Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut (2004)
Donnie Darko (2001) was one of my favorite movies the first time I saw it. The second viewing solidified that and caused me to buy the DVD. When I saw the dozens of deleted scenes, I realized how bad the movie actually was. The movie wasn’t bad compared to the competition that year (or decade) but compared to what it should have been, it was almost unacceptable.
There were a couple scenes in the original release that never made sense to me. The reason why is because of the damage caused by some of the scenes, dialog, and storylines cut from the film. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the scenes were cut. Surely the studio didn’t see the movie and think “well, maybe if we cut a few scenes to make it shorter and confuse the viewer even more, it’ll be a big hit!” That movie was never going to be the big mainstream blockbuster, removing some of those scenes made the finished product less likely to be loved by anyone, let alone the general viewing public. The cuts are so bad that I have long stated my intentions to return most of those deleted scenes to their original spots and burn a DVD with that version of the movie, the version that would forever replace the original, flawed release.
Hindsight is 20/20 and the sales of the DVD (I personally know of 3 copies bought because of me and I never heard a word about the movie until after it left theaters) apparently gave someone enough reason to allow first-time writer/director Richard Kelly to revisit his first film and release his second: Donnie Darko: The Director’s cut. This new version, though not perfect, will save me a lot of trouble by giving me a much easier way to permanently replace the original Donnie Darko DVD (note to self: get Donnie Darko DVD back from Tom, just in case) in my collection.
I would love to say that the director’s cut is perfect, that it is everything the original should have been. Unfortunately, Kelly has added more than just the deleted scenes. In some cases, the additions are improvements: better sound effects in spots, a few added pads in the scores, some songs have been moved, even a few scenes not found on the original DVD outtakes are here (unless I just don’t remember them). I’ve seen the original enough times that each little change stood out to me and almost all were good. The bad ones, though, hurt me. The waves crashing looked and felt out of place to me, jerking me from the moment, bruising my illusion. The Terminator-ish overlays still make no sense to me. These things seem like Kelly wanted to “fix” things that weren’t broke [cough]fuck George Lucas[cough] and did a little too much.
Kelly also left out a subplot that that makes 2 of the included (and non-optional) scenes a bit awkward, but it isn’t really enough to cause me to complain (though I would have preferred he include it, too, it gave 3 of the characters a little more much-needed fleshing out)… much.
Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut is currently touring the U.S., mostly 1 city at a time. I have to assume there are very few prints of this film; otherwise it wouldn’t make sense to play in 1 theater at a time like that. Maybe they’ll give it a wide release eventually. I doubt that but it would be nice. Regardless, I am sure it will be on DVD eventually and I will be able to retire the original DVD.
Tags: Movies
August 3rd, 2005 at 10:06 pm
I’ve seen the original and the director’s cut plenty of times and in my opinion i feel that the director’s cut gives away way too much. the reason why i like the movie regards to the fact that i enjoy the conversation afterwards, which involves trying to decrypt the movie. thats the most fun, trying to figure out what the director or the story is trying to portray. most people i show the movie to don’t like it the first time or they like it but they don’t know why. then we talk about it and its almost automatic that they want to see it again. and after seeing the movie again with some of my interpretations they love it. thats why i think the original is better, the director’s cut is too easy, too laid out.