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

By: Paul Hirsch

Narrated by: Richard Ferrone

Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

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 Publishing

For a fellow Editor, this book is priceless

There’s not many books about film editing that are so entertaining and enlightening. As a fellow editor, this is priceless because we don’t get many opportunities to share our experiences, and to hear similar experiences from a great one with such amazing credits and talent, is so affirming and inspiring. This book made me smile a lot and made me think about some of my personal approaches to film editing and collaboration. Really great book!

Honesty with Humility & Gratefulness

For anyone interested in knowing how the film industry works, please listen to this. A simple memoir that feels down to earth, with many jokes to lighten a journey filled with many storms and broken paths.

Thank you for a wonderful memoir. It made me think deeply about many similar paths taken - or not - a long time ago.

If you like moviemaking, you’ll love this journey!

Well written and very interesting….it moves along at a pace that you’d expect from a great editor. Really enjoyed hearing about his career and interactions on movies.

Fabulous story

Very well told and insightful! And the performance is fantastic. If you are a film buff this one is well worth your time!

Amazing...for the Film Buff

A Long Time Ago in a Cutting Room Far, Far Away is astonishing. What one can learn from a book sometimes is amazing. I didn’t go into this audiobook looking to learn anything. However, Paul Hirsch demonstrated just how important editing is to a movie. Some people just slap things together and hope for the best. But a great editor will look at every frame as if they are puzzle pieces and put them exactly in the right spot. Whether it’s cutting out an entire subplot of a film or something so minuscule as putting a line of dialogue from later in the picture in the beginning - editing is an art and Hirsch is its Picasso.
Paul Hirsch has been doing this for 50 years and has some great stories to tell along the way. His interactions; from the great Bernard Hermann to helping out the up and coming directors of today like Duncan Jones are all fascinating to a film buff such as myself.
In addition, Hirsch is humble beyond measure. He has become friendly with some of the truly great Hollywood artists and never once has he lost sight of the end goal: make the movie the best it can be!
The only qualm I have with the audiobook is the narrator and his habit of stretching out the last bit of every sentence. For instance: it seems as if he’s saying Star Warssss instead of just Star Wars. It’s totally a minor nitpick, but it’s very noticeable.

Enjoyable and enlightening

A very enjoyable listen and learned a great deal about how movies are put together even the parts I didn’t totally understand!

Wow! Even a non movie buff loved this!

Beautifully written memoir with fantastic stories of many famous movies and directors. I loved hearing behind the scenes tidbits as well as learning so much about how movies are made and the changes in technology over 50 years. I’m not a massive movie buff or expert - just live going to the movies - and I still thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. 5 enthusiastic stars!!!!

excellent ride

This book was very surprising to me. My expectations were to learn about the behind the scenes of my favorite movie. This book was so much more. I have a completely different take of an editor. My take now is much respect. I learned so much . Excellent read.

Great, funny, sad, basically all the emotions!

This is just a informed and illuminating book about a little understood part of the filmmaking process.

Not just about editing

Full of career, life lessons and anecdotes of his long experience editing movies in the industry.