Studios Should Archive Movie Assemblies (1 Viewer)

[MarcusUdeh]

Fire Walk With Me is the only David Lynch film currently I’m desperate to view. While doing some research I learned the original assembly ran five hours and forty minutes. My question is why don’t studio’s make archival prints of these assemblies for a possible art house release or home video special edition?

 

[Phil L]

Even assemblies of the best films are horrible as films themselves.

An assembly isn't a director's cut, its basically an as shot scene-for-scene assembly of the shooting script. Its a tool to see what you've filmed before you edit.

Some directors won't watch assemblies of their films, they get depressed because they're so awful.

 

[MarcusUdeh]

As a writer, remember first drafts are fun. Rough early versions of films still would be nice to view after the theatrical release.

 

[Phil L]

An early version with a temp track, maybe. That might be enjoyable/enlightening for some people.

Having had to sit through several assemblies, I'm pretty confident that even the most die hard film nut would be extremly bored and/or disgusted after half an hour. Remember, for an assembly, there is no music, no sound effects, pretty much all the audio is muddy, the sound of planes passing overhead, and so on.

 

[Seth--L]

Yeah, but how many times are you going to watch it? Or to put it another way, how many people will actually pay to see such a thing?

 

[Matt Stone]

Exactly. While it might be really kewl for some of us to get our hands on assemblies, it's not exactly commercially viable.

...but I would kill to see that extra FWWM stuff

 

[Eric_B_C]

I know Fire Walk With Me is a mess of legal issues. In the original script, the only character from the show who ISN'T in it is Audrey Horne.

A studio in Europe I believe holds the rights to the unedited version. There's been a campaign for some time to get the thing released as a region 0 disk so we can ALL watch it. Last I heard it was going to happen sometime... In 2003... So shows what that info was worth

 

[David_Blackwell]

Yep, a French company (MK2) holds the rights to the deleted scenes. However David Lynch wouldn't want to re-edit deleted material back into the movie. Lynch wanted to include only 1/2 hour to one hour of deleted scenes as an extra, but discusssions between New Line and the French company broke down. You can read into it that New Line didn't want to spend too much on licensing the deleted scenes for DVD or the French company was asking too much.

 

[MarcusUdeh]

I read New Line Cinema wasn't interested in spending money to restore the potential material, that was David's prerequisite.

 

[Matt Stone]

Actually the French company is called M2.

Looks like there's an update from Dugpa.com too...

Reported by the famous French DVD website DVDNET-FR.com MK2 plans on releasing Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on DVD this December. This release is to coincide with a Season 1 and Season 2 release by TF1 in France as well. What is of particular interest to fans worldwide is that the article mentions that MK2 will be releasing Deleted Scenes with this release. While I am sure everyone is very skeptical of this, so far, MK2 has yet to release the DVD. Until they do, there is still a chance this will happen. IF this happens, you can guarantee that New Line will be right behind this with a US re-release.

I will do my best to try and get complete confirmation on this release. So far, nothing has been posted on MK2s website and just so I am not disappointed, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Click here for the original article. Anyone living in France, I urge you to contact MK2 and let me know what they say on this matter.

 

[MarcusUdeh]

Does anyone really think that assembly of David Lynch film like Fire Walk With Me would be all that boring?
Does anyone know if New Line Cinema during the initial pre-release process did the studio request Lynch to cut some of the Cannes version for the theatrical release?

 

[Phil L]

Yes.

Every assembly I've seen, everyone that I've heard of, and probably everyone that has ever existed has been a complete and utter disaster as a viewing experience. They are a tool for filmmakers to make a movie from but they aren't films themselves. They're just assembled dailies.

Even if there were a demand for them: I'd expect (and understand) that filmmakers wouldn't want them shown.

 

[MarcusUdeh]

Well one thing I could say about an assembly being preserved, it would put an end to rumors of supposed longer than thou never before seen director's cuts of the movies we love.

 

[David_Blackwell]

How true, but some scenes might even be left out before an assembly is made. Stranger things have been known to happen.