Five Movies: Five Theatrical Cuts I prefer over the Director's Cut

Apologies for that mouthful of a title, but sometimes cutting it down can be a little tricky. I'm returning to Five Movies to pick up on an older column reposted a few Tuesdays ago. Since Aliens is clearly a movie I prefer the shorter, theatrical cut, of, I'll simply include the link in this list. The other four films are movies that I think benefited from studio involvement in one way or the other, which sounds a little weird. Allow the Cap'n to make his case.

Normally speaking, I side with the writer / director / creative team when it comes to a film: ultimately, their vision should be on the screen and not some watered down compromise designed to appeal to larger audiences. A film can, under varying circumstances, find its audience without dumbing things down or spelling things out. There are plenty of examples where a "complete" version came out that made a considerable difference in viewers' reactions to the film: Brazil, Kingdom of Heaven, Blade Runner, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Touch of Evil, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Almost Famous, Once Upon a Time in America, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The New World, Alien 3, Payback, The Big Red One, Major Dundee, and Leon: The Professional*.

In other instances, there are alternate versions of films where I feel nothing is particularly gained or lost (Apocalypse Now: Redux springs to mind, or the "extended" cut of Alien Resurrection), and then there are the "Unrated" cuts so prevalent today that add anywhere from one to thirty-five minutes of footage back into the narrative (Hot Tub Time Machine and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story respectively), some of which is negligible unless directly compared. Every now and then, a director's cut will be shorter, like the Coen brothers' Blood Simple.

That being said, sometimes that extra studio input comes in handy. Sometimes (at least in five instances listed below), a mandated "studio cut" turns out to benefit the narrative and provides a better viewing experience than the subsequent extended director's cut that follows in DVD or Blu-Ray (and, periodically, in a theatrical re-release). I've said before that this is a subjective system, but for my money, the following films work better under the duress of "studio interference" and compromise, and when the "pure" vision came out, I wasn't as impressed. Feel free to agree or disagree.


THX 1138: The George Lucas Director's Cut - It's tempting to beat up on Lucas' tinkering with the Star Wars trilogy, but the unaltered cuts are at least available (albeit in non-remastered, chucked out DVD versions), whereas his first film, THX 1138 exists on DVD and Blu-Ray only in a 2004 "director's cut" form. The imposition of new special effects, an extended car chase, cgi monsters, and a number of deletions drastically alters the claustrophobic tone of the original THX 1138, substituting instead a noisy, digitally cluttered version of the film that Lucas "always wanted to make." That's fine, but since the original version hasn't (and won't) see the light of day again, we're instead stuck with a film that replaces the ingenuity of budget limitations with a cut that undermines the tone and story of the original cut. (for a very comprehensive list of exactly what's different, check out the side-by-side comparison here.)


Donnie Darko - Sometimes a director strikes gold without realizing it, and then goes back and messes things up by giving the audience more of something they don't need. Donnie Darko is such a case. Like many people in the Cult of Donnie Darko, I was immensely curious when the word came out that writer / director Richard Kelly had another cut of his first film, one that delved deeper into the philosophy of time travel and fleshed out the family dynamic (flashes of which were apparent in the "Deleted Scenes" section of the Donnie Darko DVD), but when his "Extended Director's Remix" arrived on DVD, I was underwhelmed to say the least.

The longer Director's Cut removed all of the ambiguity from the theatrical version of Donnie Darko, replacing implications and conjecture with obvious, awkwardly inserted "passages" from The Philosophy of Time Travel that spelled out exactly what was going on in the story. Suddenly the mystery of the film vanished, replaced by explanations that made any discussion of the film feel stupid and unnecessary. Does it really help to have the film explain what the "manipulated dead" do? That Donnie's medication was a placebo? How "time arrows" work? All of the magic of Donnie Darko evaporated, and it was coupled with a disastrous commentary track where it became clear that Kelly didn't have any idea what it was that worked about the film and why it attracted the rabid fanbase it did.


Aliens - While I'm including the link to the Four Reasons article, might I add that this is generally how I feel about the director's cut versions of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and The Abyss as well. I feel the additions add nothing particularly interesting to the story, and at times unnecessarily pad the films in ways that dull their impact.






The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen - It bears mentioning that this is more of a "Writer's Cut" than a Director's Cut, although William Friedkin ultimately signed off on the theatrical re-release of this longer, less effective version of The Exorcist. What once was a relentlessly creepy, tension building film about demonic possession returned to theatres in 2000 as an unintentionally goofy, padded cut, including one genuinely good effect (the "spider-walk" sequence, which despite looking cool doesn't add anything to the film), an unfortunate subplot near the beginning, and the "Casablanca" ending that writer William Peter Blatty preferred to the original cut.

I had an opportunity to see The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen a few times with audiences (the Cap'n was working as a projectionist when the film opened), and rather than squirm, most audiences howled with laughter during the film. This was due, considerably, to the inclusion of a pre-openly possessed Regan (Linda Blair) being erroneously prescribed Ritalin by her doctor. At the time, Generation Y was having a field day with the ADD / ADHD craze and Ritalin was the prescription drug du jour, meaning that this "old' movie was hitting on their buzzword, rendering the establishing plot immediately comical.

The inclusion of the Pazuzu "flashes" during scenes didn't help anything, as the frozen demon face popping up in shadows elicited chuckles rather than generate suspense or foreboding. The "spider-walk" scene failed to unnerve audiences, and many who had been exposed to the over-the-top gags in Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, responded by laughing at the clear effect. At this point, nobody in the audience was taking The Exorcist seriously, and in the ensuing year or so, I had a number of arguments about whether the film had ever been "good" or "scary," a direct result of this unneeded "Version You'd Never Seen." That this cut has become the "norm," to the point that it - and not the original cut - will be playing this year in theatres is unfortunate to say the least.


Bad Santa: The Director's Cut - The Cap'n may be alone on this one, but as much as I like Terry Zwigoff's other films (particularly Louie Bluie, Crumb, and Ghost World), the truth is that the Weinstein-mandated recut of Bad Santa works better for me than the subsequently released Director's Cut (not to be mistaken for Badder Santa: Unrated, which came out simultaneously with the theatrical version on DVD). Having seen all three cuts, the "Badder Santa" version is probably my preferred cut.

By saying that, I'm sure that the Cap'n is now the enemy of die-hard Zwigoff supporters (and the director himself) because I settled for - and laughed at - the "watered down, studio version" that replaces his original vision with lowbrow yuks for the cheap seats. Well, here's the truth: the Director's Cut doesn't work. The significantly shorter cut has a less fluid plot structure (the immediate jump from Willie's first robbery to the second gives us no indication of why Marcus really needs him instead of finding a more reliable crook), and I'm going to be honest, the removal of Thornton's narration at the outset replaces any sympathy for the character with a sense of "why should we care about this pathetic drunk?"

Honestly, I understand that Zwigoff was more likely interested in exploring the less appealing side of Willie Stokes and giving the audience a protagonist that was in no way likable (much like his follow-up, Art School Confidential), but what works about the earlier (and in my opinion, more successful) Ghost World is that despite the fact all of his characters exist on the margins of "civilized" society, there's something about Enid and Seymour that's worth sticking around for. Zwigoff's cut of Bad Santa left a bad taste in my mouth, whereas the crass, studio involved theatrical cut at least generated some guilty chuckles.


So there you have it: five movies where the creative forces clashed with the studio and the end result turned out to be more successful. For the Cap'n, anyway. Feel free to disagree in the comments below, or add examples of films you think work better one way or the other.


* It is important to note that in the case of Touch of Evil, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Major Dundee, The Big Red One, and the not mentioned Mr. Arkadin, that the "director's cuts" were made without the participation of the director, who had passed on.