Walter Murch Quotes
There's a big link between trains and film. One of the first filmed objects was a train. The clickety-clack of the projector and the clickety-clack of the train are similar. There is the idea of the voyage - every voyage is a story. I wonder if film would have been invented without the train.
Ondaatje, Michael. The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.
It was fairly common for Englishmen to never have been more than 50 miles from his place of birth. Transportation was slow and crude and expensive. At the same time, economic conditions were relatively good in England eliminating the necessity of migration for survival—unlike Scotland which had much more mobility. Although Toynbee observed the greater mobility of labor in the United States, at the time it was much less than it became with the construction of the National Highway System and the dominance of the automobile as a mode of transportation followed by low cost air transport.
to a carriage on wheels At the time Jefferson had never seen a train.
before there were railroads in the West
Mother Shipton made a series of unusually accurate predictions, published throughout England, including the Great Plague of London, the Spanish Armada, & the Great Fire of London. Be wary of this particular quotation as while it may be a remarkable prediction, it also may well be a forgery.
Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier
1st Duke of Wellington. This is one of the classic errors and bad judgments of a great man. In a short time thereafter, Britain had railroads connecting all the major places in the kingdom—well ahead of all the other nations.
He was one of the first to realize that technology was shaping the relations of people and states throughout the world. In 1891 most other people did not appreciate this dynamic including most politicians. However, we might wonder today what period of time he was contemplating when he used the word “rapidly”. Some have concluded that the globalization resulting from technology has been astoundingly fast while others see it as far too slow and it has a long way to go. See the related quotes for others who were early observers of the coming changes. See the Relates Quotes for more of the early observations of this phenomenon.
Walter Scott Murch is an American film editor, director, writer and sound designer. With a career stretching back to 1969, including work on THX1138, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather I, II, and III, American Graffiti, The Conversation, and The English Patient, with three Academy Award wins (from nine nominations: six for picture editing and three for sound mixing), he has been referred to by Roger Ebert as "the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema."
