Walter Murch - Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now – 1979 – Dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Murch was the last editor hired to work on what would be one of the most iconic films of all time. He joined fellow editors Richard Marks, Jerry Greenberg and Dennis Jakob. “When I started there were already three, so the film divided into four sections. I had responsibility from the beginning of the film till the end of the sampan massacre... I was editing picture for a year and then working on sound for another two” (Ondaatje. (2002). P.61). Murch openly admits “Apocalypse Now remains the longest post-production experience of any film I’ve been involved with...with the physical reality of 1,250,000 feet of film and editing 35mm workprint, it was a lot of physical work” (Chang. (2012). p.20), at this time Murch was also involved with creating the 5.1 sound format at Coppola’s request.

The opening of Apocalypse Now Murch’s editing creates an abstract, multi-layered, visually arresting scene. It opens with a slowed down image of a helicopter flying past the Vietnam Jungle, the jungle is then blown up by napalm but Murch has edited the sound of the explosion out and instead only included the slowed down sound of the swooping helicopter propellers that grow increasingly louder the closer it gets to the camera, the doors “The End” underscoring create a dizzying effect.

The sand swirling in the air by the helicopter create a tobacco like colour tone to the scene. When there are repeatedly slow dissolves into the hotel room introducing Willard (Martin Sheen) and back to the Vietnam jungle burning the colour toning compliments the dissolves because the colour of the room is a sepia glow from the lighting shining through the blinds. The choice of cuts, the unusual angles, close up’s, slow tracks into the room allow the audience to enter Willard’s alcohol induced crazed hallucination. Murch also placing the sound of the helicopter propellers over the fan reflects Willard inability to escape the nightmare and immerse the audience into the doom of war.

The scene with Willard in the hotel room was at first an acting rehearsal Coppola set up with two cameras at right angles to each other. A technique Coppola used to help Martin Sheen get more into the psyche and true character of Willard. It was never intended to be in the finished film, but Coppola however found the material to compelling to remove so Murch included it into the opening sequence.  

Walter Murch

Selected Filmography:

THX 1138 – 1971 – Sound Editor

The Godfather – 1972 – Picture Editor

American Graffiti – 1973 – Sound Editor

The Conversation – 1974 – Picture & Sound Editor

Julia – 1977 – Picture Editor

The Godfather part II – 1974 – Sound Editor

Apocalypse Now – 1979 – Picture & Sound Editor

Ghost – 1990 – Picture & Sound Editor

The Godfather part III – 1990 – Picture Editor

The English Patient – 1996 – Picture & Sound Editor

The Talented Mr Ripley – 1999 – Picture & Sound Editor

Cold Mountain – 2003 – Picture & Sound Editor

Walter Murch was born in 1943 in New York. He is widely recognized as one of the best in his career of film editing who is also equally active in both picture and sound editing.

In 1979 he won an Academy Award for best sound mix of Apocalypse Now as well as being nominated for best picture editing. Murch is acknowledged as the person who created the term Sound Designer, and along with colleagues developed the current standard film sound format, the 5.1 channel. Apocalypse Now was the first multi-channel film to be mixed using computerized mixing board.

In 1996, Murch won an Academy Award for best sound and picture editing, the first to be awarded for an electronically edited film using the Avid editing software. Murch is also the only person ever to win Academy Awards for both his sound mixing and picture editing. In 2003, Murch edited Cold Mountain on Apple’s editing software ‘Final Cut Pro’ this had never been done for a big budget film, where Avid systems were usually the standard non-linear editing system.

Murch is the only film editor to have received Academy Award nominations for films edited on four different systems, them being;-

Julia (1977) – using Moviola

Apocalypse Now (1979), Ghost (1990), The Godfather, part III (1990) – using KEM Flatbed

The English Patient (1996) – using Avid

Cold Mountain (2003) – using Final Cut Pro

Murch believes that “the wonderful thing about film construction is that it’s such a new thing in the human experience. We’ve only been doing this for barely a hundred years, and we’ve only just beginning to unlock the possibilities” (Chang, (2012) p. 14). Murch’s rule of thumb is not to present more than two and a half thematic layers to the audience at any moment, because “I’m interested in the balance between clarity on the one hand and density in the other”. Murch believes that if you have four simultaneous layers, the audience will only catch one or two things, but they won’t enjoy the “harmonic integration of all the elements”.

Bibliography

Chang, J. (2012). Editing. USA. Focal Press.

The Rule of Six

Few editors have put as much painstaking thought into answering the question “When should an editor cut?” as Walter Murch. In his book, In The Blink of an Eye, Murch has compiled a list of priorities from when and where to create a transition from one shot to the next. In his book Murch states that the ideal cut is one that satisfies all the following six criteria:

1(1)      It is true to the emotion of the moment.

2(2)      It advances the story.

3(3)      It occurs at the moment that is rhythmically interesting and “right”.

4(4)      It acknowledges what you may call “eye-trace” – the concern with the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame.

5(5)      It respects “planarity” – the grammar of three dimensions transposed by photography to two (the questions of stage-line, etc.)

6(6)      Respects the three-dimensional continuity of the actual space (where people are in the room an in relation to one another).

Murch also has his own personal take on the rule of six, he weighs the importance of the criteria listed above with the following percentage values:

1(1)      Emotion (51%)

2(2)      Story (23%)

3(3)      Rhythm (10%)

4(4)      Eye-trace (7%)

5(5)      Two-dimensional plane of screen (5%)

6(6)      Three dimensional space of action (4%)

Murch states that “the top two on the list (emotion and story) are worth far more than the bottom four and under the most circumstances; the top of the list (emotion) is worth more than all five of the things underneath it.”

Bibliography

Murch, W. (2001). In The Blink Of An Eye: A Perspective On Film Editing. LA, Silman-James.