This is an interview with producer Sarah Green that ran last Sunday (1/22) in the Boston Globe.
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Trying Circumstance Three: Malick has re-edited the movie since its debut in New York and Los Angeles last month. The version that opened in Boston on Friday is 20 minutes shorter than the 2 1/2-hour film that was first unveiled.
Re-editing a movie after it has been released is not unheard of, but it is unusual. Jeanine Basinger, chair of film studies at Wesleyan University, says that ''2001: A Space Odyssey," ''Heaven's Gate," and ''The Wild Bunch" were all trimmed after they were released. ''What's unusual is when a director voluntarily does it himself," she says. ''Bottom line, it's an attempt to make the film more successful financially and more rewarding to an audience. What it indicates is that viewers are saying it's too long, or it's not doing well at the box office, or reviews have been bad -- and they're responding to that."
Green says Malick prepared the shorter version as he was making an even longer version -- about three hours -- that will appear on the film's DVD.
Game face: ''There were things, I think, in the first round, that were challenging for him to let go," Green says. ''But with perspective he felt differently about it, and felt he could tighten up the theatrical cut and have this more leisurely version on the DVD."
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/article ... ld?mode=PF