Morsel

email this story
read comments (24)
post a comment

I heard from a trusted source yesterday that Sean Penn's part in The Tree of Life, which is barely there with maybe ten lines of dialogue, if that, was fairly substantial in earlier cuts, but like Adrien Brody's character in The Thin Red Line, it was gradually cut down to nothing. Penn is here but didn't attend the Tree of Life press conference because...ask him.

Serpent's Nature<< previous | next >>"Beauteous"

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on May 17, 2011 at 3:08 AM

comment #1

LexG says ...

Seriously, what is people's take on the Penn stuff????

Is he pulling a BIUTIFUL, *or* having the longest-delayed reaction to an event since Pink having a nervous breakdown about WWII in "The Wall"?

Posted by LexG at May 17, 2011 3:15 AM

comment #2

Eloi Wrath says ...

Lex: Have you seen it? What did you think?

Posted by Eloi Wrath at May 17, 2011 4:57 AM

comment #3

Eloi Wrath says ...

People always bring up Brody's diminished role in TTRL, but for me the most striking example of Malick's cuts is Clooney's role. Shows up for pretty much 30 seconds right at the end. Granted, he wasn't a major movie star back then like he is today, but he was probably the biggest star on TV and had a movie career to go with it. Would be a bit like Steve Carell randomly turning up to say hello to Penn at the end of Tree of Life.

Posted by Eloi Wrath at May 17, 2011 7:05 AM

comment #4

Jewelez Azner says ...

Wells, you are the journalist in Cannes. You ask him.

Posted by Jewelez Azner at May 17, 2011 7:37 AM

comment #5

Mark says ...

I didn't think Clooney filmed much more than what made it in the movie. It thought it was always a cameo. Brody had a whole story line cut to give Chaplin more time to remember how pretty his wife looked on a swing. (Chaplin got his comeuppance later by getting all dressed up for The New World and not having one line make it onscreen.)

Never a good sign, btw, when a movie strays so far from the original script in post. Assuming there was a script for Tree of Life...

Posted by Mark at May 17, 2011 7:46 AM

comment #6

Edward says ...

From what I've read, it seems Tree strayed from the script while it was being shot. Post was when it became shaped into what it is now.

Posted by Edward at May 17, 2011 7:57 AM

comment #7

lazarus says ...

"Never a good sign"? Who the fuck cares how far it strays from the script? Malick is an artist. And his art is cinema, not writing. And a film script, unlike one for the stage, is not a sacred text but rather a blueprint from which a sensual visualist merely lifts off from.

I'd love for you to go look at Wong Kar-Wai's scripts and tell us how all those films have issues, because I guarantee you they have major differences.

Posted by lazarus at May 17, 2011 11:02 AM

comment #8

Mark says ...

How do you downplay the near removal of a main character? I understand that many directors work best on the fly, but they usually know who they are telling a story through or about. If Kaufman cut the Yeager scenes, or Coppola cut Kurtz down to a few lines, would you say that's a good sign? I'm saying red flag.

Posted by Mark at May 17, 2011 11:19 AM

comment #9

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

I would say it's no accident that both times you see a general in The Thin Red Line, it's a major movie star with big-white-teeth charisma... who proceeds to utter complete fatuities. I think Clooney and Travolta were both cast to convey a grunt's POV that "You can see why this SOB's a general, but Jesus, he doesn't know shit."

Posted by Mgmax, le Corbeau at May 17, 2011 12:04 PM

comment #10

LexG says ...

When I see Travolta in his thin 'stache and awkward sailor cap stride into TTRL, I think of the Montclair Cigarette Man dandying about the bathhouse from Querelle.

And I'm the hugest Travolta fan ever, if I recall Malick gave him that role as a long-overdue favor for having switched to Gere at the 11th hour for Days of Heaven... But next to Nolte and everybody else, JT comes off as comical and out of an SNL sketch there. Maybe that's the point.

Didn't Clooney beg Malick to cut him out because he thought he'd be distracting?

Posted by LexG at May 17, 2011 12:09 PM

comment #11

Rashad says ...

I really dont know how anyone can read things out of such little screen time. I didn't mind Travolta and his scene one of the better ones I though. The only one who had any flair to them was Nolte yelling his ass off.

I know Mickey Rourke was upset his scenes were cut, and blamed it on industry politics.

Posted by Rashad at May 17, 2011 12:26 PM

comment #12

Eloi Wrath says ...

I remember I got some Playbill-type magazine about The Thin Red Line when it first came out, no idea where from. Must have been an insert in another magazine, or some free handout at a theater. Anyway, it went down each and every cast member in detail and described their characters. I was all excited to see it and thought it'd be Saving Private Ryan 2, so imagine my surprise when half the cast I'd read so much about weren't anything more than a fleeting appearance at best. I think I learned more about most of the characters from that little magazine than I did in the movie.

At the time I was 14 so didn't really "get" TTRL. Now it's one of my all-time favorites.

Posted by Eloi Wrath at May 17, 2011 1:29 PM

comment #13

Eloi Wrath says ...

I thought Dash Mihok would be a major star.

Posted by Eloi Wrath at May 17, 2011 1:30 PM

comment #14

Gaydos says ...

Sean and Terry weren't at the press conference because they were together at an off-the-Croisette screening of "Thor."

Posted by Gaydos at May 17, 2011 2:49 PM

comment #15

BobbyLupo says ...

"Never a good sign, btw, when a movie strays so far from the original script in post."

Every single Terence Malick movie has done this. 'Days of Heaven' was written to be a movie with NO VOICEOVER. Stop and imagine that for a minute.

"Coppola cut Kurtz down to a few lines, would you say that's a good sign?"

That's one of the worst examples you could've picked, considering how far Coppola strayed from the original script. Do you really think he didn't excise quite a lot of stuff from his initial five-and-a-half-hour cut?

Posted by BobbyLupo at May 17, 2011 4:40 PM

comment #16

Chris Willman says ...

It's frustrating when you imagine that a filmmaker shot a better movie than the one he edited, with an infinite amount of alone time to tinker and overthink and drift up his own ass. I can't imagine there aren't better cuts of "Thin Red Line" sitting in Terry's basement that we'll never see. I hope that isn't the case with this and that it really is better for not having one of its two billed-above-the-title stars not in it after all. I can't wait to see it, and maybe love it, but like most people, I will be taken out of the movie by wondering why Sean Penn is a mute cameo and imagining the rest of his role.

Posted by Chris Willman at May 18, 2011 11:07 AM

comment #17