As a film editor, and admittedly a Walter Murch fanboy, I still partially agree with your argument. I think, however, Murch is getting at something deeper here

As a film editor, and admittedly a Walter Murch fanboy, I still partially agree with your argument. I think, however, Murch is getting at something deeper here that he needs to elaborate on. I'm an Ebert fan as well, but you're comparing a critic to an engineer. Real quick, this Citizen Kane bit is misleading. Welles's use of rack focus was noteworthy, but it was his use of deep focus that was the true wonder. It is much more noteworthy and famous, and possibly what you are meaning to refer to. It was a feat of engineering and lighting at the time, and not at all a paradigm shift as much as notch on the linear progression of film engineering. Murch really did write the book on film editing. In The Blink Of An Eye is a short and to-the-point text book on film editing, an offers a simple theory as to why it works, which can be figured by the title. The theory seemed too simple to me the way he explained it, but I've come to understand he essentially means that film cuts are not jolting because we are used to blinking. Whether he is correct or not, the nuance of this understanding would basically argue there is a threshold for which the jolt could be overridden by an evolved necessity for being able to blink (and possibly other similar less-than-linear occurances in optical living). Murch goes on, in the book, to apply this theory and he argues that elements such as narrative, beauty, concept and other cognitive intrigue can widen the threshold. All in all, he makes the what is probably the best argument so far for how and why the engineering of filmmaking magic works. His book is the seminal textbook on film editing and worshiped by filmmakers generation after generation for it's timeless truths, because these truths offer a simple way for filmmakers to make decisions in their craft. They don't encroach on any style or technical achievement. Despite the practical delivery, they are essentially theoretical psychology. He also pioneered digital editing. I don't believe Murch is immune to Clarke's first law, but he is no Ebert. Murch is no critic. He is an engineer, and while this post doesn't get into the specifics, his claims here are supported in his battle-tested texts.