Jay Rabinowitz

History

Jay Rabinowitz is an ACE-certified American film editor and commercial editor. He is most frequently associated with the films of Jim Jarmusch and Darren Aronofsky. Rabinowitz studied at the New York University, where he graduated in 1984 at the undergraduate Cinema Studies program. During the program he learned of a film in pre-production that needed an intern, which turned out to be Jim Jarmusch's Down By Law (1986). He is credited as the assistant editor for several films in the next years, including Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989-edited by Melody London). Starting with Night on Earth (1991), Rabinowitz has been the editor for seven of Jarmusch's films: Dead Man (1995), Year of the Horse (1997), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005), and The Limits of Control (2009). Mr. Rabinowitz' editing for Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (2000) won best editing awards from the Online Film Critics Society. He was also nominated for the Online Film Critics' award for Mr. Aronofsky's The Fountain (2006).

Movies

Beast
Editor
A recently widowed man and his two teenage daughters travel to a game reserve in South Africa. However, their journey of healing soon turns into a fight for survival when a bloodthirsty lion starts to stalk them.
Oslo
Editor
The true story of negotiations between implacable enemies — the secret back-channel talks, unlikely friendships and quiet heroics of a small but committed group of Israelis, Palestinians and one Norwegian couple that led to the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords.
Aleph
Consulting Editor
Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Editor
Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."
Irresistible
Editor
A Democratic political consultant helps a retired Marine colonel run for mayor in a small, conservative Wisconsin town.
White Echo
Editor
Five women in their thirties examine their own power in life.
Boy Erased
Editor
Jared, the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, is outed to his parents at age 19. Jared is faced with an ultimatum: attend a gay conversion therapy program – or be permanently exiled and shunned by his family, friends, and faith.
Living the Light: Robby Müller
Self
For her extraordinary film essay, Living the Light, Director and Director of Photography Claire Pijman had access to the thousands of Hi8 video diaries, pictures and Polaroids that Müller photographed while he was at work on one of the more than 70 features he shot throughout his career; often with long term collaborators such as Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch and Lars von Trier. The film intertwines these images with excerpts of his oeuvre, thus creating a fluid and cinematic continuum. In his score for Living the Light Jim Jarmusch gives this wide raging scale of life and art an additional musical voice.
Junction 48
Editor
Set against a backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian rapper Kareem and his singer girlfriend Manar struggle, love and make music in their crime-ridden ghetto and Tel Aviv's hip-hop club scene.
Rosewater
Editor
In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.
First Point
Editor
Phillips has embarked on a new phase of work that hinges on the self-awareness of real-life subjects. Lindsay Lohan (2011) and Sasha Grey (2011), his first two films, made their debut at the “Commercial Break” film project at the 2011 Biennale di Venezia. In these "motion portraits ", the notorious actresses pose erotically—Grey in a modernist John Lautner home, and Lohan in an aquamarine infinity pool. Both actresses project self-conscious recognition in their performances and in turn point toward the transformative potential of narrative action, framed by their compelling beauty. Phillips’s third film, First Point (2012) marks his second collaboration with Lohan and third collaboration with legendary surf filmmaker Taylor Steele. A contemporary film noir, First Point juxtaposes haunting nocturnal imagery with surf sequences in which female pro-surfer Kassia Meador (Lohan's acknowledged stunt double) and Lohan herself appear.
Rampart
Editor
Follows veteran police officer Dave Brown, the last of the renegade cops, as he struggles to take care of his family, and fights for his own survival.
The Tree of Life
Editor
The impressionistic story of a Texas family in the 1950s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father. Jack finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith.
The Adjustment Bureau
Editor
A man glimpses the future Fate has planned for him – and chooses to fight for his own destiny. Battling the powerful Adjustment Bureau across, under and through the streets of New York, he risks his destined greatness to be with the only woman he's ever loved.
Women Without Men
Editor
Against the tumultuous backdrop of Iran's 1953 CIA-backed coup d'état, the destinies of four women converge in a beautiful orchard garden, where they find independence, solace and companionship.
The Limits of Control
Editor
A mysterious stranger works outside the law and keeps his objectives hidden, trusting no one. While his demeanor is paradoxically focused and dreamlike all at once, he embarks on a journey that not only takes him across Spain, but also through his own consciousness.
Explicit Ills
Editor
The film follows four inter-connecting stories revolving around love, drugs and poverty in Philadelphia
I'm Not There
Editor
Six actors portray six personas of music legend Bob Dylan in scenes depicting various stages of his life, chronicling his rise from unknown folksinger to international icon and revealing how Dylan constantly reinvented himself.
The Fountain
Editor
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence in this world.
Broken Flowers
Editor
As the devoutly single Don Johnston is dumped by his latest girlfriend, he receives an anonymous pink letter informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him.
The Stepford Wives
Editor
What does it take to become a Stepford wife, a woman perfect beyond belief? Ask the Stepford husbands, who've created this high-tech, terrifying little town.
Coffee and Cigarettes
Editor
Coffee And Cigarettes is a collection of eleven films from cult director Jim Jarmusch. Each film hosts star studded cast of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
8 Mile
Editor
For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.
Bomb the System
Editor
Anthony ‘Blest’ (Mark Webber) is one of the most talented and notorious graffiti artists in New York City. Despite the tragic loss of his older brother during a nightly 'bombing' foray with a graffiti crew, Anthony has the same insatiable addiction. With the other members of his ‘crew,’ Anthony parties, shoplifts spray-paint and 'tags' virgin walls with his signature 'Blest.' He does his best to avoid run-ins with the cops and hostile rival crews, but he can’t avoid the pressure from his mother to attend college, and from his girlfriend to leave New York with her. As tensions rise, a physical threat from the cops causes the crew to intensify their bombing excursions, calling an all out war on the city. When the inevitable confrontation happens, a tragedy results that pushes Anthony to make a decision that has even darker consequences.
Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet
Editor
Ten Minutes Older is a 2002 film project consisting of two compilation feature films entitled The Trumpet and The Cello. The project was conceived by the producer Nicolas McClintock as a reflection on the theme of time at the turn of the Millennium. Fifteen celebrated film-makers were invited to create their own vision of what time means in ten minutes of film.
Requiem for a Dream
Music Editor
The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. A look into addiction and how it overcomes the mind and body.
Requiem for a Dream
Editor
The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. A look into addiction and how it overcomes the mind and body.
Homicide: The Movie
Editor
Retired police lieutenant Al Giardello is running for mayor when he is suddenly shot at a press conference. All of the detectives, past and present, clamor for an opportunity to help find the shooter.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Editor
An African-American Mafia hit man who models himself after the samurai of ancient Japan finds himself targeted for death by the mob.
Richard Lester!
Editor
A tribute to Richard Lester, Philadelphia-born filmmaker who moved to England to direct the modern classics "A Hard Day's Night," "Petulia," and "Help!"
Affliction
Editor
A small town policeman must investigate a suspicious hunting accident. The investigation and other events result in him slowly disintegrating mentally.
Year of the Horse
Editor
Indie director Jim Jarmusch lenses a low-tech tribute to protean rocker Neil Young and his long-standing band, Crazy Horse. Stitched together from archival material shot in 1976 and 1986 along with candid scenes of Young and the band kicking back between shows, this rockumentary is as ragged as it is direct.
Mother Night
Editor
An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.
Dead Man
Editor
A fatally wounded white man is found by an outcast Native American who prepares him for the afterlife.
Jimmy Hollywood
Editor
Jimmy Alto is an actor wannabe who stumbles into the role of a lifetime. He becomes a vigilante crime-fighter, aided by his sidekick William, who has suffered a head wound and has problems with short-term memory. Jimmy's vigilante alter ego soon becomes a media wonder--but Jimmy remains a total unknown and his long-suffering girl friend Lorraine is getting fed up with the whole situation.
The Bowery
Editor
Documentary about the history, people, and culture of New Yorks' Bowery Street and neighborhood.
When Pigs Fly
Editor
The ghosts of a middle-aged woman and a precocious little girl help an unwed jazz musician and a bar dancer reverse their bad fortune.
Clean, Shaven
Editor
Peter Winter is a young schizophrenic who is desperately trying to get his daughter back from her adoptive family. He attempts to function in a world that, for him, is filled with strange voices, electrical noise, disconcerting images, and jarringly sudden emotional shifts. During his quest, he runs afoul of the law and an ongoing murder investigation.
Last Supper
Editor
In an empty lot in Harlem, an elite group of New Yorkers prepares for a book-signing party given in honor of a writer who never shows up. Local residents, dealing with the practicality of life, look on as the guests obsess about identity, status, and success.
Night on Earth
Editor
An anthology of 5 different cab drivers in 5 American and European cities and their remarkable fares on the same eventful night.
Alice
Assistant Sound Editor
Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for the handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of well-established rut.