Director’s cut isn’t always the best
Francis Ford Coppola is at it again. Eighteen years after swelling his 1979 Vietnam War masterpiece “Apocalypse Now” into the bloated, threehour, 22minute “Apocalypse Now Redux,” the Bay Area’s filmmaking legend is back with his final word on the film as he turns 80 and the film turns 40.
“Apocalypse Now: Final Cut,” which clocks in at just over three hours (183 minutes), will have a small release in theaters, and then hit 4K and Bluray on Aug. 27. At the Alamo Drafthouse’s New Mission Theater in San Francisco, it is the centerpiece of a fascinating, sixfilm series of directors’ cuts that begins at 11 a.m. Sunday with Sergio Leone’s 1984 achievement “Once Upon a Time in America.”
Some of these directors’ cuts really are the best version of the work. Others are not. But one thing is for sure, and it is that filmmakers can’t help tinkering with their own works, for a variety of reasons from reversing the myopic restrictions of a studio that recut the
picture to appeasing rabid fans who want more.
More on those other films later, but first a little about “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut,” which screens Aug. 22 at the New Mission and also will screen a time or two at several other Bay Area theaters. The new version incorporates some of the material that was present for the first time in “Redux,” including the controversial French plantation sequence that dragged down the film, but this time streamlines the footage.
“Final Cut” has not yet screened for San Francisco critics, but Hollywood Reporter critic John DeFore still found the plantation sequence to be a distraction. “The words ‘kill your darlings’ come to mind,” DeFore writes.
Coppola, however, is insistent: ”This is the version I like,” he says in the “Final Cut” trailer. “It’s the one I recommend to you as my favorite.”
While I will probably continue to prefer the original, I don’t begrudge Coppola for tinkering with “Apocalypse Now.” While the “Godfather” movies were immediately successful and lauded, his idea to adapt Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” novel to a Vietnam War setting drew immediate resistance. He risked his own money to make a project that trudged on for years, and when it was finally released, it did well but didn’t reach the box office stratosphere like the “Godfather” movies.
As he told me in 2009, “Even after I’d won five Oscars, nobody would let me make ‘Apocalypse Now.' I put this property up” — Coppola gestures at the NiebaumCoppola winery estate around us — “and eventually Chase Manhattan ended up with this property, and I had to make a deal to buy it back. So from age 40 to 50, I took jobs to pay off this debt.”
It’s obviously a situation that sticks in his craw, and he takes it as a personal responsibility to be the gatekeeper and have the final word on a film that nearly bankrupted and even could have killed him. (If you haven’t seen “Hearts of Darkness,” the brilliant 1991 documentary based on wife Eleanor Coppola’s home video footage of the production, do so.)
The good news for fans is “Apocalypse Now: Final Cut” has been restored, both visually (Dolby Vision) and aurally (Atmos). It is likely the best presentation of the film you will ever see, so a theater is a must.
Other films in the Alamo Drafthouse series include: “Once Upon a Time in America”: Leone, the Italian director best known for the Clint Eastwood “Man With No Name” spaghetti Western trilogy, made his most ambitious film with this tale of Jewish gangsters in early 20th century New York. The Ladd Company and American distributor Warner Bros cut 88 minutes from Leone’s 3hour, 49minute European theatrical cut, hoping that a 2hour, 19minute version would be more palatable to impatient Americans in 1984.
Problem is, the hackeddown version excises key plot elements and even shifts time narrative, making for an incomprehensible mess. It failed at the box office, of course, and stands as perhaps the worst example of a studiomandated cut. Seeing it in its long form is the only way to see it. “Brazil”: Terry Gilliam’s bleak vision of a “1984”like dystopia was released in Europe in his preferred 142minute director’s cut. Universal Pictures boss Sid Sheinberg had other ideas for the American release. He thought the film was too depressing, so he took the film out of Gilliam’s hands and had it recut to 94 minutes with a slappedon happy ending.
Gilliam waged a public campaign to shame Sheinberg, even showing his own cut to selected critics. When Los Angeles critics declared it the best picture of 1985, Sheinberg gave up. Almost. He got Gilliam to agree to 11 minutes of cuts but allowed the film to be shown pretty much as how Gilliam wanted.
All three versions, including the Sheinberg version Gilliam derisively calls the “Love Conquers All” version, are included in the Criterion Collection’s excellent home video release. “The Abyss”: James Cameron’s undersea epic about an oil rig crew encountering aliens during a deepsea rescue of a nuclear submarine is perfect at the theatrically released 2hour, 25minute version, which apparently was Cameron’s cut. A film that moved with kinetic energy felt a bit bloated when Cameron followed up with a “special edition” with 27 added minutes that slows the pacing and overexplains things best left to the viewer’s imagination.
Still, while the original cut is preferred, the special edition is worthy too, especially on a big screen. It is quite an achievement, and it remains Cameron’s most underappreciated film. “Blade Runner”: Much has been written about Ridley Scott’s various versions of his classic Harrison Fordstarring science fiction film, and I agree with the consensus that Scott’s 2007 “Final Cut” is the best version.
However, I retain an affection for the original 1982 release, in which Warner Bros. and Ladd Company brass, working off the negative audience reaction at test screenings, demanded a reedit. To help smooth what they felt was a confusing story line, Ford was ordered to record a narration to helpfully explain things, putting as little emotion into it as possible. “Touch of Evil”: Orson Welles’ whale of a film noir opens with the most famous tracking shot of all time and never lets up in the original 1958 Universal 95minute release. It moves fast and doesn’t diminish Welles’ power as a filmmaker.
But Bay Area editor Walter Murch did film fans a service when he meticulously reconstructed a 108minute version based on Welles’ extensive notes. It’s called the “reconstructed version” as opposed to a director’s cut, and that is proper.