I'm not going to bother re-reviewing this movie, even though I only wrote about it in the vaguest of terms three years. I recently sat down with the director's cut, and it got me thinking about this coming of age tale that has been lodged in my brain since I first saw it in 2002.I have sort of a love/hate thing going on with director's cuts. Part of me grooves on the insider feel - getting the story behind the story, so to speak. If it's the movie as the director would have wanted it, then it's the movie as it should exist, full stop, right? I can certainly see the value behind the idea, particularly when a director has had the genuine article chopped up by a nervous studio. I don't think, however, that anyone should be directing any picture with it in mind to make two different versions: one for the studio and one for her/himself.
Other times, there are directors who benefit from having someone else rein them in. Some directors need someone else to make the movie accessible and understandable. I'm not saying we should dumb everything down; I'm saying that sometimes ideas that work in our minds don't always work on the screen, but we can't see it for ourselves. A good producer should be able to step in and smooth that sort of thing out. So should a good editor. But I've seen enough incomprehensible things to know that this doesn't always happen.
Truth be told, the only kind of movie for which I would seek out a director's cut would be a movie I already enjoyed. I want to know how it could be improved. The director's cut in this case is about 20 minutes longer the original release, and, at first, it's difficult to see the differences (musical changes, more time spent with Donnie's parents) as improvements.
Perhaps because the reason that everything that happens to Donnie from the jet engine on is unclear is what makes the film so enjoyable in its original version. You get to talk about it, debate it, substitute your own philosophy and morals where the movie leaves its events open-ended. Normally I don't like that in a movie. Memento, for example, is a movie only made clear in its final moments, but those moments leave no room for debate as to what is really going on. Even though the plot's all sown up, there is still plenty of room to look inside the characters and their motivations, to look at the way it all comes together outside that tattoo parlour. Conversely, the ambiguity works in Darko's favour because the events in the movie are based in a reality outside our own.
The director's cut, however, seeks to move the film away from indefinite to definite. There are a few additional scenes, but most of the new understanding to be gained comes from the addition of pages from Roberta Sparrow's The Philosophy of Time Travel into the transitions. It goes further into who Donnie is and why these things are happening to him, although the outcome (and the reasons for it, in my opinion) remain the same.
I thought that having everything spelled out for me would turn me off the movie (or at least the director's cut), but it didn't. There's a few gimmicky transitions I could have done without, and I don't think that viewing this version negates the beauty of the original. The melancholy that permeates the original is deepened in the director's cut in a way that allows it to resonate more clearly. If you liked the movie to begin with, the director's cut can only serve to deepen your appreciation. A-
No comments:
Post a Comment