{"id":1675,"date":"2010-11-30T12:11:51","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T17:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=1314"},"modified":"2010-11-30T14:35:07","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T19:35:07","slug":"playing-with-heresy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=1675","title":{"rendered":"Playing with heresy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Back in the days of laserdisc, I once did an experiment where I grabbed and integrated all of the deleted scenes from a bonus disc to reconstruct a film\u2019s first cut \u2013 just to see how the damn thing played, compared to the final theatrical edit.<\/p>\n

The results were interesting, but the \u2018restoration\u2019 confirmed the footage was wisely chopped out \/ repositioned because too many things were \u2018off.\u2019 It was more than a pacing issue; conflicts didn\u2019t have clean and logical ascensions, there were redundancies, and the running time felt a lot longer. The director was right the first time, and he wisely never went back to attempt a second version that suited his mindset, 10 years later.<\/p>\n

Movie fans often get samplings on DVD of how a scene or a finale were originally written, shot, edited, but radically changed because the end result just didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

Joy Ride<\/strong> (2001), for example, contains a lengthy series of alternate scenes for the first edit that really didn\u2019t work, and mandated substantial reshoots. The Butterfly Effect<\/strong> (2004) has an alternate ending that is spectacularly terrible (although the more satisfying ending used in the final edit still didn\u2019t help an already awful film).<\/p>\n

The new Blu-ray edition of Alien 3<\/strong> (1992) contains two versions of the film, but the new restoration isn\u2019t a definitive version, but an impression of the film\u2019s agreed-upon design prior to firings and rewrites and reshoots. (Amazingly, the production changes didn\u2019t create a mess in the end, but they left a lot of fans puzzled by peculiar footage seen only on pre-release trailers.)<\/p>\n

The Exorcist<\/strong> (1973) is a different animal because it was never wrong nor imperfect. The version released in theatres was a smash hit, so logically one has to ask why anyone would be compelled to mess with it?<\/p>\n

The so called \u2018director\u2019s cut\u2019 created in 2000 by William Friedkin is a compromise made to settle the ongoing whining by writer William Peter Blatty, who not only wrote the novel & script, but produced the film, giving him clout and influence to keep pushing for a reinstatement of deleted scenes he felt were vital to the story and characters.<\/p>\n

Warner Home Video\u2019s new 2-disc Blu-ray release basically gathers everything from the 1998 and 2000 special edition DVDs, but with fat uncompressed sound, and a gorgeous transfer that retains the grain inherent to the film\u2019s docu-drama styled cinematography.<\/p>\n

The BR review<\/a> [M<\/a>] addresses the aesthetics of the two versions, and I\u2019ve also uploaded a review of the film\u2019s two soundtrack albums<\/a> [M<\/a>] \u2013 the original 1973 platter, and the expanded gold CD that sported an additional 14 mins. from Lalo Schifrin\u2019s score prior to the recording session being halted by a furious director.<\/p>\n

The BR, much like Fox\u2019 Alien Anthology set that beholds Alien<\/strong>, gives viewers the choice of watching either the original theatrical cut, or the \u2018director\u2019s cut,\u2019 so choice (on disc) is still there, but in the years since the respective new versions debuted, prints of the theatrical cuts have quietly disappeared.<\/p>\n

They may have disintegrated, or there may never have been many surviving prints out there, but it is disturbing that whenever either film does the rounds in rep cinemas and cinematheques, the original<\/em> versions \u2013 the ones that made the most money and impressed audiences and critics alike \u2013 aren\u2019t shown, and that\u2019s\u2026 not\u2026 right\u2026 because it smacks of revisionism that\u2019s just a hair away from George Lucas\u2019 obsession in fixing flaws\u2026 that just\u2026 aren\u2019t there<\/em>.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of Warner Home Video’s swanky new Blu-ray of The Exorcist, plus the film’s 2 soundtrack albums…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-r1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1719,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1675\/revisions\/1719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}