The Director's Cut

[Mike_Pratt33]

Are Directors Cut's just a rip off designed to claw more money out of the film going public or do they represent the true artistic vision of its creator?

My 2p worth on a couple of films

Aliens Added some good stuff but also added the cringingly awful Dwayne/Ellen scene

The Abyss In the original the Aliens are mysterious. In the DC they have a touchy-feely-make-the-humans-see-the-error-of-their-ways story. Seen it all before, Yawn.

 

[Anonymous]

OK you've got Directors cuts wich are sometimes good sometimes not but filmmaking's a colabiritive buisness so why is the director given the chance to recut the film how they wanted it to be.

Don't the other members of the crew matter?

 

[TulipTree]

I like the director's cut of Blade Runner. The one they showed in the theaters was edited badly, with an unnessecary voiceover narrative. The DC was smooth and made more sense. Kind of made me go "aaahhh, why didn't they let him do it that way the first time?"

The Exorcist, too, was good in the new release. They added the spider walk scene and the extra ending scene which gave it a nice wrap-up. Maybe you can't call it the DC because obviously the D thought it was just fine the first time.

 

[Anonymous]

I like the director's cut of Blade Runner. The one they showed in the theaters was edited badly, with an unnessecary voiceover narrative. The DC was smooth and made more sense. Kind of made me go "aaahhh, why didn't they let him do it that way the first time?"

The Exorcist, too, was good in the new release. They added the spider walk scene and the extra ending scene which gave it a nice wrap-up. Maybe you can't call it the DC because obviously the D thought it was just fine the first time.

I thought the 'spider walk' scene was laughable (it made me laugh anyway) and the voiceover in the origional Blade Runner have a verry Film Noir feal to it that I liked.

And I liked the hollow note of optimisim at the end of the first film. You just know they're doomed and they're pretending they arn't.

 

[Anonymous]

I thought the 'spider walk' scene was laughable (it made me laugh anyway) and the voiceover in the origional Blade Runner have a verry Film Noir feal to it that I liked.

Well you can't scare easy, because I thought the spider walk scene was freaky and horrible.

As for Blade Runner, I prefer the Directors cut...but there wasn't a great deal to moan about with regard to the original as I recal. The unicorn (a scene taken from or later used in Legend) scene made more sense to me, and you get a better impression of the is he isn't he factor.

 

[Anonymous]

I always like the DC of the movies that I really love, like the 'Fellowship of the Ring'. But you have to be slightly mad to sit through a 'same thing only different and longer' version of something like that.

 

[Melf]

so ok! which version of shogun did people enjoy then?
me i dont mind.

 

[escargot]

which version of shogun did people enjoy then?

I liked the book.

 

[brianellwood]

so why is the director given the chance to recut the film how they wanted it to be.

The final cut for distribution is the result usually of other pressures than the crew - producers, studio execs, backers etc. who want to see it in the form that they think will make the most cash- not always the best artistic choices!! however, sometimes the dir.cut is long winded and together with the outtakes and the rest of the crap they try and convince you to buy often a waste of time. They should save cutting room floor rubbish for the xmas party and not hoist it on us, esp.as tv. filler

 

[Melf]

I liked the book.

i never finnished the book

 

[MrRING]

Ithink it's hard to cut all "director's cuts" from the same cloth, because the factors as to why the film was cut vary wildly.

For example, some things are cut for artistic reasons but they get reinstated because the film is so beloved (the spider walk is a good example of this).

But other films are cut because of wild studio interference. Take the big budget version of "The Avengers" with Sean Connery... did you know the script actually called for Sean's character to be killed off half-way through & be revealed as a red herring? They may have filmed it that way too, but that is no longer how the film exists.

In general, if there is a solid artistic impulse for a director's cut, I like it.

 

[Yithian]

Well the ultimate Director's cut tale has to be Terry Gilliam's Brazil where the studio had to be more or less shamed into releasing his version and not their bowdlerised cut. Even if i don't care for the directors cut of a film i love i still appreciate the chance to see anything extra that was shot. If i don't like the original cut then i don't usually bother...

 

[Melf]

ive a theory! its not to do with money is it? :eek!!!!:

 

[Anome]

Interesting note: To the best of my knowledge, so far the Director's Cut of Blade Runner is the only DC of a film that runs shorter than the original release.

The inclusion of the Unicorn scene (with footage from Legend as the original footage was lost) was more than offset by cutting the horrible ending explaining how Rachel didn't have a Sell-By date.

Ridley Scott knows what he is doing, and I hope that the DC of Alien lives up to expectations. (I expect this one to be longer, as there will probably be more extra footage.)

David Lean's DC of Lawrence of Arabia (which was notably longer) is an improvement because the reasons for cutting the original material were purely commercial.

James Cameron, on the other hand, doesn't know when to shut up. The DC of Terminator 2 added nothing to the original, it just made the film longer. The same with Aliens. (I don't know about The Abyss - the original didn't inspire me to watch the SE.) He seems to be interested in making epics, but willing to cut them to order for initial release, because he knows they'll let him release the "Special Edition" later.

Cameron's not the only one, either. In my humble opinion, really good directors know when a film needs something extra or can be improved. The rest of them need to listen to their producers, etc, and know when to shut up.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not against a good directors cut that reinstats importent lost scenes but most of them add nothing exept 20 minutes to the running time.

 

[StoryofE]

I think director's cut's started out with artistic intention but now they are pretty much used to sell more dvd product. I still buy 'em though, I've got an ever increasing collection of dvd's, it's almost like an addiction. I think they do the same thing with Cd's now, with the remastered editions with bonus tracks. I still buy those too!

Interesting note: To the best of my knowledge, so far the Director's Cut of Blade Runner is the only DC of a film that runs shorter than the original release.

The Criterion version of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock has cuts that the director made to the original theatrical version that actually made the film shorter.

:smokin:

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

It depends there are some films that were definitely cut or edited for other than artistic reasons eg: The Wicker Man which had to have cuts to running time to qualify as a second feature in order to be distributed at all.

The so-called Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Personally I don't think we needed that extra scene where Dreyfuss is inside the mother ship. One of the charms of the first film was that something was left to the imagination. In fact, the biggest letdown was the spider-like alien-thing which made both versions. It looked so obviously false I would have left it out.

 

[Anome]

The Criterion version of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock has cuts that the director made to the original theatrical version that actually made the film shorter.

Didn't know about that one, myself. (Coincidence? Weir's another guy who knows what he's doing.) I do know that Weir was offered the "missing" chapter of the book to include in the film, but turned it down as it was ridiculous, and ruined the entire feel of the story. (And when I read it after it was released, 20 years later, he was right.)

What would be really interesting in a DC of a film, would be one of those ones where the director was forced to include storylines and characters to keep the studio happy, and then they released the DC with entire subplots excised.

Never happen, though, as it would probably require them to reshoot most of the film.

 

[Anonymous]

But at times you can't help wondering what they were thinking. Ridley Scott cut a sequence from Hannibal - you can see parts of it on DVD - namely, the exploration of the abandoned hospital that has a moment or two that made me jump. I guess all that footage of Firenze was preferable to giving the audience an old fashioned thrill.

 

[Spookdaddy]

Sometimes it would be nice to see a directors cut when there is none available.

On of my favourite films is Night of the Demon by Jacques Tourneur which is based loosely on an MR James short story. Tourneur was pressurised by the studio into showing the unconvincing but still somewhat scary (in a sort of papier-mache and coathangers kind of way) Demon. Originally he had wanted the film to be about the destructive power of suggestion and the paranoia it can lead to. In order to do this most effectively it's fairly essential that you never actually see anything supernatural but that a build up of suggestion and suspense creates the powerful feeling that something might be there.

That was the film Tourneur wanted to make and it's a version I'd love to see.

Unfortunately he's dead and anyway I don't suppose the financial rewards to be made out of rehashing old B+W's would be sufficient for the industry to be much interested.

 

[stu neville]

...One of my favourite films is Night of the Demon by Jacques Tourneur which is based loosely on an MR James short story. Tourneur was pressurised by the studio into showing the unconvincing but still somewhat scary (in a sort of papier-mache and coathangers kind of way) Demon. Originally he had wanted the film to be about the destructive power of suggestion and the paranoia it can lead to. In order to do this most effectively it's fairly essential that you never actually see anything supernatural but that a build up of suggestion and suspense creates the powerful feeling that something might be there.

Couldn't agree more - Tourneur was the master of suggestion - see the 1942 version of Cat People and compare with Schrader's 1982 remake in which you actually see the panther. The remake is good, certainly, but lacks the mystery and the suspense of the original. In the '42 version everything is suggested, and is far better for it, IMHO.

We've been down this particular sideroad before - see please, stop dealing with inferior and pointless remakes. They do not need merging, of course.

 

[escargot]

the unconvincing but still somewhat scary (in a sort of papier-mache and coathangers kind of way) Demon

Yup!

I love Night of the Demon, I was canny enough (at 10!) to notice the name of the original short story at the end and look it up. There's certainly no demon coat-hangering around in 'Casting the Runes' (in which the villain, Karswell, is a thinly-disguised A. Crowley ) but it's certainly there somewhere- or is it?

Close-ups of various horrified faces before and after the apparent bloke-train collision would have done. No need to trouble the paper-mache department at all really.

 

[StoryofE]

I do know that Weir was offered the "missing" chapter of the book to include in the film, but turned it down as it was ridiculous, and ruined the entire feel of the story. (And when I read it after it was released, 20 years later, he was right.)

What was in the missing chapter? A different ending?

:smokin:

 

[Anonymous]

Couldn't agree more - Tourneur was the master of suggestion - see the 1942 version of Cat People and compare with Schrader's 1982 remake in which you actually see the panther. The remake is good, certainly, but lacks the mystery and the suspense of the original. In the '42 version everything is suggested, and is far better for it, IMHO.

We've been down this particular sideroad before - see please, stop dealing with inferior and pointless remakes. They do not need merging, of course.

Ofcorse he was a genius: he worked for Val Luton (sp?)

 

[Anome]

What was in the missing chapter? A different ending?

:smokin:

No, the actual ending. The original released version (of the book) ends with the whole matter unresolved. The girls are never found, the school eventually gets back to normal (not before various people have nervous breakdowns, and so forth).

In the missing chapter: (spoiler alert)












The narrative switches to the perspective of the missing girls, who are trapped somewhere in the rocks. While trying to find their way out, they meet a mysterious Hecate-like person who explains that they are trapped in a time warp, and cannot leave. As I said: disappointing. Leaving it off made for a more spooky story. Including it was almost as bad as declaring it was all a dream. The unedited version was released for an anniversary, and stands as evidence that you shouldn't always see the author's vision as being the best version of a story.

 

[StoryofE]

Thanx for the post! The unresolved ending is far more satisfying than the original ending. Ugh! I'm glad that they didn't film that one!

:smokin:

 

[Imperial_Call]

AFAIK someone other than the Director edits the movie, and for various reasons they cut scenes from the film. Then one say someone [might have been Speilberg, but might not have been] came up with the idea [probably when video sprang into being] of re-editing their film [I'm thinking of CE3K] and releasing a Special Edition - which is supposed to be more in keeping with the Director's original vision. Me personally, I await the day the screenwriter gets to re-do a film to match their screenplay

 

[Anome]

AFAIK someone other than the Director edits the movie

Note there is a distinction between editing a movie, which is splicing together numerous pieces of film to create the narrative. This is a technical job, and is usually done under the direction of the director.

What we are usually looking at with a director's cut is that the producers insisted on removing or changing segments of film in order to produce a marketable commodity.

Also, a number of directors also edit their films. The notable one is David Lean who was credited for A Passage To India with "Written, Directed, and Edited by".

There are a number of films that would have been better if they had stuck to the original screenplay, which is quite often rewritten by a number of hacks to try and please the director, the producers, the studio, and even the actors.

 

[GNC]

Spielberg didn't think the version of Close Encounters released originally was properly finished and wanted more time on it, so "the studio" agreed to a "special edition" on the condition that a bit at the end would be added showing the inside of the mothership.

The version on DVD is yet another one, with the Special Edition stuff left in, plus the hilarious smashing up the house and garden bit reinstated, and no mothership interiors at all. I wish they'd make up their minds, supposedly there are other variations, too.

"That's the last straw! Now I use my secret weapon!"

 

[BaronHardacre]

The Coen's Blood Simple is another who's dc is shorter than the original cut. The audio commentary is hilarious, too.
DC on a film doesn't necessarily mean that it's the cut the director intended. Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch being a case in point.