Bookage
I received one of the books from the library that I've been looking forward to for the last several months. The book's called The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. Murch is the film industry's most outspoken editors. He's responsible for what many editors (at least, in my experience) consider the bible of their craft, In the Blink of an Eye and has edited many of Francis Ford Coppola's films, including the Godfather. There's something for everyone in this book, from his experiences with George Lucas to writing and directing the Return to Oz. The interviews with Murch are highly engaging as well as intelligent and insightful. I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the silent art of film editing.

Here's an excerpt from the book, where Murch talks about Lucas' attempts to make Apocalypse Now.

Originally George Lucas was going to direct, so it was a project that George and John developed for Zoetrope. That was back in 1969. Then when Warner Bros. canceled the financing for Zoetrope, the project was abandoned for a while. After the success of American Graffiti in 1973, George wantec to revive it, but it was still too hot a topiic, the war was still going on and nobody wanted to finance something like that. So George considered his options: What did he really want to say in Apocalypse Now? The message boiled down to the ability of a small group of people to defeat a gigantic power simply by the force of their convictions. And he decided, All right, if it's politically too hot as a contemporary subject, I'll put the essesnce of the story in outer space and make it happen in a galaxy in a long ago and far away. The rebel group were the North Vietnamese, and the Empire was the United States. And if you have the force, no matter how small you are, you can defeat the overwhelmingly big power. Star Wars is George's transsubstantiated version of Apocalypse Now.