The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film

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The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film
Michael Ondaatje (Paperback - Oct 5, 2004)
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description:
The Conversations is a treasure, essential for any lover or student of film, and a rare, intimate glimpse into the worlds of two accomplished artists who share a great passion for film and storytelling, and whose knowledge and love of the crafts of writing and film shine through.

It was on the set of the movie adaptation of his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, that Michael Ondaatje met the master film and sound editor Walter Murch, and the two began a remarkable personal conversation about the making of films and books in our time that continued over two years. From those conversations stemmed this enlightened, affectionate book -- a mine of wonderful, surprising observations and information about editing, writing and literature, music and sound, the I-Ching, dreams, art and history.

The Conversations is filled with stories about how some of the most important movies of the last thirty years were made and about the people who brought them to the screen. It traces the artistic growth of Murch, as well as his friends and contemporaries -- including directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Fred Zinneman and Anthony Minghella -- from the creation of the independent, anti-Hollywood Zoetrope by a handful of brilliant, bearded young men to the recent triumph of Apocalypse Now Redux.

Among the films Murch has worked on are American Graffiti, The Conversation, the remake of A Touch of Evil, Julia, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather (all three), The Talented Mr. Ripley, and The English Patient.

“Walter Murch is a true oddity in Hollywood. A genuine intellectual and renaissance man who appears wise and private at the centre of various temporary storms to do with film making and his whole generation of filmmakers. He knows, probably, where a lot of the bodies are buried.”

Customer Reviews

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Average Customer Review
4.5 Customer Rating

Excellent conversation between award winning professionals in two creative fields: the novel & film, August 3, 2009
By A. Theodore Kachel (Sand Springs, OK United States)
If you want to sit in and hear to brilliant creative artists reveal how they go about making "choices" which is the heart of each of their works--novel and film--then this book is for you. I have done graduate school in both of these creative arts and still found these conversations more pointedly helpful for seeing how these two arts work than most other parts of my studies. Jump in, very friendly, and informative conversations.

4.0 Customer Rating

Casual Conversations + Occasional Heavy Insights = A Four Star Book, February 1, 2009
By B. Schuman (NY)
The full title of "The Conversations" is a bit misleading, since anyone reading it expecting a linear, orderly text on the art of film editing will not find it here. For that we have Murch's own In the Blink of an Eye Revised 2nd Edition. I read that book before this one, and I have a strong sense that that reading "Blink" first will greatly enhance "The Conversations."
What makes both books good is Murch himself, whose writing and speaking styles would be best described as casually theoretical. Murch talks about literary and cinematic subjects which are usually reserved for the realm of academic writing, but he speaks about these subjects in a way that is very accessible even as it gets perplexing. He doesn't indulge in jargon; he expresses rambling, abstract thoughts in very easy-to-read English. Ondaatje also does an excellent job of encouraging Murch to explore his thoughts further.
The book's greatest strength is in its anecdotes from film productions. The book is chock full of them, but his story about Fred Zinneman's (director of Julia, which Murch edited, in addition to many classic 20th century movies zealous objection to correcting "mistakes" and the revelations about his Frankenstein-style cutting and pasting of sound and images in The English Patient (Miramax Collector's Edition)are perhaps the most intriguing and insightful.
Even in Murch and Ondaatje's less focused conversations, many insights about the creative process are to be found, and the book as a whole will satisfy any true fan of movies who enjoys learning about the movie-making process and the temperaments of the people involved.

5.0 Customer Rating

The Language of Editing, December 27, 2008
By Nancy Carter (Los Angeles)
It is always a pleasure to read anything by Michael Ondaatje and to take in any film edited by Walter Murch. The pleasure is compouinded, then, by reading this dialogue between the two men -- masters in their fields. This book reviews Walter Murch's professional life and along the way, provides a look at the history of film itself from the one-dimensional nature of its birth to the multi-dimensional layers of sight and sound available today. Murch has made scientific and visceral contributions to the medium, some of which are described in the book, bringing to even more life for the reader some of the best films of the ages.
If you care about good films, if you are interested in learning the art of movie editing or soundscape creation, or if you love words and how they can be used to enlighten, I recommend this book of Conversations.

5.0 Customer Rating

A Delight to Read, August 21, 2008
By D. Olinger
Murch's book was a delight to read and had me running out to rent THE CONVERSATION. For a better understanding of any of Coppola's movies in the golden period of the 70s, which Murch worked on the sound and/or film editor, this is a must.

2.0 Customer Rating

walter murch, July 27, 2008
By straub (Hailey, ID USA)
i think walter murch books are overrated. who cares about what michael ondaatje thinks. he sure does.