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The Cotton Club coming to blu-ray in new Director's Cut (1 Viewer)

Chuck_Kahn

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Just arrived. Thanks Will for the heads up.
View attachment 22081

I feel Parish's framing of The Cotton Club as "an extravagantly costly screen dud and an artistic embarrassment" is a rather narrow take on the final product. The Cotton Club has significant artistic merit and it's unfortunate that movies get a dismissively binary "hit or dud" mark and have to carry that yoke for posterity, when many of these movies have so much to offer, even when not achieving "hit" status. I would like to see a more sympathetic, yet still honest, history of the movie's production history, maybe a documentary like Hearts of Darkness or even a series of interviews like what Laurent Bouzereau did for the LaserDisc of Spielberg's 1941. The IMDb FAQ page alone suggests there's a huge behind-the-scenes story to be told here. I don't see labelling a movie a "dud" as an act of honest journalism but more of a reductionist dismissal and it turns me off from reading the book. So Parish, I dismiss your dismal dismissal!
 

bigshot

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It's not that much of a stretch to call a film with duds as lead characters a dud.
 

Chuck_Kahn

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It's not that much of a stretch to call a film with duds as lead characters a dud.

I was speculating on Quora that one of the reasons that The Cotton Club wasn't a hit was because Richard Gere's Dixie Dwyer character was a sensitive non-violent protagonist and mid-80's audiences were flocking to see protagonists played by Schwarzenegger and Stallone in blood-thirsty shoot-em-ups. All of Coppola's "hits" feature protagonists using violence to affect change, even when there's ambivalence and tension over whether they will use it. Dwyer went beyond ambivalence into non-violence and audiences didn't follow.
 

bigshot

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The problem wasn't that he was non violent. It's that he couldn't act his way out of a paper bag in that movie. Neither could Diane Lane. It left a huge hole right in the middle. The supporting cast was great, but not enough to carry the whole film on their own. Every time I've watched the film I always think that I could be cleaning my refrigerator or doing my laundry when Gere and Lane are on the screen.
 

Dick

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The problem wasn't that he was non violent. It's that he couldn't act his way out of a paper bag in that movie. Neither could Diane Lane. It left a huge hole right in the middle. The supporting cast was great, but not enough to carry the whole film on their own. Every time I've watched the film I always think that I could be cleaning my refrigerator or doing my laundry when Gere and Lane are on the screen.

I consider this film an example of style over substance, just as ONE FROM THE HEART is. The editing unfortunately truncates what would be terrific musical numbers if allowed to play out (and hopefully Coppola's eventual Director's Cut will extend these numbers). Some of the parts (already cited) are poorly cast (but mediocre lead performances don't have to kill a film -- how about Coppola's BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, which I really like for its brilliant cinematography and editing, but definitely not for Keanu Reeves (and to a lesser degree, Winona Ryder), who was out of his league here and probably couldn't duplicate a convincing British accent if he was tutored for years to do so.

Then again, sticking with Coppola, Val Kilmer in TWIXT is pretty awful, and even the rather pretentious but interesting visual style couldn't save that turkey (which I still happen to enjoy).

That's okay. I will remain grateful to the director for his half-dozen near-masterpieces, which is six more than most directors ever achieve in their lifetimes. If he never makes anything but arty-farty crap for the rest of his life, I salute him. Artists deserve to be judged based upon their best work.
 
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Winston T. Boogie

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Now titled The Cotton Club Encore...

Coppola Just Premiered The Cotton Club Encore — and It’s a Masterpiece

http://www.talkhouse.com/coppola-just-premiered-the-cotton-club-encore-and-its-a-masterpiece/

Even by Telluride standards, though, 2017 opened with a stunner: the world premiere of a new masterpiece directed by Francis Ford Coppola. OK, maybe I’m cheating a little to call it “new”; the premiere was of The Cotton Club Encore, a 2017 restoration and reconstruction of Coppola’s gangster musical from 1984. Yet the changes Coppola has made to his film, both major and minor, cumulatively alter the impact and meaning of The Cotton Club so significantly that it is essentially a new movie – one with the audacity, resonance and ambition of its era’s most important films. To discover The Cotton Club in this form is to come across a lost masterpiece that stands alongside Raging Bull, The Right Stuff and Once Upon a Time in America as one of the great American epics of the early 1980s.

Cotton Encore.jpg


Technicolor was honored to have collaborated on many of the films at this year’s festival. One in particular was the hotly-anticipated screening of director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club Encore – a full restoration of the film first released in 1984.

Technicolor not only provided color on the original film, but Coppola worked with Technicolor Production Services again on the restoration. Original cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt, ASC, BSC, also returned to oversee the film’s final color, working alongside Technicolor Senior Supervising Finishing Artist Steve Scott. The new “encore” presentation of The Cotton Club is Coppola’s definitive cut – a full realization of his creative intent on one of the greatest dance classics in Hollywood history. Sequences removed and lost had to be restored from the work print, a complex and expensive digital process. “What Technicolor did was miraculous,” Coppola told IndieWire.

  • Technicolor’s work on the “encore” presentation of The Cotton Club enabled Coppola to restore, remix, and return the film to its full glory.


 
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Winston T. Boogie

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Hmmm...

Coppola archivist James Mockoski explained this morning that Coppola removed about 13 minutes of footage for the original 127-minute version, which took it down to 114 minutes or thereabouts. Roughly 25 minutes of new footage was added for a grand total of 139 minutes.

So why isn’t The Cotton Club Encore playing at the Toronto Film Festival or the forthcoming New York Film Festival? You’re not going to believe this, but the reason is MGM CEO Gary Barber, the same obstinate asshole who has blocked Robert Harris‘s long-hoped-for restoration of John Wayne‘s The Alamo.

MGM is the Cotton Club rights-holder, you see, and Barber, true to form, has not only objected to the film being shown in any kind of commercial venue (such as TIFF or NYFF) but is also uninterested in distributing or streaming Coppola’s expanded version, even though Coppola has paid for the whole thing.

Barber could theoretically (a) allow for a brief theatrical re-release of The Cotton Club Encore or (b) issue it on Bluray or via Amazon/iTunes streaming or (c) at least sub-license the home video rights to Criterion or some other dedicated, film-loving outfit. But the South African-born executive reportedly has no interest, just as he’s refused to even discuss the Alamo situation with Harris.

Telluride honcho Tom Luddy was able to show The Cotton Club Encore last weekend by slipping it in quietly and not promoting it prior to the start of the festival.


http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2017...g-screenings-coppolas-139-minute-cotton-club/
 
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Matt Hough

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I look forward eagerly to seeing this version. The original release had moments of brilliance undercut with confusion and unsatisfactory presentation. This HAS to be better.
 

David Weicker

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I'm worried about the 'cuts'.

What if some of the moments I liked or remembered are now on the floor - excised.

If they release a disc, I hope it has both versions
 

Dick

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I believe the release prints in 1984 ran 127 minutes. That would mean 12 minutes have been actually added, and probably a whole bunch of things were moved around and re-edited, which I hope will add more coherence to the dance numbers. I am actually thrilled about this screening, and can't wait for the subsequent Blu-ray.
I'm worried about the 'cuts'.

What if some of the moments I liked or remembered are now on the floor - excised.

If they release a disc, I hope it has both versions

Keep your DVD on that off-chance. Depending upon how familiar you are with the 127-minute cut, you might miss a few scenes that have been deleted or shortened or moved to another spot. But I think this is going to make the movie exponentially more involving and satisfying. I've been waiting for this for years! I also have ONE FROM THE HEART on order from U.K.
 

Dick

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One of the greatest dance classics in the history of cinema? Seriously, only a moron could write that.

A bit harsh, Bruce. No, it certainly doesn't qualify as that, as far as most of us are concerned, but to someone, it does! Perhaps the re-edit of the film will improve on the dance numbers considerably. But, even so, how could it compare to the Astaire-Rogers series or Gene Kelly's work or even YANKEE DOODLE DANDY? So, while I disagree with the author of the post in question, I do not criticize the opinion he offers. That's why I love HTF! :)
 

haineshisway

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I am happy to be the one who criticizes the person who wrote that line :) And indeed, how could it compare to one frame of Astaire, Kelly, Michael Kidd, Tommy Rall, Bob Fosse, Marge and Gower Champion, the Nicholas Brothers, and on and on and on.
 

Robin9

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I haven't seen The Cotton Club for a long, long time but I saw The Nicholas Bothers last night in Down Argentine Way. The idea that the dancing is The Cotton Club is somehow on a par with the very best is just absurd.

I had an additional, similar problem with the singing. As a major, lifelong fan of the songs of Harold Arlen, and being very familiar with the recordings of them by Ella Fitzgerald and Maxine Sullivan, I was inevitably unimpressed by the vocals in the film.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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I believe the release prints in 1984 ran 127 minutes. That would mean 12 minutes have been actually added, and probably a whole bunch of things were moved around and re-edited, which I hope will add more coherence to the dance numbers. I am actually thrilled about this screening, and can't wait for the subsequent Blu-ray.

I don't think you guys are clicking on the quote box (the quote continues if you click on the box) in the post I begin with "Hmmm" because it was not running time that I was wondering about it was this...

------------------------

"So why isn’t The Cotton Club Encore playing at the Toronto Film Festival or the forthcoming New York Film Festival? You’re not going to believe this, but the reason is MGM CEO Gary Barber, the same obstinate asshole who has blocked Robert Harris‘s long-hoped-for restoration of John Wayne‘s The Alamo.

MGM is the Cotton Club rights-holder, you see, and Barber, true to form, has not only objected to the film being shown in any kind of commercial venue (such as TIFF or NYFF) but is also uninterested in distributing or streaming Coppola’s expanded version, even though Coppola has paid for the whole thing.

Barber could theoretically (a) allow for a brief theatrical re-release of The Cotton Club Encore or (b) issue it on Bluray or via Amazon/iTunes streaming or (c) at least sub-license the home video rights to Criterion or some other dedicated, film-loving outfit. But the South African-born executive reportedly has no interest, just as he’s refused to even discuss the Alamo situation with Harris.

Telluride honcho Tom Luddy was able to show The Cotton Club Encore last weekend by slipping it in quietly and not promoting it prior to the start of the festival."

-----------------------

I don't know whether to be concerned about the comments above or not. I mean MGM films have been sub-licensed all over the place and we've got plenty of MGM on blu-ray...they are not Paramount...so will this really become an issue? I mean Coppola spent a half million dollars of his own money to do the work on this film. MGM does not have to do anything except license it out...to Criterion or Kino or Arrow or whatever. Why would Barber block a release?
 
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bigshot

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I wonder if doing a new version is just a way to renegotiate rights. Announcing a new cut makes the old cut unsalable. And in order to release the new one, MGM would have to pay extra for the rights to the new cut.
 

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