The Rule of Murch

Editor, sound designer, director, erudite scholar of the esoteric, and consummate craftsman—Walter Murch’s name may not be as well known as that of his collaborators and Zoetrope Studios co-founders George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, but New Hollywood’s fundamental reshaping of American cinema is impossible to imagine without Murch’s technical innovations, conscientious artistry, and deep thinking about cinema’s place in the world somewhere in the mix. With Faber’s publication of a new book by Murch, Suddenly Something Clicked, in which the Renaissance Man reflects on his long working life in the movies, we look at a few paradigm-shifting films on which “the most important philosopher of the 21st century” [Lucas] has left his mark.