Film Editor as Auteur: an Exploration of Walter Murch's Editing Style: Statistical Style Analysis and Scene Comparison

This work sets out to classify film editor Walter Murch as auteur, a title that is normally given to film directors. In order to identify the features of auteur, the development of the concept of auteur is analysed and overviewed. Moreover, this book addresses film editing and the idea of personal editing style. In order to trace editing style of Walter Murch, two films — "Apocalypse Now" and "Jarhead" are analysed with the help of Barry Salt’s method of Statistical Style Analysis. "Apocalypse Now" was released in the end of the 1970s, and "Jarhead" in the mid of the 2000s. Both films deal with the notion of war, but in different historical contexts. With the help of these two films, some features of and the development of Murch’s editing style is analysed. Furthermore, this work compares two short scenes from "Jarhead" and "Skyfall." "Skyfall" was edited by another film editor, but directed and filmed by the same people as "Jarhead," which is a good match for comparing two different editing styles.