The book is based on a transcript of one of those talks and is an insight into the work of an experienced film editor (although he is also a renowned sound editor). What anyone could imagine to be a dry subject is transformed by Murch's experience and comfortably informed style. The insights into the editing of Coppola's Apocalypse Now are worth the read in themselves. The purely mechanical methods of editing physical film stock were common place until (and still after) The English Patient was the first digitally edited film to win an Oscar for Best Editing (edited by Murch on Avid).
The real value though is found in his meditations on the art of film editing and why it should work at all. Why does the human eye (and mind) accept the spectacle of chop cuts between disparate images in film that are impossible in our day to day experience? This question turns out to be the titular premise and I found it a revelation.
We're also given a valuable insight into Murch's priorities when editing. Sometimes referred to as "the rule of 6", they are
- Emotion
- Story
- Rhythm
- Eye Trace
- The Two Dimensional Plane and;
- The Three Dimensional Space
It strikes me that he believes that, while striving for perfection, the technical should suffer before the experience. The emotion carries the story which holds the rhythm and so it goes on.
Frankly, I'm very new to all of the concepts in this book (in terms of the moving image at least) and I'd like to hear any views on Murch's theories.
