Lucas met and got engaged to George while working under Fields, which led to her working on 1969’s The Rain People for Francis Ford Coppola‘s first proper New Hollywood movie, after three less-personal genre films, The Rain People stands out for its raw performances from the three leads, played by Shirley Knight, James Caan, and Robert Duvall. Already, Lucas shows an innate understanding of storytelling rhythms in the way she chooses hard cuts in tense scenes between Knight’s dissatisfied housewife and Robert Duvall’s surly cop and chooses to let tender moments between the housewife and Caan’s handicapped football player linger.
Lucas truly came into her own when Fields left George’s second film American Graffiti (1973) to work on What’s Up Doc? (1972), leaving behind footage for Marcia to sort through, alongside the equally esteemed Walter Much. Not only did Marcia succeed in compiling the footage into a generation-defining blockbuster, but she was recognized with a Best Editing Oscar nomination for her efforts.
These projects opened the way for Lucas to become the lead editor on Martin Scorsese‘s 1976 masterpiece, Taxi Driver. The story of a troubled loner who finds meaning through his violent fantasies, Taxi Driver simultaneously asks the audience to understand and be repulsed by protagonist Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), while also playing with reality and fantasy. Lucas and her co-editors Tom Rolf and Melvin Shapiro, achieved this by employing frantic cuts during tense scenes, letting the camera linger in the aftermath of carnage, and dissolving at key moments to soften Bickle.
Technically impressive as her decisions were, Lucas’s contributions weren’t just matters of math and cutting. She helped shape the story, sometimes emphasizing the human aspects ignored by her male collaborators.
It was her decision to ground the lead characters by using almost the entirety of an improvised scene between Ellen Burstyn and young actor Alfred Lutter in 1974’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a decision that Scorsese supported. She was the one who told George that Obi-Wan Kenobi should die when he and Luke come to the Death Star in Star Wars, establishing the generational tensions that will become the franchise’s key theme. When Raiders of the Lost Ark ended with Indy’s frustrating encounter with bureaucrats, Lucas asked her husband and Steven Spielberg about Marion, adding a timeless romantic beat to the otherwise bummer ending.
Marcia Lucas’ story sensibilities never forgot the human aspect, whether they were on the mean streets of New York or in a galaxy far, far away. She made great movies into masterpieces that stand the test of time.
