Frank Miller's Sin City Recut & Extended (1 Viewer)

[Bob clamer]

Do not think this really applies to this thread but found it interesting enough to post it for everyone who did not see it. I came across this article in one of my issues of Entertainment Weekly (12/16/05 to be precise) of an interview with RR about the “Sin City” Unrated Cut DVD.

EW: With all the bonus-commentaries, featurettes on makeup, props and costumes, a greenscreen version-do you ever worry about demystifying the process?
RR: If no one watched the extras, I’d still do it, to record my own methodology. As as artist, the process is usually more important than the end result. Giving away your tricks forces you to create new tricks.
EW: Why include an audio track of an audience’s reaction?
RR: People say they love the DVD, but they miss the audience experience. When the balls get ripped off the Yellow Bastard, you hear people going, “Oh, my God!” I went from theater to theater when “Sin City” came out just to watch people react to that scene.
EW: Can we expect similar DVD treatments with the sequels?
RR: They’ll probably be more elaborate. “Sin City” was supposed to be bold and different. When you do a sequel, you can be more experimental because people are ready for it. We can present the movie several ways: We’ll shoot the full stories and then cut a tighter theatrical version, but the real version will be on DVD. After we do “Sin City 2” and “Sin City 3”, it’ll be like having a book collection.

 

[Mark E J]

Well I disagree on this point. The point to that scene was not Marv confusing Wendy with Goldie, it was that Wendy slapped him. I think this scene makes their exchange in the prison much more poignant. Also the scene in the bathroom as well as the extra narration about his fear of death enhance the story far more than just an extra scene of him roughing up Weevil in a bar.

But again my main problem is the song and dance about how these are the full GN's brought to life, they apparently are not. Look, I liked the move as it was, in fact I saw it 3 times in the theater and have watched it twice that many times of DVD. I was a little disappointed by some of the things cut, but so what. That can be said about any film adaptation.

So if RR had just let the film stand as it is I would have said nothing, and if there were some new scenes on the DVD well, that's just gravy. But he constantly talked about he shot the full books that the DVD would have the complete stories.

Here's a couple of quotes from RR.

From Dark Horizons when the film was released

".”We shot the full stories of the books , and I knew we could truncate it down knowing that we weren't going to lose any scenes, eventually they would all be available for people to see. So the DVD will come out as a theatrical cut, and then there will be a separate disc that's got the individual episodes separated, with their own title card, and you can just watch, The Big Fat Kill from beginning to end in its full cut, as a single story, and then switch over and watch The Yellow Bastard, and that's 45 minutes, I'll have all the material back in, so it will be like the experience of picking up the books, where you pick up one story and you read it from beginning to end, and it will have all the material in it. So you can shuffle your own version of the movie and watch them all separately."

From Jo Blo’s movie emporium
“The beauty of DVD now is that we can just shoot all three stories in their entirety and then I’ll do this theatrical cut which kind of sandwiches it all together. But that’s not the ideal way to watch it. The ideal way to watch it is the way you would read his books, which is one at a time, separated into any order that you want. We’d be able to do that on the special edition DVD"

If he changed the stories at script level he shouldn't have made it sound like the GN's were filmed intact.

BTW That Yellow Bastard minus credits is only 42min.

 

[TravisR]

What if he looked at all the footage as he was putting the SE cut together and thought certain scenes didn't work? Why would he hinder the movie just to have every scene from the comic in it?

 

[Mark E J]

2 things:

1 Because he said repeatedly that they would be the complete stories.

2 I don't how adding 2 or 3 minutes of extra footage and dialouge that adds depth and complexity to the characters and plot would hinder the story. I guess I just can't imagine RR putting the whole story together, looking at it, then saying "You know, this 38min cut is just to long and boring. I really need to cut down to 36min.

See Sin City is not supposed to be a typical adaptaion where a director takes someone else's material and present his own personal vision of it. It was supposed to be a 100% faithful translation of the orignal material.

Look I'll back off till I've had a chance to see the new cuts. I'll offer my indepth opinion then.

 

[stephen la]

yeah I agree I think the Marv confusing Wendy for Goldie, trying to hop in her bed, then getting slapped was neccessary for the story.
1, it was funny and 2, it made us see the difference between Wendy & Goldie. Wendy didnt feel that way for Marv, but then later has a change of heart towards the end.

Does anyone know if that scene was filmed?

 

[JonZ]

I picked this up after passing on the first release.

-Its nice to be able to watch each story complete without dealing with Big Fat Kill, which I didnt like.

-The Green version is very neat to see.

-Ive got to try those breakfast burritos

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Added up, the four chapter version is NOT 147 minutes - the DVD packaging is wrong. (This isn't unusual for Disney-released product - they also got the running time of Rock 'n' Roll High School incorrect.) I clocked the extended versions at a total of 141 minutes, 39 seconds including credits. Subtract from that about 18 minutes of credits for a story running time of around 124 minutes. I've not yet timed the credits for the theatrical version to see how much they fill...

 

[Mark E J]

Colin I clocked the original TC at about 117min without credits.

This is very interesting news. So according to RR and the Official Press Release these stories are supposed to be presented complete and uncut. With a running time of 147min.

However when the DVD is released there is about 5min missing of the offical running time, and by my estimation probably only about five minutes worth of still missing footage.

It sounds to me like there really is a huge Anchor Bay style mastering error, or at the last minute the powers that be decided to set things up for a TRIPLE DIP.

Anyone want to bet when Sin City 2 is released we'll have a brand new even more complete, even more elaborate special edition.