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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 17m

As it stands the movie does screen, you just have to know how to find it. And hope you find it in time because all the Haynes hounds know by now.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 18m

We kinda already did with Dune, didn't we? And-- hell, Berserk is an example.

This also reminds me how much we lost with Satoshi Kon and his final film not even existing to watch in an animatic form.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 24m

By Kafka I mean the fact that he requested all his unpublished work be destroyed, which his friend refused, and is why we have The Trial and The Castle. And that's a legitimate moral question there.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 25m

No that's very different. Haynes is the original creator there, and any issues of rights issues over the songs would've been smoothed over years ago if it weren't for a competing agenda. Maybe if Haynes had it restored and released for free it would fall under fair use.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 48m

There is one major test case for this ethical dilemma, and it's Kafka. And honestly I don't know what we do with that. But at least there the decision was made by an individual, and not a wholesale audience, and it was to preserve the work AT ALL. It's a sad story.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 54m

This is where a lot of preservation for the more, shall we say, innesential media out there seems to express a pathological social scale model of FOMO. And I dont know what that says about us as a culture really.

Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 56m

It's a shame he wasn't able to shoot the Tarot Card scene in the Playboy Bunny sequence. I'd have thought that would be the most important bit, but he prioritized the bunnies. Who among us.

Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 58m

To be fair, even the original cut of Heat is wildly inconsistent in grading from one scene to the next. Or within the same scene, even! He also made cuts to Manhunter just to fit a Showtime schedule slot, which is just stupid.

Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

(Yes, I'll admit this is a stupid sticking point with me because I prefer seeing the version that has even a teeny bit of tits and ass in it. Also why I like Redux best out of all the Apocalypse Now cuts. That and the French Plantation scene is what got my dad to finally accept the film)

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

Yeah, and part of the thing I think is it's really good to have consistency in this regard. Amadeus is a weird area where we're getting people insisting the "Theatrical Edition" is the "Real Version", even when we know the movie was originally cut down to get a PG rating.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

(And hell, Manhunter alone, there's virtually a thousand different versions. That's part of what I think we should be thankful for with Lucas-- at least when he makes changes, we know why, and he sticks to them. With Mann? Who the fuck knows. He certainly doesn't!)

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

My idea of art is personal expression, and having absolute control over that expression. That's something you run into issues with sometimes even with festivals, especially if you're presenting something that falls outside the mainstream. Partly why I remain absolutist on this.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

(The Salva thing is such a weird issue with Coppola. Lord knows why he keeps defending him, and I can't say I want to know)

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

Yes but it's important because we want to be able to see the most complete version of the artist's work, in this case Abel Gance. It's comparable to the Morodor issue, except Morodor never had actual control over Metropolis as a whole, and I doubt he would have stood in the way of major restorations

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

As an artist myself, I'm a believer in what I call "death of the audience". As in-- you watch the version I tell you to watch and sit still in the Ludovicco chair like you're jolly well told and be thankful about it.

Anyway, in all seriousness, Lucas isn't even the worst offender on any of this.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

I think of movies out there whose directors have long withheld ANY version of for the longest time-- Soderbergh on Kafka, Michael Mann on The Keep-- and people are still sitting here debating Greedo and whatnot. And that's just cases of directors withholding their own work! (Coppola re: Napoleon)

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

This is sort of why I believe in the "deleted scenes" model of preservation, rather than a whole version that people can watch in opposition. That or theatrical exhibitions being under strict control. Beyond that, SW fans are pretty spoiled in terms of having ANY access to these films at all.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

This also sort of highlights the particulars of what you run into when people want to show a screening of a movie that's dependent on the physical version you have access to. The 35 cut of Brazil, the 70mm of ANH. This is at least a little different from longterm preservation, a bit murkier.

Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

The biggest difference is there's a fade into clouds at the end as we see Sam in the torture chair for the credits, something I think Gilliam talks about in the commentary even though it isn't in the Director's Cut. Film Forum just had a 35 of that version recently.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

I think Gilliam talks about this in the commentary, but there's a few differences in the US and the UK/Director's cut. Primarily a couple of different jokes ("My God, it works!"), and some missing material (in the US you cut straight from Sam being arrested to the torture room).

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 1h

Again, I'm a purist on what the primary author of the film wants. In Blade Runner, that's Ridley. In the OT, that's Lucas. This goes even for shit that I find personally irritating, like the Coens revising Miller's Crossing for no apparent reason, or all the nonsense with Michael Mann recuts.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 2h

If the OOT of Star Wars was like that-- keep it on home video, but Lucas controls what's seen in the theaters-- that would be acceptable. What looks to be shaping up now feels contrary to that.

BTW, Brazil is a case that always weirds me out, because we actually don't have all the versions!

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 2h

In the case of Brazil I think there's a great case made for preserving it as a matter of "here's what studio interference looks like". Blade Runner, again, I think is more something you sell to keep purist fans happy-- the Final Cut is the only version that should ever be shown theatrically.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 2h

That said, as much as I admire the Morodor as a piece of its time, weighed against resotoration efforts of the Lang as existing material is found in good enough quality, again there's no contest. It's good that people want to preserve Morodor, sure, but it's NECESSARY to preserve the Lang.

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Bob Clark @neowestchester.bsky.social · 2h

Metropolis is an odd case because there's multiple stages of how it was edited out of Lang's hands, and by the time Morodor came to it in the 80's there simply WAS no definitive edition out there. The original score wasn't even around (I think?) so a lot of what was done there is good faith.

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