FILMS/
MURCH
Spotlight
England/USA, 2006, 78 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Fri, Apr 27 / 09:00 / SFMOMA / MURC27S
Sun, Apr 29 / 04:15 / Castro / MURC29C
Tue, May 1 / 01:00 / Kabuki / MURC01K
Sat, May 5 / 03:30 / PFA / MURC05P
CREDITS
- cam
-
David Ichioka
- editor
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Edie Ichioka
- source
-
Studio Ichioka, 336 Bon Air Center #309, Greenbrae, CA 94904 EMAIL: edie@bunrab.com
website www.studioichioka.com
There are film editors, and then there’s Walter Murch. Widely considered the world’s greatest cutter for Apocalypse Now and The Unbearable Lightness of Being to name just two, he has probably done more to illuminate the art of film editing than anyone, in several books both by and about him. Strangely enough, there has been little about him on film, until now. Murch is an epic sit-down with the man—a brilliant condensation of what is surely a long conversation covering the many topics that interest Murch: his theories on why we blink and what this has to do with cutting film; why he likes to stand while he works (does a surgeon sit, or an orchestra conductor or a butcher?); film acting (he calls it a "theater of thought," stating that we as viewers watch are people’s thoughts flickering across their faces); Touch of Evil (which Murch reedited in 1998 guided by Orson Welles’s detailed 58-page memo written some 40 years earlier); that unique sense of "mass intimacy" in a movie theater; what cooking and editing have in common (adding something bitter to bring out the inherent sweetness of the dish); and much, much more. Murch is a generous and erudite man, in love with what he does and eager to share and explicate his passions. Studded with illuminating clips from many of his films, and codirected by one of his former assistant editors, Murch is the equivalent of an audience with the master.
—Tod Booth
Sponsored by the San Francisco Film Commission.