The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film Alfred A. Knopf Sept 2002 isbn: 0375413863 $35.00 buy

Michael Ondaatje, November 11

Monday, 6pm
Harvard Book Store
1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
No tickets are required

"Editing is an often invisible part of the filmmaking process; the audience tends not to be aware how the editor's eye has crafted a film. Ondaatje reveals some of its mystery through several conversations with Murch, the editor of The Conversation, The English Patient, and Apocalypse Now and Redux. In the late 1960s, Murch, along with Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas (who describes Murch as 'strange like me'), helped form Zoetrope, the independent company where films like THX 1138 and The Godfather were born. Murch finds his own profession difficult to accurately describe, comparing quirks in actor dialogue to signs in the wilderness that only a hunter might detect. Ondaatje and Murch walk the reader through key scenes from several films, providing a glimpse into the editing process; the origins of his masterful re-edit of Orson Wells' Touch of Evil are particularly fascinating (especially for film buffs). These conversations allow readers a peek behind the curtain to reveal a man as mysterious as his art." -Booklist