
• A Roll (Footage)
• B Roll
• Cinematic techniques
• Clapperboard
• Compositing (Keying)
• Cut (transition), for the director's call Cut!
  • Axial cut
  • Cross-cutting
  • Fast cutting
  • Jump cut
  • Long take
  • Match cut
  • Slow cutting
• Cutaway
• Edit decision list (EDL)
• Film transition
  • Dissolve
  • L cut (split edit)
  • Wipe
• Filmmaking
• Kuleshov Effect
• List of film-related topics
• Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG)
• Motion picture terminology
• Moviola
• Re-edited film
• Scene
• Sequence
• Shot
  • Establishing shot
  • Insert
  • Master shot
  • Point of view shot
  • Shot reverse shot
• Video editing

Wikibooks[link]

• Mewa Film User's Guide
• Movie Making Manual

Wikiversity[link]

Wikiversity has learning materials about Film editing

• Portal:Filmmaking

External links[link]

Wikibooks has more on the topic of Film editing

=

• The Art of the Guillotine

Albert Brooks
Brooks at a Q&A following a screening of Drive, December 5, 2011
Born	Albert Lawrence Einstein (1947-07-22) July 22, 1947 (age 64) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, comedian, director, writer
Years active	1968–present
Spouse	Kimberly Shlain (1997–present)

Albert Lawrence Brooks (born Albert Lawrence Einstein; July 22, 1947) is an American actor, voice actor, writer, comedian and director. He received an Academy Award nomination in 1987^[1] for his role in Broadcast News. His voice acting credits include Marlin the clownfish in Finding Nemo, recurring guest voices for the animated television series The Simpsons, including Russ Cargill in The Simpsons Movie.

Early life[link]

Brooks was born in Beverly Hills, California, the son of Thelma Leeds (née Goodman), a singer and actress, and Harry Einstein, a radio comedian who performed on Eddie Cantor's radio program and was known as Parkyakarkus.^[2] His brothers are comedic actor Bob Einstein, better known by his stage name "Super Dave Osborne," and Cliff Einstein, a partner and longtime chief creative officer at Los Angeles advertising agency Dailey & Associates. His half-brother was Charles Einstein (1926–2007), a writer for such television programs as Playhouse 90 and Lou Grant. Brooks is Jewish;^[3] his grandparents emigrated from Austria and Russia. He grew up among show business royalty in southern California, attending Beverly Hills High School with the likes of Richard Dreyfuss and Rob Reiner.^[4]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Brooks attended Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, but dropped out after one year to focus on his comedy career. He changed his surname from Einstein (to avoid confusion with the famous physicist) and began a comedy career that quickly made him a regular on variety and talk shows during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Brooks led a new generation of self-reflective baby-boomer comics appearing on NBC's The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. His onstage persona, that of an egotistical, narcissistic, nervous comic, an ironic showbiz insider who punctured himself before an audience by disassembling his mastery of comedic stagecraft, influenced other '70s post-modern comedians, including Steve Martin, Martin Mull and Andy Kaufman.

After two successful comedy albums, Comedy Minus One (1973) and the Grammy Award-nominated A Star Is Bought (1975), Brooks left the stand-up circuit to try his hand as a filmmaker; his first film, The Famous Comedians School, was a satiric short that appeared on PBS and was an early example of the mockumentary sub-genre.

In 1975, he directed six short films for the first season of NBC's Saturday Night Live:

• October 11, 1975 episode (host: Lily Tomlin) – "The Impossible Truth"
• October 18, 1975 episode (host: Paul Simon) – failed Candid Camera stunts and home movies
• October 25, 1975 episode (host: Rob Reiner) – heart surgery
• November 8, 1975 episode (host: Candice Bergen) – upcoming season
• December 13, 1975 episode (host: Richard Pryor) – sick
• January 9, 1976 episode (host: Elliott Gould) - audience test screening

In 1976 he appeared in his first mainstream film role, in Martin Scorsese's landmark Taxi Driver; Scorsese allowed Brooks to improvise much of his dialogue. The role reflected Brooks's decision to move to Los Angeles to enter the film business. In an interview, Brooks mentioned a conversation he'd had with Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader, in which Schrader said that Brooks's character was the only one in the movie that he could not "understand" – a remark that Brooks found amusing, as the movie's antihero was a psychotic loner.

Brooks directed his first feature film, Real Life, in 1979. The film, in which Brooks obnoxiously films a typical suburban family in an effort to win both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize, was a sendup of PBS's An American Family documentary. It has also been viewed as foretelling the future emergence of reality television.^[5] Brooks also made a cameo appearance in the film Private Benjamin (1980), starring Goldie Hawn.

1980s–1990s[link]

Through the 1980s and 1990s, Brooks co-wrote (with longtime collaborator Monica Johnson), directed and starred in a series of well-received comedies, playing variants on his standard neurotic and self-obsessed character. These include 1981's Modern Romance, where Brooks played a film editor desperate to win back his ex-girlfriend (Kathryn Harrold). The film received a limited release and ultimately grossed under $3 million domestically,^[6] but was well received by critics, with one reviewer commenting that the film was "not Brooks at his best, but still amusing".^[7] His best-received film, Lost in America (1985), featured Brooks and Julie Hagerty as a couple who leave their yuppie lifestyle and drop out of society to live in a motor home as they have always dreamed of doing. They meet comic disappointment.

Brooks's Defending Your Life (1991) placed his lead character in the afterlife, put on trial to justify his human fears and thus determine his cosmic fate. Critics responded to the offbeat premise and the surprising chemistry between Brooks and Meryl Streep as his post-death love interest. His later efforts did not find large audiences, but still retained Brooks's touch as a filmmaker. He garnered positive reviews for Mother (1996), which starred Brooks as a middle-aged writer moving back home to resolve tensions between himself and his mother (Debbie Reynolds). 1999's The Muse featured Brooks as a down-and-out Hollywood screenwriter using the services of an authentic muse (Sharon Stone) for inspiration.

Brooks has appeared as a guest voice on The Simpsons five times during its run (always under the name A. Brooks), and is described as the best guest star in the show's history by IGN, particularly for his role as supervillain Hank Scorpio in the episode "You Only Move Twice".^[8]

Brooks also acted in other writers' and directors' films during the 1980s and 1990s. He had a cameo in the opening scene of Twilight Zone: The Movie, playing a driver whose passenger (Dan Aykroyd) has a shocking secret. In James L. Brooks's hit Broadcast News (1987), Albert Brooks was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as an insecure, supremely ethical network TV reporter, who offers the rhetorical question, "Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?" He also won positive notices for his role in 1998's Out of Sight, playing an untrustworthy banker and ex-convict.

2000s[link]

Brooks received positive reviews for his portrayal of a dying retail store owner who befriends disillusioned teen Leelee Sobieski in My First Mister (2001). Brooks continued his voiceover work in Disney and Pixar's Finding Nemo (2003), as the voice of "Marlin", one of the film's protagonists; Nemo is Brooks's largest grossing film to date.

In 2005, his film Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World was dropped by Sony Pictures due to their desire to change the title. Warner Independent Pictures purchased the film and gave it a limited release in January 2006; the film received mixed reviews and a low box office gross. The movie goes back to the days of Brooks's Real Life, as Brooks once again plays himself, a filmmaker commissioned by the U.S. government to see what makes the Muslim people laugh, thus sending him on a tour of India and Pakistan.

In 2006 he appeared in the documentary film Wanderlust as David Howard from "Lost in America". The documentary included many other well known people. In 2007, he continued his long term collaboration with The Simpsons by voicing Russ Cargill, the central antagonist of The Simpsons Movie.

He has played Lenny Botwin, Nancy Botwin's estranged father-in-law, on Showtime's television series Weeds.^[9] St. Martin's Press published his first novel, 2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America, on May 10, 2011.^[10]

In 2011, Brooks costarred as a vicious gangster heavy and the main antagonist in the motion picture Drive, alongside Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, a role that has been given much critical praise and positive reviews, with several critics proclaiming Brooks' performance as one of the film's best aspects. After receiving awards and nominations from several film festivals and critic groups, but not an Academy Award nomination, Brooks responded humorously on Twitter, "And to the Academy: ‘You don't like me. You really don't like me’."^[11][12]

Personal life[link]

Brooks married Kimberly Shlain, an artist he met through a mutual friend. The couple have two children, Jacob Eli and Claire Elizabeth.

Filmography[link]

Films[link]

Television[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Albert Brooks at the Internet Movie Database
• Albert Brooks at AllRovi
• Albert Brooks on Twitter
• Interview: Albert Brooks: Comedy And Dystopia – On Point.

Steve Cohen
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Tennessee's 9th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2007
Preceded by	Harold Ford, Jr.
Personal details
Born	Stephen Ira Cohen (1949-05-24) May 24, 1949 (age 63) Memphis, Tennessee
Political party	Democratic
Residence	Memphis, Tennessee
Alma mater	Vanderbilt University (B.A.) University of Memphis, Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law (J.D.)
Profession	Attorney

Stephen Ira "Steve" Cohen (born May 24, 1949) is the U.S. Representative for Tennessee's 9th congressional district, serving since 2007. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Tennessee's 9th district includes almost three-fourths of Memphis. Cohen is Tennessee's first Jewish congressman.^[1]

Early life, education, and law career[link]

Cohen was born in Memphis, Tennessee on May 24, 1949, the son of Genevieve (née Goldsand) and pediatrician Morris David Cohen. He has two older brothers, Michael Corey and Martin D. Cohen.^[2][3] He is a fourth-generation Memphian,^[4] and is a grandson of Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Poland.^[5] His immigrant grandfather owned a newsstand.^[6] Cohen contracted polio when he was five, and the disease caused him to shift his attention from sports to politics at an early age.^[4] When Cohen was eleven, John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop in Memphis, and Cohen took a picture of Kennedy sitting on a convertible. Cohen describes Kennedy as his political hero; the picture still hangs in his office.^[6] In 1961, Cohen’s family moved to Coral Gables, Florida where his father received a fellowship in psychiatry at the University of Miami. From 1964 to 1966, the Cohen family resided in Pasadena, California where Dr. Cohen had a fellowship in child psychiatry at the University of Southern California. Cohen, who attended Polytechnic School, returned to Florida in 1966 to graduate from Coral Gables High School before returning to Memphis where his father established his private psychiatry practice.

Cohen graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1973, he graduated from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law of Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) with a Juris Doctor.^[2]

Early political career[link]

While serving for three years as Legal Advisor for the Memphis Police Department, Cohen rose to political prominence when he was elected to the Tennessee Constitutional Convention of 1977 at the age of 27. The Convention elected him its vice president.^[7] Cohen was then elected to serve as a commissioner on the Shelby County Commission, an office he held from 1978 to 1980.^[2] During his time at the Commission, Cohen was instrumental in the creation of The Med, a community-funded regional hospital.^[7] In 1980, Cohen served as an interim Shelby County General Sessions Court judge.^[2] He has also served as a delegate to the 1980, 1992, 2004, and 2008 Democratic National Conventions.^[2]

Tennessee Senate[link]

Cohen was elected to the Tennessee Senate in 1982, representing District 30, which includes parts of Memphis. He held that position for 24 years.^[2]

For 18 years, Cohen strove to repeal the ban on lotteries in the Tennessee State Constitution.^[7] His efforts were successful in 2002, and a state lottery program designed to provide college scholarships for Tennessee students was adopted the following year.^[7] The lottery program is regarded as the most well-known accomplishment of Cohen's Senate career.^[7] Cohen also sponsored legislation relating to expansion of community access to healthcare, the protection of animal rights, the reinstatement of voting rights, graduated driver licenses, and funding for the arts during his career.^[7]

In March 2005, Cohen was one of three Tennessee Senators to vote against the Tennessee Marriage Protection Amendment, which Tennessee voters approved via a referendum in November 2006.^[8] During the course of the debate on the amendment, Cohen offered several amendments to the amendment, all of which failed, including the proposed addition of an "adultery clause," which said "Adultery is deemed to be a threat to the institution of marriage and contrary to public policy in Tennessee."^[9]

Cohen was widely regarded as one of the Senate's toughest and most articulate debaters, as he has an unusually straightforward and direct style when compared to other Southern politicians. One Tennessee writer described him as "very outspoken, very persistent, and a lot more cerebral than most of his colleagues."^[6]

When elected in 1982, Cohen was the first Jewish member to serve in the Tennessee Senate since 1958.^[6]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Elections[link]

1996

In 1996, Cohen ran for election to the United States House of Representatives seat for the 9th District, which came open when 22-year incumbent and fellow Democrat Harold Ford, Sr. announced his retirement. The then 26-year-old Harold Ford, Jr., the incumbent's son, was his opponent in the Democratic primary.^[6] Reflecting on the race, Cohen said, "I'd spent fourteen years in the [state] Senate, had the experience, and didn't like the idea of [the seat] being handed down like an heirloom."^[6]

Cohen lost the primary to Ford by 25 points.^[7] Noting that Ford, an African-American, did much better than Cohen in majority black precincts despite Ford's inexperience, Cohen said, "It is impossible for a person who is not African American to get a large vote in the African American community . . . against a substantial candidate. The fact is, I am white, and it doesn't seem to matter what you do."^[6] Later, Cohen admitted that his statement was "impolitic" but also noted that "race is still an important factor in voting."^[6]

Cohen was able to return to the State Senate after the election. Tennessee state senators serve staggered four-year terms, and Cohen did not have to run for reelection to the Senate until 1998.

2006

In early April 2006, Cohen announced that he was again running for the 9th District seat; Ford, Jr. was not running for reelection. Cohen was the first candidate in the race with significant name recognition outside the Memphis area but had fourteen opponents in the primary.^[7] The Commercial Appeal, Memphis' daily newspaper, endorsed Cohen in the race.^[10] The crowded nature of the primary was largely due to the district's demographics. The 9th is a heavily Democratic, black-majority district, and it was considered very likely that whoever won the Democratic primary would be the district's next congressman.

Cohen won the August 3 primary by a decisive 4,000-vote margin despite being outspent 2 to 1 by the runner-up in the primary. In fact, six Democrats raised more money than he did.^[11] He carried many of the district's predominantly black precincts by healthy margins. He faced Republican Mark White and independent Jake Ford (the younger brother of Harold Ford, Jr.) in the general election in November.^[12]

Though the Ninth District is heavily Democratic, Jake Ford was seen as a serious contender for the race because of his significant name recognition among Memphis' black voters.^[6] Jake Ford had skipped the Democratic primary because he felt it was too crowded, but stated he would caucus with the Democrats if elected. The Ford family has been a significant force in Memphis' black community since the days of E.H. Crump. Indeed, it seemed that the real race was between Cohen and Jake Ford, with White not seen as a serious factor.

Cohen was endorsed by the mayor of Memphis, W. W. Herenton, and the mayor of Shelby County, A.C. Wharton, both of whom are black and members of the Democratic Party.^[13] He was also endorsed by many local Democratic activists who had long felt Harold Ford, Jr. was too moderate.

However, many of the city's politically influential black pastors refused to support Cohen, and the area Black Ministers Association overwhelmingly voted to endorse Jake Ford. The Ford family itself was split. While Harold Ford, Jr. himself remained neutral (despite rumors of collusion between the two brothers' campaigns), their cousin Joe Ford, Jr., an entertainment lawyer, strongly endorsed Cohen after finishing third in the primary. However, Harold Ford, Sr. strongly supported his younger son.^[14]

On October 8, 2006, Cohen, Ford, and White participated in a televised debate in Memphis. Among other topics, issues discussed included Iraq, medical marijuana, education, and the Tennessee Marriage Protection Amendment.^[15] Ford attacked Cohen's record in the State Senate, including his opposition to the Marriage Protection Amendment, support for medical marijuana, and his voting attendance record.^[15] Cohen responded by standing by his public record, pointing out Ford's lack of experience in public office, and indicating that Ford had been to jail and had dropped out of high school.^[15]

Cohen won the election by a decisive margin, winning 60% of the vote to Ford's 22% and White's 18%.^[16] Sixty percent of the votes received by Cohen were from African-American voters.

2008

Despite Cohen's strong performance in the black community, many of the city's politically active blacks felt chagrined at being represented by him. Despite some sentiment that the 9th should be represented by a black Democrat, his socially liberal views (see below) also gave them pause. For example, Cohen's support for a hate-crimes bill drew particularly strong opposition from most of the city's black ministers because it included a sexual orientation provision. Cohen contends that every member of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for the bill, and Harold Ford, Jr. had voted for it in the previous Congress. Still, many of the city's black ministers tried to rally behind a consensus black candidate to challenge Cohen in the Democratic primary.^[17]

In the 2008 Democratic Primary in Tennessee's ninth congressional district, Cohen faced four challengers in the August 7 Democratic primary. His major opponent was Nikki Tinker, a lawyer who had finished second to Cohen in the 2006 primary^[18] and had formerly been an aide to Harold Ford, Jr.^[19] Tinker received the endorsement of the city's Black Ministerial Association.

The campaign quickly turned ugly, with Tinker putting together a raft of negative ads. One attacked Cohen for voting against a proposal that would have removed a statue and the remains of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate lieutenant-general who was involved in the founding of the Ku Klux Klan,^[20] from the Medical Center park. The ad falsely implied that Cohen had ties to the Klan by juxtaposing Cohen with a white-clad Klansman.^[21] Another ad accused Cohen of "praying in our churches" ^[22] while voting against school prayer during his tenure in the State Senate. Tinker's campaign later removed the ads from its YouTube account amid criticism from a number of sources.

On the day the Primary was held, Barack Obama denounced Tinker's ads, saying they "have no place in our politics, and will do nothing to help the good people of Tennessee." Harold Ford, Jr. also denounced the ads.^[23]

The primary had been marred by racial tensions for months prior to the August vote. In February 2008, Rev. George Brooks, a Tinker supporter, distributed literature in the district which stated that "Cohen and the Jews HATE Jesus" and urged the defeat of an "opponent of Christ and Christianity." Another minister, Rev. Robert Poindexter of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church, said that he was supporting Tinker because Cohen "(is) not black, and he can't represent me, that's just the bottom line." ^[24]

Ultimately, Cohen won the primary in a rout, taking 79 percent of the vote to Tinker's 19 percent. In his victory speech, Cohen said his victory proved "Memphis has come a long, long way" from its racially divisive past.^[23] Cohen's primary win virtually assured him of a second term; no Republican even filed, and any Republican challenger would have faced nearly impossible odds in any case. He was reelected with 87.9 percent of the vote against three independent challengers, one of whom was Jake Ford (who won 4.8 percent of the vote).

Cohen endorsed Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary on February 4, 2008, the day before the Super Tuesday, 2008 primaries.^[25] On September 10, 2008 while speaking on the floor of the House, Cohen compared Obama's work as a community organizer to Jesus' work.^[26]

2010

Former Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton announced that he would challenge Cohen in the 2010 Democratic primary for the seat. In a guest column in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Herenton wrote that while he hoped the campaign would focus on issues rather than race or religion, that "it remains a fact that the 9th Congressional District provides the only real opportunity to elect a qualified African-American to the all-white 11-member delegation representing Tennessee in Washington." Herenton also denied having supported Cohen in his 2006 bid against Jake Ford, writing "I did not support Steve Cohen the individual for the 9th Congressional District. I supported an idea that was bigger than him as an individual. I supported the principle of fairness."^[27] During the 2006 campaign, Herenton endorsed Cohen, saying "Steve Cohen is the best-qualified candidate for this leadership role".^[28] While Cohen's commanding win in the 2008 primary suggested that he has won strong support among the district's African-American community, Herenton is easily his highest-profile opponent to date.

In September 2009, Herenton drew controversy when he stated in a radio interview that Cohen "really does not think very much of African-Americans" and that "[Cohen]’s played the black community well.” In addition, Herenton's campaign manager Sidney Chism told the New York Times that the Memphis-area congressional seat Cohen holds "was set aside for people who look like me. It wasn't set aside for a Jew or a Christian. It was set aside so that blacks could have representation." The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) criticized Herenton for these remarks, stating that he comments were "unacceptable in a Democratic primary or anywhere in our political discourse."^[29][30]

In the unofficial election results, Steve Cohen won 79% of the vote to Herenton's 21%. The vote marked the first time Herenton, 70, elected to a record five terms as mayor, lost a race for public office.^[31] In the general election, Cohen easily dispatched Republican challenger Charlotte Bergmann, taking 74 percent of the vote to Bergmann's 25 percent.

Tenure[link]

Cohen is the first Jew to represent Tennessee in Congress, as well as the first white Democrat to represent a significant portion of Memphis since freshman George Grider was defeated by Republican Dan Kuykendall in 1966, and the first Jew to represent a majority black district,^[6] as well as one of the few white congressmen that has represented a black-majority district. Before being elected, Cohen told reporters that he would seek to become the first white member of the Congressional Black Caucus, but later decided against joining after members of the CBC (influenced by co-founder Bill Clay) indicated that they would not allow a non-black to join.^[6]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi assigned Cohen to serve on the House Judiciary Committee, which was Cohen's first choice for a committee assignment, as well as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.^[32]

Political positions

Cohen is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He supports environmental conservation,.^[33]

He opposed Republican policy regarding the War in Iraq,.^[34]

Cohen supports legal abortion.^[35]

To expand funds available for research and development of alternative energy sources, Cohen supports an excess profits tax on oil companies.^[36] Cohen has said that he believes that adequate health care is a "fundamental right" of all citizens.^[37] Cohen supports gender equality, progressive taxation, medicinal use of marijuana, decriminalization of Marijuana, gun rights and capital punishment. Cohen was the headline speaker at the Marijuana Policy Project's January 2010 annual gala in Washington.^[38]

During his first month in Congress, Cohen supported the "100-Hour Plan" in the House, which included raising the federal minimum wage, requiring the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower Medicare prescription drug prices, and reducing interest rates for student borrowers. Cohen also cosponsored House Concurrent Resolution 23, which "[expresses] the sense of Congress that the President should not order an escalation in the total number of members of the United States Armed Forces serving in Iraq."^[39]

On February 27, 2007, Cohen introduced a resolution in the House that apologizes for African-American slavery and the system of Jim Crow laws that persisted for 100 years after the abolition of slavery. Cohen noted that no president has officially apologized for allowing slavery. The bill had36 cosponsors.^[40] The resolution passed on July 29, 2008, marking the first time a branch of the federal government had officially apologized for the institution of slavery and its aftermath.^[41]

Cohen made a trip to Iraq from October 4, 2007 to October 7, 2007 as part of a congressional fact-finding delegation. Cohen noted that his impression was that the country was "not in very good shape" and that its economy has been "ravaged." Cohen met with soldiers who complained that long deployments are causing divorces. When Cohen raised this concern with General David Petraeus, Petraeus told Cohen that the claims were being exaggerated. After meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Cohen described him as "overly optimistic," noting his "bizarre" statement that sectarian war in Iraq is over.^[42]

On May 10, 2012, at a House subcommittee hearing on asbestos trust transparency legislation, Cohen described plaintiffs attorneys who contacted him about the illness of his friend, Warren Zevon as "parasites". He said that Warren Zevon—who died from asbestos related cancer—did not seek a lawyer and did not want damages. In spite of Cohen's feelings against those plaintiffs attorneys, he spoke against the bill.^[43][44]

Votes

Steve Cohen has sponsored 16 bills since Jan 4, 2007, of which 13 haven't made it out of committee and 2 were successfully enacted. Cohen has co-sponsored 762 bills during the same time period.^[45]

Armenian issues

Although his family has no knowledge of any Turkish heritage, Cohen's mother's birth certificate states his maternal grandfather was born in Turkey when it was part of the Ottoman Empire; it is probable that he is a descendant of the Sephardic Jews who escaped the Spanish Inquisition and traveled to the Ottoman Empire and present day Turkey.^[46] He is a member of the Congressional Caucus on US Turkish Relations and Turkish Americans.^[47] He has consistently opposed Congressional recognition of the Armenian Genocide on pragmatic grounds, believing that recognizing it officially in Congress would damage relations with Turkey.^[48]

On August 6, 2008, one day before the August 7, 2008 Democratic Congressional Primary, a confrontation between California-based documentary filmmaker Peter Musurlian and Cohen erupted. During a press conference at Cohen's home, Musurlian was asked to leave by Cohen's staff and Cohen himself. Cohen then put both hands on Musurlian's arms and forced him out of the home after the journalist asked the congressman about the Armenian Genocide.^[49][50] The journalist subsequently accused Cohen of assault.^[51]

2011 Nazi controversy

In a speech on the House floor on January 18, 2011, Cohen said of the Republican effort to repeal the Obama administration's health care reform law:

They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust. You tell a lie over and over again. And we've heard on this floor, government takeover of health care.^[52]

According to Cohen's hometown paper, the Memphis Commercial Appeal, he was "accused of upsetting the newfound atmosphere of civility in the House" following the assassination attempt on Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.^[53] Republicans,^[54] as well as many in the media and in the Jewish community, expressed outrage and demanded that Democrats condemn Cohen's comment. Ron Kampeas of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency wrote that "someone needs to carpet Cohen, pronto, for his rhetoric."^[55] His remarks were also condemned by the National Jewish Democratic Council, which issued a statement saying that "invoking the Holocaust to make a political point is never acceptable—on either side of the aisle. Cohen’s comments and similar comments made by others are not helpful as our leaders and citizens conduct a joint effort to advance civility in our political discourse. We implore Cohen and all our leaders to choose their words carefully as we move forward."^[55]

In response to the controversy, Cohen said "I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust. Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong."^[54]

Cohen later expressed regret for his remarks:

I would certainly never do anything to diminish the horror of the Nazi Holocaust as I revere and respect the history of my people. I sponsored legislation which created one of the first state Holocaust Commissions in America and actively served as a Commission member for over 20 years. I regret that anyone in the Jewish Community, my Republican colleagues or anyone else was offended by the portrayal of my comments. My comments were not directed toward any group or people but at the false message and, specifically, the method by which is has been delivered.^[55]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on the Judiciary
  • Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
  • Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (Ranking Member)^[56]
  • Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
  • Task Force on Judicial Impeachment
• Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
  • Subcommittee on Aviation
  • Subcommittee on Highways and Transit
  • Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment

Caucus memberships[link]

• Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans
• Congressional Progressive Caucus
• International Conservation Caucus
• Congressional Arts Caucus

References[link]