
A Long Time Ago, in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away
My Fifty Years Editing Hollywood Hits - Star Wars, Carrie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Mission: Impossible, and More
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Narrated by:
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Richard Ferrone
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By:
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Paul Hirsch
About this listen
A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away is a behind-the-scenes look at some of the most influential films of the last 50 years by Paul Hirsch, a film editor who worked on more than 40 features.
Starting with his work on Carrie, Hirsch gives insight into the production process, touching upon casting, directing, cutting, and scoring. It’s a riveting look at the decisions that went into creating memorable and iconic scenes and offers fascinating portraits of filmmakers, stars, and composers.
Part film-school primer, part paean to legendary directors and professionals, the funny yet insightful writing will entertain and inform aficionados and casual moviegoers alike.
©2019 Paul Hirsch (P)2019 Blackstone PublishingListeners also enjoyed...
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In the 45 years since George Lucas's interstellar fantasy epic Star Wars first hit theaters, the saga has grown to include 12 canonical feature-length films (and counting), a growing number of shows (both animated and live-action), and hundreds of novels and comics inspired by that galaxy far, far away. But there's nothing quite like the magic of a Star Wars audiobook. The stories featured in this collection are as vast and varied as the universe in which they're set.
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Brings me back to my teenage years! Fantastic Narration! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- By Amazmama on 06-24-22
By: Susannah Gora
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The Friedkin Connection
- A Memoir
- By: William Friedkin
- Narrated by: William Friedkin
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Friedkin Connection takes listeners from the streets of Chicago to the suites of Hollywood and from the sixties to today. William Friedkin offers a candid look at a thrilling era of Hollywood cinema, when traditional storytelling gave way to the rebellious and alternative; when filmmakers like him captured the paranoia and fear of a nation undergoing a cultural nervous breakdown.
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The Perfect Old School Director Movie Book
- By Lars E. Soderlund on 05-22-25
By: William Friedkin
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City of Nets
- A Portrait of Hollywood in the 1940's
- By: Otto Friedrich, Glen David Gold - foreword
- Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan
- Length: 25 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1939, 50 million Americans went to the movies every week, Louis B. Mayer was the highest-paid man in the country, and Hollywood produced 530 feature films a year. One decade and five thousand movies later, the studios were faltering....
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Disjointed and flawed
- By A. N. Onymous on 01-18-22
By: Otto Friedrich, and others
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Secrets of the Force
- The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Wars
- By: Edward Gross, Mark A. Altman
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Mark A. Altman - introduction, Natalie Naudus, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past four decades, no film saga has touched the world in the way that Star Wars has, capturing the imaginations of filmgoers and filmmakers alike. Now, for the first time ever, Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, the best-selling authors of The Fifty-Year Mission, are telling the entire story of this blockbuster franchise from the very beginning in a single exhaustive volume.
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Not what I hoped
- By Jaymaxx on 07-13-21
By: Edward Gross, and others
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The Princess Diarist
- By: Carrie Fisher
- Narrated by: Carrie Fisher, Billie Lourd
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.
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Come for the headlines, stay for the whole story
- By JOSEPH on 12-06-16
By: Carrie Fisher
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Apropos of Nothing
- By: Woody Allen
- Narrated by: Woody Allen
- Length: 12 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In this candid and hilarious memoir, the celebrated director, comedian, writer, and actor offers a comprehensive, personal look at his tumultuous life. He revisits his entire 60-year-long career as a writer and director, from his classics Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters to his most recent films, including Midnight in Paris. He discusses his marriages, romances, and famous friendships, his jazz playing, and his books and plays. We learn about his demons, his mistakes, his successes, and those he loved, worked with, and learned from.
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Totally Woody
- By Ronald R. Kubiak on 04-19-20
By: Woody Allen
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Something Like an Autobiography
- By: Akira Kurosawa
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The distinguished filmmaker chronicles his life, from his birth in 1910 to the worldwide success in 1950 of his film Rashomon, and provides a provocative account of the Japanese film industry.
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The early life of Kurosawa
- By A. Parham on 06-26-23
By: Akira Kurosawa
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The Genius of the System
- Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era
- By: Thomas Schatz, Steven Bach - preface
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 24 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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At a time when the studio is making a stunning comeback, film historian Thomas Schatz provides an indispensable account of Hollywood's traditional blend of business and art. Working from industry documents, Schatz traces the development of house styles, the rise and fall of careers, and the making - and unmaking - of movies, from Frankenstein to Spellbound to Grand Hotel. The Genius of the System gives the definitive view of the workings of the Old Hollywood and the foundations of the New.
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A Textbook on Old Hollywood
- By Charlie Morton on 05-26-23
By: Thomas Schatz, and others
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Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
- My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood
- By: Ed Zwick
- Narrated by: Ed Zwick
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Though there are many factors behind such success, including luck and the contributions of his creative partner Marshall Herskovitz, he’s known to have a special talent for bringing out the best in the people he’s worked with, notably the actors. In those intense collaborations, he seeks to discover the small pieces of connective tissue, vulnerability, and fellowship that can help an actor realize their character in full.
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Authentic, Sobering & Full of Grace
- By David_Leah Wiley on 02-17-24
By: Ed Zwick
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Dark Carnival
- The Secret World of Tod Browning, Hollywood's Master of Macabre
- By: David J. Skal, Elias Savada
- Narrated by: David J. Skal
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the most original and unsettling filmmakers of all time—the creator of the horror classics Dracula and Freaks, among others—Tod Browning is also one of the most enigmatic directors who ever worked in Hollywood. A complicated, troubled, and fiercely private man, he confounded would-be biographers hoping to penetrate his secret, obsessive world—both during his lifetime and afterward. Now, film historians David J. Skal and Elias Savada join forces for the first full-length biography of the man who earned a reputation as "the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema."
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One of us...
- By Born Cross-Eyed on 07-24-23
By: David J. Skal, and others
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Dark City (Revised and Expanded Edition)
- The Lost World of Film Noir
- By: Eddie Muller
- Narrated by: Eddie Muller, Erin Bennett
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Dark City expands with new chapters and a fresh collection of restored photos that illustrate the mythic landscape of the imagination. It's a place where the men and women who created film noir often find themselves dangling from the same sinister heights as the silver-screen avatars to whom they gave life.
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Good overview, summary of the genre
- By Buretto on 03-31-22
By: Eddie Muller
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Hollywood: The Oral History
- By: Jeanine Basinger, Sam Wasson
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon, Marni Penning
- Length: 28 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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From the archives of the American Film Institute comes a unique picture of what it was like to work in Hollywood from its beginnings to its present day. Gleaned from nearly three thousand interviews, involving four hundred voices from the industry, Hollywood: The Oral History, lets a listener “listen in” on candid remarks from the biggest names in front of the camera—Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Harold Lloyd—to the biggest behind it—Frank Capra, Steven Spielberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Jordan Peele, as well as the lesser known individuals that shaped what was heard and seen on screen.
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Picky, Picky!
- By Patrick on 12-22-22
By: Jeanine Basinger, and others
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The Fifties
- By: David Halberstam
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 34 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Fifties is a sweeping social, political, economic, and cultural history of the 10 years that Halberstam regards as seminal in determining what our nation is today. Halberstam offers portraits of not only the titans of the age: Eisenhower, Dulles, Oppenheimer, MacArthur, Hoover, and Nixon; but also of Harley Earl, who put fins on cars; Dick and Mac McDonald and Ray Kroc, who mass-produced the American hamburger; Kemmons Wilson, who placed his Holiday Inns along the nation's roadsides; and more.
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one of the very best
- By Chester Chellman on 09-25-18
By: David Halberstam
1. The author structured the book chronologically, which made it easier to follow.
2. The stories told are very personal and offer a lot of behind-the-scenes information “outsiders” rarely hear.
3. The author started out on film and witnesses/shared some of the finer points of digital filmmaking.
4. You get a much better sense of the importance of a film editor when reading thr book.
5. I especially like how Mr. Hirsch described his relationships and interactions with different directors, producers, and musicians.
6. And I can’t overlook the narration, which I thought was wonderful. Just enough of a New York feel, combined with a worldliness and sense of gratitude and love of life.
An outstanding story and narration!
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Fantastic perspective of an editor’s life!
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Loving it, but would have cut the first part out
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Very entertaining and enlightening.
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Behind the scenes in the editing room
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For a fellow Editor, this book is priceless
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Thank you for a wonderful memoir. It made me think deeply about many similar paths taken - or not - a long time ago.
Honesty with Humility & Gratefulness
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If you like moviemaking, you’ll love this journey!
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Good editor. Good book.
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A must for anyone with passion for editing
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