to costly…but i do not want to see deleted scenes i d prefer to start a petition for mr malcik and criterion to release a longer cut, maybe a la “apocalypse now redux”
The disc description lists “outtakes” among the special features, so it’s possible that there will be some of the these actors’ scenes included in those.
very unlikely a the actors guild s regulations happens to be looking for ways of cashing on dvds revenues and the “special features” seen to be on dispute most likely the outtakes are going to come from the actor that already appears on the film( mr caviezel mr penn and mr nolte, more so the latter who said that he did more than twenty!! takes more than once)
- i d prefer to start a petition for mr malcik and criterion to release a longer cut-
Surely there’s one somewhere already (?)
We’ll never see that longer cut. The new blu-ray is director approved and it is the same length as the dvd. If Malick can endorse an extended cut of The New World, he could have approved an extended cut of The Thin Red Line. But he didn’t, so he must be happy with the original release.
Gary Oldman filmed no scenes, he never made it to the continent of Australia. Malick wanted to have him in the film, wrote a part especially for him, but then he and Mike Medavoy decided he had too many characters already and told him to stay home.
Mickey Rourke possibly may appear on an outtake? He was another actor Malick wanted and, unlike Oldman, he did have him come to the set, had his scenes filmed and then cut.
By the time TTRL was to be cast in early 1997, serious talks considered Depp, DiCaprio, Nicolas Cage, Matt Dillon and Brad Pitt. Hanks was considered but he was already signed on to Saving Private Ryan.
It was Sean Penn who wrangled out a deal to appear for the fee of $1.00, though he did receive some back-end profits if the movie made any money (it didn’t). The cap for an actor of Hollywood caliber was a $1 million, starting with $50,000 a week. Penn tried to get his own contacts involved, like Harrison Ford who did not want to work in the jungle for a small fee ( a small fee for him!), Woody Harrelson (and he was already a shoo-in having been praised for his role in The People vs Larry Flynt, a Phoenix film (whom was invested into TTRL) and Nick Nolte. DeNiro passed, Travolta agreed to play any role for a minimal fee (with the stipulation that he wasnt to be promoted as a star of the film), Robert Duvall declined, Tom Cruise declined (way below his salary expectations), Bill Pullman and John Cusack agreed as did the up and coming George Clooney. Malick however wanted to save the key roles for unknown actors, casting the rest in bit parts per the wishes of Fox. It was, he told Mike Medavoy “a Faustian bargain.”
The list of actors Malick had to choose from were these: Penn, Clooney, Travolta, Jason Patric, Viggo, Ed Norton, DiCaprio, DeNiro, Pullman, Cusack, Harrelson, Rick Hess, and Chris O’ Donnell. Most of these were thanked for I guess being considered?
So, Patric, Viggo, Norton. DiCaprio, Hess and O’Donnell were not at all in the film. Pullman and Haas had cameos that were cut at the last minute, Clooney was barely there (and Malick didnt want him in there at all, he did not want people identifying the star of ER with the closing minutes of a long film. It was (and I agree) a distraction.
Clooney’s story is a bit different. According to him, Malick called, and told him that his role had been cut down (not sure which other scenes he was in – do you know, Paul? The divorce one?). He asked what was left, and Malick said something like, “Just the last one.” He then claimed he begged him to cut him out entirely as this would seem like a celebrity cameo and Terrence didn’t really know about actors, famous or otherwise. But Malick said the scene couldn’t be cut, so…
I think Penn’s VO makes it work, personally.
he couldn’t cut it because he was contractually bound to include him. Basically, Clooney’s role would have been sort of juxtaposed against that of Elias Koteas’s, in that there is a contrast between the camaraderie Staros had with his men, and the lack thereof from Clooney’s Captain Charles Bosch. It seems Malick does his patching up of this by dropping in Penn’s listless narration to illustrate the futility of the tired parade of one man replacing another, over and over again . . .“We’re a family,” states Bosch, who comes in after the fact, or at least it seems that way. The cut from Bosch’s intro to suddenly departing the island is unsettling, there is no reason for Bosch being there, and Penn’s narration stands out as also not being there, pasted on as an after thought. The rest of the voiceovers up until then, and immediately afterward from Private Train, have been transcendental meditations on love, longing, and life.Penn’s Welsh character comes across as cynical, a dead soul which goes against the grain of the uplifting visual/poetic conclusion of the film. This also compounds my argument that Welsh’s cynical world-weary outlook isn’t much of a stretch for Penn, and that one expects him to say what he says before he even says it, much like we already know that Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining is going to go crazy at any minute, which detracts from the film because the audience is supposed to not expect violent murder from a relatively subdued intellectual family man. So, to conclude, Clooney and Penn to me are the film’s weakest links, and the less of them the better as AFAIC. Some argue for a longer film, I argue for shorter, by removing the unnecessary cameos and dropping in more nature footage.
He also wanted the scene in the cut, as mentioned, so clearly it has some form of meaning to Malick. Most likely both the “repetition” and putting closure on Penn’s character, who is battling his cynicism throughout (personally I love his work, and his scenes with Caviezel are some of the best in the film).
SPOILERS:
“A glance from your eyes, and my life will be yours.”
I can sorta see your point re: The Shining and it not being a stretch for Penn, but ultimately I think that’s a bit unfair to the film. I believe all these elements have their place, we may prefer some over others. Personally I agree with Mr. Ebiri’s take on the Welsh character:
“Penn really pins down the cynical responsibility at his character’s core, and later on, his subtle transformation is quite effective and moving.
His act of heroism to me is fascinating — why does he do it? He’s the least compassionate of the men there. I wonder if his character isn’t compelled to do it simply so that the dying kid will stop shouting — so that Penn can continue to close himself off to the suffering, without hearing this poor soul’s piercing cries. And why does he not want Koteas mentioning it to anyone? Is he embarrassed? I said elsewhere that I think this film in part is a battle for Penn’s soul. Note that, after Witt’s death, he finally has his own voiceover. (He’s the only major character until this point who doesn’t have his own voiceover). In that 19th century Oversoul kind of way, he’s joined the rest of us."
Dave Antoine
I noticed that there were no deleted scenes to be added to the DVD release. I really would love to have seen some of them, particularly since they’ve got some really great actors: Gary Oldman, Mickey Rourke, Viggo Mortensen and Bill Pullman among them.