Hopefully I can take what I did in “Darko,” and it’s been several years now and I’ve matured, and try to take my ability to the next level, really. I guess it comes more out of my fondness for Quentin’s work and me just trying to be like him (laughing). I could also say that it’s my “Brazil.” I could say that it’s my “Dr. Strangelove.” But listen, if I could ever make a film that’s even anywhere near as great as any of those films, I would be a lucky guy. Those are the three biggest influences on “Southland Tales:” “Pulp Fiction,” “Brazil,” and “Dr. Strangelove.” It’s a tall order and it’s pretty ambitious. I could fail miserably and end up with “Ishtar” (laughing).
You made a lot of compromises when you did the original cut of “Donnie Darko.” Did Newmarket give you free reign to make the movie you wanted to this time around?
Newmarket basically gave me a specific budget.
Was it what you wanted?
Yeah. You’ll never get enough money to make any movie. You’ll never have enough time and you’ll never have enough money. But you need to be grateful that you have any money at all and just deal with the amount that you’re given. Kelly Carlton, our visual effects supervisor, Sam Bauer, our editor, and David Esparza, our sound designer, all three of those guys (who are all good friends of mine) were able to come in and we were able to really get in there and do the work on the film that we needed to do in a very short window of time, and with the limited amount of money that we had. I’m definitely very happy with what we were able to accomplish.
For me, it’s not about coming in and fixing what isn’t broken. It’s more about expanding. There were definitely some plot holes and some characters arcs that weren’t fulfilled, I think, in the theatrical cut. I think we’ve been able to go in and sort of complete those arcs and also fill the plot holes with a lot of information that was there and tied into the plot. There were also blueprints for things that I wanted to put in the film that got put off to the side when we realized that we had a two-hour running time restriction and we didn’t have enough money when we were finishing the theatrical cut. It really let me go in and complete the story in more detail. It’s like I said, this by no means nullifies the theatrical cut of the film because I am very proud of the film. I think there’s sort of two versions of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” there’s two or maybe three versions of “Bladerunner.” There’s more than one version ultimately, I guess, of “Kill Bill.” “Brazil” had its extended cut. I feel very honored to have been given the opportunity to do this with my film. It could be that some people will always prefer the theatrical cut and that’s a valid opinion to have. It’s not like the theatrical cut will be thrown into a shredder. It’s not like the negatives are going to be shredded and put in a dumpster after this. But it’s like I’m glad to have gotten the opportunity to assemble a longer and more complete version of the film. We’ll see what people will think.
Jena Malone believes this version of “Donnie Darko” might be similar to when you originally cut the film.
By no means is it the Sundance cut. This is something far beyond the Sundance cut. Certainly you’re going to see some of the scenes that were on the DVD as deleted scenes. You’re definitely going to see some of those back in the cut, but there are also some scenes that I purposely left off the DVD. There’s also some new material that no one has seen before, in terms of some of the visual effects sequences in the film. I think what you’re also seeing is a lot of the elements, some of which appear on the website in the information within the pages of “The Philosophy of Time Travel,” along with some of the deleted scenes and the new visual effects sequences, that all organically tie the story together in a way that I believe is more elegant and more fluid and, I hope, more satisfying to audiences. The Director’s Cut sort of emerges as this science fiction epic, in a way, that was made on a very small, independent budget.
Page 4: On Connecting the Dots and a Theatrical Release for the Director's Cut
