Mephistopheles has arrived with his black box…

Одна з найкращих книг по кіномонтажу, яку я коли-небудь читала! Раджу!

A book I will be rereading until memorized

The first half of this book is an indispensable treatise on WHY cuts in film/video work and WHAT separates good cuts from bad cuts. The way he encourages us to think both philosophically and physiologically about the process of editing felt like a kind of “Eureka!” moment for me (and countless other aspiring editors who have read it). While Murch makes pains to clarify that these are just his opinions rather than objective truth, the intellectual perspective those opinions provide is tremendously valuable. I will be rereading this section many, many times in the future.

The second half is made up of Murch’s musings (circa 1999) about the advent of digital editing and what larger implications may exist for editors (and cinema as a whole) in a dominantly-digital landscape. While its talk of digital editing’s technological limitations is obviously quite dated, his points about the fundamental differences between workflows for digital and analog editing were still relatable to me and are definitely good food for thought.

I learned

A great book to start with editing. My best parts would be "The Rule of Six", "The Decisive Moment" and "Dragnet".

p. 15
The underlying principle: Always try to do the most with the least—with the emphasis on try. You may not always succeed, but attempt to produce the greatest effect in the viewer’s mind by the least number of things on screen. Why? Because you want to do only what is necessary to engage the imagination of the audience—suggestion is always more effective than exposition. Past a certain point, the more effort you put into wealth of detail, the more you encourage the audience to become spectators rather than participants.

p. 18
An ideal cut(for me) is the one that satisfies all the following six criteria at once: 1) it is true to the emotion of the moment; 2) it advances the story; 3) it occurs at a moment that is thythmically interesting and "right"; 4) it acknoledges what ou might call "eye-trace" - the concern with the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame; 5) it respects "planarity" - the grammar of three dimensions transposed by photography to two(the questions of stage-line, etc.); 6) and it respects the three-dimensional continuity of the actual space (where people are in the room and in relation to one another).
1) 51% Emotion
2) 23% Story
3) 10% Rhythm
4) 7% Eye-trace
5) 5%Two-dimensional plane of screen
6) 4% Three-dimensional space of action

p.32
Select at least one representative frame from every setup(camera position) and take a still photograph of it off the workprint.

p. 55
So, instead of fixing the scene itself, you might clarify some exposition that happens five minutes earlier. Don’t necessarily operate on the elbow: instead, discover if nerves are being pinched somewhere else. But the audience will never tell you that directly. They will simply tell you where the pain is, not the source of the pain.

p. 62-63
So we entertain an idea, or a linked sequence of ideas, and we blink to separate and punctuate that idea from what follows. Similarly—in film—a shot presents us with an idea, or a sequence of ideas, and the cut is a “blink” that separates and punctuates those ideas... At any rate, I believe "filmic" juxtapositions are taking place in the real world not only when we dream but also when we are awake.

p. 69
a convincing action sequence might have around twenty-five cuts a minute, whereas a dialogue scene would still feel "normal" (in an American film) averaging ssix cuts per minute or less.

A really comprehensive look at the process of editing and its development since its induction into the world of filmmaking. Loved learning about Murch's experiences as an editor. Its clear his preferred method of editing revolves around physically cutting film, although I am glad to read about his impressions of modern day editing. He did give slight boomer energy when comparing the two mediums, obviously revealing his bias for physical film cutting when discussing the low points of Avid, but it makes sense looking back at his long and influential career. As an editor, some of the topics he covered I feel like are basic standards editors today follow, but his expansion on each topic brightened each section making it more intriguing. Great book for any editor. Great read to remind editors of the core goals and overall point of their positions.

Zeer interessant eerste deel over “the cut” itself. Het later toegevoegde deel over digitale film is wel heel gedateerd, en een stuk minder interessant. Toch zeker een aanrader.

Good book for intro to editing — just outdated since it’s from 1995 so I think some of the analysis and arguments just aren’t as relevant as they could be

Gene Hackman really was that good

When I am asked to describe this book to someone, my pet phrase is to call it the "Zen of Video/Film Editing", which it essentially is. The phrase "Renaissance Man" is bandied about a bit too loosely or negatively these days, but Walter Murch is a marvel as a craftsman and author. He manages to break down what many perceive as a highly technical profession to a simple series of intuitive human responses. He also manages to give a quick survey of the state of editing technology and where it's headed. I highly recommend this book to anyone who edits, no matter the format or the context.

too technical for the casual reader, i.e. me.

This was really thought-provoking and helpful for me to read as a director! I've come to appreciate the craft of film editing so much more, and I've been made to think about it more deeply and philosophically than ever before. I'll never see editing the same way now.

It is a bit unfortunate just how much of the second edition of this book is concentrated on the technology of its day, making vast sections irrelevant and skippable in 2024. But very worth reading for the parts of the book that remain timeless.