Walter Murch Quotes

• By manipulating what you hear and how you hear it - and what other things you don't hear - you can not only help tell the story, you can help the audience get into the mind of the character.

  Walter Murch

  Character, Mind, Stories

  61 Copy quote

• The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.

  Walter Murch

  Editing, Cinema, Rooms

  50 Copy quote

• Looking at a first assembly is kind of like looking at an overgrown garden. You can't just wade in with a weed whacker; you don't yet know where the stems of the flowers are.

  Walter Murch

  Weed, Flower, Garden

  Interview with Michael Wohl, www.peachpit.com.

  64 Copy quote

• Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.

  Walter Murch

  Art, Persistence, Simple

  Interview with Michael Wohl, www.peachpit.com. November 1, 2001.

  46 Copy quote

• Every film is a puzzle really, from an editorial point of view.

  Walter Murch

  Views, Film, Point Of View

  38 Copy quote

• As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old. [...] At that age, you know enough of the world to have opinions about things, but you're not old enough yet to be overly influenced by the crowd or by what other people are doing or what you think you 'should' be doing. If what you do later on ties into that reservoir in some way, then you are nurturing some essential part of yourself.

  Walter Murch

  Reflection, Thinking, Years

  "The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film". Book by Michael Ondaatje, December 3, 2012.

  37 Copy quote

• This applies to many film jobs, not just editing: half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.

  Walter Murch

  Jobs, Editing, People

  Interview with Michael Wohl, www.peachpit.com.

  26 Copy quote

• When I'm actually assembling a scene, I assemble it as a silent movie. Even if it's a dialog scene, I lip read what people are saying.

  Walter Murch

  People, Lips, Quiet

  22 Copy quote

• There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock's (the film is complete in the director's mind) and Coppola's (which thrives on process). For Hitchcock, any variation from the complete internal idea is seen as a defect. The perfection already exists. Coppola's approach is to harvest the random elements that the process throws up, things that were not in his mind when he began.

  Walter Murch

  Ideas, Two, Perfection

  18 Copy quote

• Writing is a process of discovery of what you really do know. You can't limit yourself in advance to what you know, because you don't know everything you know.

  Walter Murch

  Writing, Discovery, Limits

  Michael Ondaatje, Walter Murch (2002). “The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film”, p.128, A&C Black

  26 Copy quote

• As I've gone through life, I've found that your chances for happiness are increased if you wind up doing something that is a reflection of what you loved most when you were somewhere between nine and eleven years old.

  Walter Murch

  Reflection, Years, Wind

  Michael Ondaatje, Walter Murch (2002). “The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film”, p.9, A&C Black

  23 Copy quote

• You can always make a film somehow. You can beg, borrow, steal the equipment, use credit cards, use your friends' goodwill, wheedle your way into this or that situation. The real problem is, how do you get people to see it once it is made?

  Walter Murch

  Real, People, Cards

  Interview with Michael Wohl, www.peachpit.com. November 1, 2001.

  13 Copy quote

• I think every age has a medium that talks to it more eloquently than the others. In the 19th century it was symphonic music and the novel. For various technical and artistic reasons, film became that eloquent medium for the 20th century.

  Walter Murch

  Thinking, Age, Artistic

  Interview with Michael Wohl, www.peachpit.com. November 1, 2001.

  13 Copy quote

• The word processor is a better tool than a quill pen because you can do so much more with it, but on the other hand, what you have to say and how you say it is the ultimate determination.

  Walter Murch

  Determination, Hands, Tools

  13 Copy quote

• Most of us are searching-consciously or unconsciously- for a degree of internal balance and harmony between ourselves and the outside world, and if we happen to become aware-like Stravinsky- of a volcano within us, we will compensate by urging restraint. By that same token, someone who bore a glacier within them might urge passionate abandon. The danger is, as Bergman points out, that a glacial personality in need of passionate abandon may read Stravinsky and apply restraint instead.

  Walter Murch

  Balance And Harmony, Volcanoes, Personality

  13 Copy quote

• Every film is hard work, and a few lucky people do get Oscars for what they do, and it's recognition for all that hard work on a certain level. If you didn't do the hard work, you wouldn't be standing there. On the other hand, people do a lot of hard work and don't get Oscars, so it's a mixture of glory and injustice at the same time.

  Walter Murch

  Hard Work, Hands, People

  11 Copy quote

• The Conversation' was the first film I edited on a flatbed machine - a KEM editing machine. I've been using Final Cut or the AVID for 12 years now, so I was interested in looking at this film and seeing if I could tell if it had been edited the old way.

  Walter Murch

  Cutting, Avid, Editing

  11 Copy quote

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