Jason Coleman of two-one-three put in the extra hours to identify the additions and changes of "Zodiac" from its theatrical release to the upcoming Director's Cut version. And even though the film runs just a few minutes there are an amazing number of changes!
Actually, I didn't even want to hear about the edits beforehand, and instead have the pleasure to stumble into the Director's Cut and re-experience the film in it's original manifestation. But curiosity got the best of me! You know how it is with Fincher stuff.
Anyhow, since Coleman lists each and every change that has been made, it's hard to tell whether or not some of you may feel this counts as spoilers -- after all you have seen the film already. I am seriously looking forward to this DC version, since I have had horrifying experiences with both "Terminator 2" and "Titanic"; which both had horrific scenes added. It's hard to picture this happen with a Fincher film. On the other hand most of us have probably seen "Zodiac" a half a dozen times since it came out, and every change might feel like it doesn't belong to the movie.
So if you want to equip yourself for what's coming check out Jason Coleman's full report on the matter. And thanks (Angus) for reminding me to post this!
i'm pretty sure the film will feel a little bit different, but probably better... as it is always when a genius decides to re-work his material.
ReplyDeletelet's wait and see.
nice finding!
I saw the director's cut on monday with Fincher in attendance. I have to say that it doesn't feel that much different. The most notable change is the 45sec blackout transition. I actually wished that was longer than 45 sec, it's really kind of eerie. The addtional scene with downy is great and so is the warrent scene.
ReplyDeleteWhat was MOST notable was that the film was shown directly off the harddrive and it was fucking beautiful.
Fincher is a really cool guy. He's very funny and not at all some infant terrible has he is sometimes portrayed. if anything he seemed a little-bit uncomfortable about being in the spotlight. He is extremly articulate and honest.
One of the Funniest moments from the night is when he asked "Do you know the best way to get an actor to stop fucking around? Stop giving them direction. Say 'Do another one." "Ok going again" "Ok one more" "And another" Three takes of that, they're done. 'What do you want me to do?' 'I want you to come through the elevator and turn and say the line like this."
On why he dropped out of MI3 and he said "I made myself a promise never to do movies without a finished script and a 3 in the title."
He then talked a bit about the script Robert Towne had penned but it was only 45 pages and he "didn't want to shoot a start date, he wanted to shot a great script."
I asked him what his take on Radezvous with Rama was. And he said he wanted to make a space movie that would inspire kids to go out and buy a telescope not a action figure. He said the movie is too expensive to make right now but in three years maybe.
Other things he talked about was the VFX work in Zodiac. He said the way the murder scene were done with air canons and then the blood and wounds were done by DD. He said "it's not cost effective, at least not yet , but we were just looking for a way to make it more production friendly." He didn't want to spend hours redressing everything when they could just keep rolling.
On his actors he said. For jake it was about making it believible making the situations and the circumstances real for him. Ruffalo he said went away and spent a couple days with toschi and came back as toschi. Fincher said "I was truely amazed because Toschi really is a guy who's ego was sort of out of check and it was his undoing, his hubris. Because he kind wanted the attention but it got in the way of him being able to do his job"
On why he wanted to do Zodiac: "I can remember being a kid and it being this big deal, it was constantly in the news and then it wasn't." When his parents moved to Oregon, he recalled looking out the back of the car as they were driving thinking "whatever happened to Zodiac?"
So when he got the script he didn't want to just make a movie about Zodiac "that exploited it, I wanted to turn over every rock."
He also said the script was very different. "It was more of a straight line and I'm to be blame for the length." The orginal version focused on Graysmith alone, so it didn't have all the digressions"
He also talked about how Zodica changed the landscape of SF because he chose to communicat through the SF chronical and sort of upped the circulation making it a more read paper there.
I really wished the Q and A lasted longer and he seemed game to answer more question but he was quickly cut off by the host.
It was really cool to see finch in person and really inspiring to hear him talk about his movies in terms of me moving forwards with my own directing.
Couldn't have spent a better 30 bucks.