Somewhat Shorter
Asked by GQ‘s Alex Pappademas about alleged pressure upon Quentin Tarantino to significantly trim Inglourious Basterds (the Wrap‘s Sharon Waxman reported that the film might conceivably lose as much as 40 minutes), Harvey Weinstein responds with emphatic denials — “this is nuts,” Quentin “won’t cut,” “I don’t think it’s going to be shorter,” etc. And then he says that the film actually will be cut down somewhat.
“Those stories are all untrue,” Harvey says. “There’s no fucking way. Here, read my lips: That is nuts. Please don’t even write that — it’s insanity. There’s not even a question of that. Whatever you’re reading, it’s like some insane blogger. There’s no truth to any of this. He’s not gonna cut.
“What he’s doing is just reorganizing some scenes. I mean, the guy had six weeks to cut his movie [for Cannes]; most guys take six months. Most guys take a year. When I worked with Martin [Scorsese], we’d do eighteen months in post-production. Quentin Tarantino cuts a movie in six weeks? Come on, there’s shit on that cutting-room floor that’ll blow your brains out. I was telling Quentin the opposite — ‘You should put that shit back in the movie.’ There’s scenes with Brad Pitt and the Basterds, and I’m praying he puts that shit back in, ’cause it’s un-fucking-believably great.
“Listen — this movie will be between two hours and twenty minutes and two hours and twenty-seven minutes. I don’t think it’s going to be shorter — it’s just a question of rearranging. I know he’s putting footage back into the movie. I know he’s got some cool shit that he didn’t get time to address.”
Variety‘s Todd McCarthy and the Hollywood Reporter‘s Kirk Honeycutt both reported in their reviews that the running time was two hours and 32 minutes. So what Harvey is really saying is that apart from whatever Tarantino is considering regarding additions and re-shufflings, the final running time will be either five or twelve minutes shorter than what was shown in Cannes.
Weinstein also tells Pappademas that Tarantino long ago wrote a sprawling Band of Brothers-like Basterds storyline that goes way beyond what’s in the film, and that there’s current interest on his and Tarantino’s part to shoot a Basterds prequel.
“We weren’t even gonna do it as a movie!” he says. “We were gonna do this as, like, 16 hours for Showtime or HBO. He had so much stuff mapped out, we could have done like 3 movies. It was just epic. We could do two movies, three movies. I was begging for the movies, but Quentin wanted to do the TV series, Bob [Weinstein] wanted to do the TV series, so it was like two against one, you know? And I was getting outvoted all over the place, so I just figured, ‘All right, forget it, I’m not gonna be a loser, I’ll jump to the winning side.’ And then Quentin turns it into one movie. Go figure.”
Am I the only one who thinks Weinstein doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about?
I like how Harvey’s willing to support Tarantino and Michael Moore’s visions, but if the movie’s Asian and/or more artsy, he’ll do his damnedest to make it into a 90 minute PG-13 genre film.
Is it just me, or has this movie entirely lost it’s buzz? I mean, I’ll still see it. But my enthusiasm has evaporated. At this point, Cannes seems to have been a bad idea.
I shall see it ….”and I want ma scalps!!”
People scoffed, when I said the movie bombed as soon as the script leaked, but who’s laughing now? QT is clearly grasping for straws at this point, in hopes that his name still has some relevance. He doesn’t seem to get that his successes had more to do with being at the right place at the right time, and stealing Roger and Lam’s ideas, than anything else.
You can pretty much import and/or download every genre movie he rips off in some form or another. But back in the VHS/LD days, you had to go out of your way for that kind of thing, and he was able to cash in, since people who hadn’t seen those grind-house flicks thought that *his* work was just a summary of his “influences”, rather than an outright theft. And really, Pulp Fiction’s success had more to do with a renewed interest in 70s pop culture, which for that generation, Travolta embodied more than anything else.
That’s why Jackie Brown disappointed, because it was trying to be a more contemporary movie with only nods to the old stuff, rather than a true take on blaxsploitation. Notice that Jackson’s take on “Shaft” actually made money? That’s the kind of simple concept QT could’ve developed, but he was too busy trying to prove he knows more than the rest of us.
Really, Kill Bill is the only successful movie he’s had based on the junk he used to watch, and not based on who was in it; and that was mostly due to the success of the Matrix and CTHD, not him. If he were really smart, he would’ve used his “comeback” to do something genuinely different from his other work, but he was more interested in plastering his name on anything, regardless of whether it had anything to do with him; and so people got tired of him fast. I think the final nail in the coffin was when he accused Broccoli of stealing his ideas for Casino Royale, because everyone knew by then that he was the sum of his influences.
But he chose to move forward with Grindhouse, anyway, even though by then, most people were more interested in official remakes, rather than “homages”. It could of still worked, if the WOM was good, but he chose to screw up Robert’s momentum with a wretched second half, which is clearly more like something you’d Netflix, not sit through a theater watching. Plus, Death Proof defeats the whole purpose of a grindhouse film, which is that you’re supposed to get something fast and edgy, and all we got was a talk-fest with an existential car-chase.
So now we get to IB, where QT attempts to have it both ways, by casting someone with name-power as the lead, while producing the type of flick in which said lead usually is not enough to sell the picture. QT’s clearly not giving Harvey Scissorhands any flexibility on its length, either, even though he’s not in a position to second-guess his decisions. But to get what you want, you have to give something in return; and QT’s only used to taking, which is why he’s still a bachelor. And, unfortunately, he’d rather entertain himself, at the expense of his second comeback, than make something most viewers can appreciate. Anyway, I’m just hoping this inevitable disaster will finally humble his ass, since he still owes Lam and Roger apologies.
Crap. I was really hoping that it would eventually be made shorter. Now, I’m definitely not going to see it.