I hate it when business people change a film's artistic choices for simply not having the brains to understand what they are watching.
When I first saw the keep at the Valhala Theatre I loved it.
The great score by Tangerine Dream.
The great cast, their costumes and the WW2 German ordnance.
The great sets and atmosphere of the whole thing was at the time different and epic.
But when the film ended, something seemed missing, the film seemed too short and it seemed that parts of the story went no where and other plot lines appeared for no reason.
I picked up the book the film is based upon (A damn good read) and had to admit that some of the film's plots where incomplete or missing altogether.
When adapting anything to a film you have to drop what is not necessary (killing your babies in film speak) especially if the film is to fit the regular 2 hrs or so run time. But the studio I later found out went nuts, they seem to have randomly removed just short of TWO HOURS from the film.
Michael Mann's plan was to trim it down to around Two hours running time for the final cut which is perfectly reasonable but the studio threw out most of it and what they left was not edited professionally. I do suspect an accountant came in and just took out at random footage equal to the running time required by whichever executive (village idiot) orded the re-edit.
Some studio suit needs a HOB NAILED BOOT UP THEIR CLACKER for this!
Film executives are their to demand changes for business reasons only, they are not there to change artistic choices as their sphere of knowledge is BUSINESS only and not ART!
Seriously, even with the stupid editing (BUTCHERING) of more than half this film it still came out well, but it could have been EPIC!
Fortunately I had not read the book this film is based upon before I saw the film otherwise I would be reviewing how much I hate this film instead. The friend who suggested we see this film was furious as he recommended it based upon the book.
We can only hope that somewhere the missing footage is still stored away and not been consigned to the furnace so we can some day see the proper version of this film.
When I first saw the keep at the Valhala Theatre I loved it.
The great score by Tangerine Dream.
The great cast, their costumes and the WW2 German ordnance.
The great sets and atmosphere of the whole thing was at the time different and epic.
But when the film ended, something seemed missing, the film seemed too short and it seemed that parts of the story went no where and other plot lines appeared for no reason.
I picked up the book the film is based upon (A damn good read) and had to admit that some of the film's plots where incomplete or missing altogether.
When adapting anything to a film you have to drop what is not necessary (killing your babies in film speak) especially if the film is to fit the regular 2 hrs or so run time. But the studio I later found out went nuts, they seem to have randomly removed just short of TWO HOURS from the film.
Michael Mann's plan was to trim it down to around Two hours running time for the final cut which is perfectly reasonable but the studio threw out most of it and what they left was not edited professionally. I do suspect an accountant came in and just took out at random footage equal to the running time required by whichever executive (village idiot) orded the re-edit.
Some studio suit needs a HOB NAILED BOOT UP THEIR CLACKER for this!
Film executives are their to demand changes for business reasons only, they are not there to change artistic choices as their sphere of knowledge is BUSINESS only and not ART!
Seriously, even with the stupid editing (BUTCHERING) of more than half this film it still came out well, but it could have been EPIC!
Fortunately I had not read the book this film is based upon before I saw the film otherwise I would be reviewing how much I hate this film instead. The friend who suggested we see this film was furious as he recommended it based upon the book.
We can only hope that somewhere the missing footage is still stored away and not been consigned to the furnace so we can some day see the proper version of this film.