Elena Maganini, a TV and film editor who won an Emmy for cutting the pilot for Dexter and edited several […]
Elena Maganini, a TV and film editor who won an Emmy for cutting the pilot for Dexter and edited several films for director John McNaughton, died Oct. 21 in Burbank of complications from breast cancer, Variety reports. She was 70.
Born in Chicago, she graduated from the U. of Illinois and studied filmmaking at Columbia College in Chicago. Maganini started out working at Sinnot & Associates, a Chicago production company.
Her first feature credit came for McNaughton’s influential 1986 Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. She went on to edit McNaughton films including Wild Things, which starred Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell and Kevin Bacon, Mad Dog & Glory and Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll, The Borrower, Speaking of Sex and Lansky. Other feature credits include Next Friday and Ed Gein.
Moving into television, Maganini edited the pilot for Dexter, for which she won an Emmy, and went on to edit shows including Madam Secretary, Good Behavior, Clarice, Manifest and The Cleaning Lady. She was nominated for an Emmy and a Cable ACE Award for If These Walls Could Talk.
I happened to revisit Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer at Fantastic Fest this past September, and what really struck me was the ending. Henry, played by Michael Rooker, is in a motel room with Becky, played by Tracy Arnold. They’ve just killed her abusive brother, Otis, and she believes she’s in love with Henry and that they’re going to be together. She’s playing a guitar. They’re going to bed.
And then the edit. That edit.
We move to the next morning, and Henry is leaving alone. Then comes that chilling final image: he stops beside the road, leaves Becky’s bloodied suitcase behind, and drives away. We understand that he’s murdered her, too.
