Who is the world-famous film editing master? What is the masterpiece?

Walter murch and the Art of Film Editing

I. walter murch (walter murch).

I'm afraid there are more than a dozen greatest directors in the world today, but there is only one greatest film editor, and that is walter murch.

Murch's name is not known to the public. Is this his job? The essence of editing. A good movie can immerse the audience in the story, characters' emotions and fate, but can't see the trace of editing at all. This is the supreme effort of the editor, and editing is the symbol that distinguishes the movie from photography, drama, performance and literature, and finally declares itself as an independent art form. As a master editor, walter murch has created miracles in the dark editing room, and is known as the "godfather" of Hollywood, of course, not only because he created The Legend of the Godfather Trilogy for Coppola, but also because he has made outstanding contributions to the development of film art. As an "invisible artist", the editor is generally unknown to outsiders. Walter murch is the only editor in the world who frequently appears in people's cultural field of vision.

Murch is one of the "academic" filmmakers who rose in the United States in the 1970s. These people are graduates from film schools of various universities, including francis coppola, george lucas, Steven Allan Spielberg, martin scorsese and other masters who revived Hollywood and created a large number of modern film classics. Walter murch is the "invisible hand" behind them, and has won many awards from British Film Academy and American Film Academy. In the late 1960s, he co-founded the film industry in Northern California with Coppola and Lucas in San Francisco, which brought a new atmosphere to Hollywood in Los Angeles. Since 1969 edited the sound effects for Coppola's Rain Man, Murch has successively created the sound effects of American Graffiti (1973) and Godfather (II and III) and the picture editing of Godfather I, and 1974 was Coppola's personal favorite Dialogue. In 1996, walter murch won two Oscars for his excellent sound design in Coppola 1996, for his poetic editing of the images and sounds of The English Patient. In the Ghost 40 years, walter murch's famous films have appeared on the screen. Apart from the Godfather trilogy and the old and new versions of Apocalypse Now, there are five hundred years later (THX 1 138), Julia (1977) and others. Love in Prague (also translated as Unbearable Lightness in Life, 1988), ripley the Genius (1999) and recently Cold Mountain, 2005) and Jarhead, 2006). Back to the Wizard of Oz (sequel to the Wizard of Oz, 1985), written and directed by him, was well received by people in the industry. 1998 presided over the reconstruction/restoration of Welles 1958 classic "Touch the Evil", which is called the authoritative "Director's Edition". In 2002, commissioned by the Library of Congress, Edison's first sound film, 1894, was restored. In the editing process of Apocalypse Now, walter murch created the concept of sound design, which promoted the film sound from the position of subordination and cooperation to the height of unique artistic expression.

Murch is knowledgeable and is known as a rare Renaissance generalist in Hollywood. He studies art history and is familiar with music, architecture and even physics. During film editing, Murch likes to translate Italian poetry and is deeply interested in the study of human perception system, cosmology and the history of science. Starting from 1995, he reinterpreted the ancient planetary laws and star maps based on the data sent back by Voyager and Hubble telescope. Mocky now lives in the countryside of San Francisco, facing a lake, without TV, making his own honey.

Second, walter murch's book.

Blink of an Eye: Perspective film editing was revised from 1988 Murch's speech at the Australian National Film Committee, and some of the contents were included in the advanced editing course of the School of Drama and Film at UCLA in 1990. It is not a technical manual about how to edit, but a reflection on editing, which is a unique insight into the relationship between movies and human nature. Among them, the most memorable one is the author's conclusion that "a clip is a blink" by observing and comparing the internal psychological-emotional mechanism of editing and blinking. Since the publication of 1995, this book has immediately become a compulsory teaching material for film majors in British and American universities, and it has also become a rare introductory reference for general humanities students to know and understand movies from the inside. With vivid and simple words, the multi-faceted problem of film editing is very enlightening. Starting from the most basic reason why editing is effective, Murch leads readers to review the aesthetic and practical problems of film editing one by one, and puts forward his own unique views on continuity, discontinuity, the relationship between dream and reality, the standard of good editing, the emotional significance of blinking and its relationship with cutting point, digital editing and so on. More importantly, in his book, Murch shared his thoughts and experiences when editing those famous movies. He used different metaphors to explain the profound meaning of film editing, and connected classical music, dream interpretation, photography, even genetics, astronomy, postal services and so on with movies, which was very enlightening. Murch began to use Apple's low-cost, amateur film editing software Final Cut Pro from Lengshan, which not only introduced the software to Hollywood, but also directly influenced and promoted the production of low-cost independent films all over the world. Interestingly, Murch still stands with the old-fashioned editing machine, because he thinks that film editing is a full-body dance, and it is impossible to dance while sitting. He said.