Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1995

8vo, pp. 114. Original illustrated stiff paper wrappers. A little light wear to corners and leading edges, but a very good copy with no creasing to spine.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY MURCH TO ALAN RICKMAN: 'To Alan -- honorary member of the International Sprocket Brigade. All the best! Walter. Berkeley MAR 96'. Foreword by Francis Coppola.

The work of sound designer and film editor Walter Murch is without peer in modern cinema. A key figure in the American New Wave, he first worked with Francis Coppola as sound mixer on The Rain People (1969), and the pair later collaborated on The Conversation (1974), Apocalypse Now (1979), and the Godfather trilogy (1971, 1974, 1990). He co-wrote the first feature film of George Lucas (THX-1138 (1971)), directed Return to Oz (1985), and edited The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), Ghost (1990), The English Patient (1996) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). He's been nominated for nine Academy Awards, and won three. If you're about to direct your first film, Walter Murch is a good person to talk to.

Alan Rickman met Walter Murch in Berkeley, California, in 1996, while on a publicity tour for Rasputin, released that year, in which he played the title role. Rickman was about to direct his first feature, The Winter Guest (1997), and asked his friend Anthony Minghella (the two had worked together on Truly, Madly, Deeply in 1990) for an introduction to Murch, who at the time was editing Minghella's film The English Patient, to be released later that year.

Rickman recorded their meeting in his diary:

[27 March 1996] 'To the Saul Zaentz Film Center to start being nosey about editing. Good talk with Walter Murch about the need not to see himself in a final edit..
PM. I watched a 4hr. assembly of 'The English Patient'. Absolutely exhausting, but riveting, too, in terms of story-telling, coverage, shot-making, acting. The lot. It confirmed what I thought when I read the script -- this film will be made in the editing room. [...] Back home I spew up two responses. Anthony is like a happy dog at his bowl. I can see how obsessive this directing lark might be.'

Rickman returned to watch Murch work the following day: 'Yesterday was exhausting but vital. Now I can contribute and learn.'

Murch's book, a revised transcription of a lecture on film editing he gave in Sydney in 1988, remains the professionals' bible on the subject. This copy's association is remarkable: from the master of his craft to a stellar, but humble, apprentice.