Interview. Walter Murch.

"The Godfather - in the months before it came out - there was a general feeling that that film maybe wasn't going to work. Certainly when Apocalypse Now came out it was critically not very well received," recalls legendary editor Walter Murch.

But critics and audiences came around, of course. Will they come around to Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth? To further wear out a cliché (albeit one that has a certain ring to it when speaking of Youth Without Youth), only time will tell.

It may seem odd to mention a couple of books when introducing Michael Guillén's interview with a film editor, but Walter Murch is more than simply a superb craftsman. Filmmaker Brian Fleming has called Murch's In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing "one of those books about one topic that, like Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, transcends its original purpose and becomes a useful filter for considering a range of subjects." Certainly Michael Ondaatje's The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film belongs on any cinephile's top shelf but also within reach of anyone who cares about any art. And I just have to mention again two immediately clickable nuggets, talks with Murch in the Transom Review and BLDGBLOG.

For now, though, the subject at hand is Youth Without Youth (and here's the entry that'll carry on being updated). Take it away, Michael...

Posted by dwhudson at December 14, 2007 12:10 PM