Actors being cast and then dropped from a film at the editing stage is really nothing new, but in the era of modern cinema (last decade or so), no such incident seems to stand out more — aside from the numerous cast members whittled out of Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line” of course — than James Van Der Beek’s gay football character being excised from Todd Solondz’s acidic and screed-ish 2001 film, “Storytelling.”
The film follows two stories about dysfunction and personal turmoil using the college and high school to serve as the background of both narratives (broken up into “Fiction” and “Non-Fiction”). And at 87 minutes, it’s rather short.
As the story, or now legend, goes the film is that short because an entire third act storyline, featuring Van Der Beek as said gay football quarterback, was dropped from the film.
Audiences, just like us, always want what we can’t have and footage or photos from the shoot have never surfaced so obviously there’s been quite a fascination with these missing scenes. “Storytelling” already had its share of controversy when censors forced Solondz to block out the genitals of actors Selma Blair and Robert Wisdom using a black bar over the entire image which the filmmaker thought in the end was an even more powerful statement and left it as in in tact. The legend has it that the omitted sequence was an an explicit gay sex scene which made it all the more tantalizing, especially from Van Der Beek who was probably trying to subvert and upend his “Dawson’s Creek” image.
But we, and the audience in hand, caught up with Solondz at the Q&A of his latest film, “Life During Wartime” (see our TIFF review) at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, and if there was any controversy in the scene, Solondz didn’t show it and in fact, the scene is immensely shorter than it was depicted in early dramatic reports.
“Initially, it had a two minute epilogue that did not include James Van Der Beek and it was an epilogue that I loved and I actually shot two that I loved, but for reasons ultimately artistic, I opted to not use either. [Van Der Beek] appeared earlier in the film and he had a really good scene, he did, but I cut him out,” Solondz explained.
“My problems is when I write my scripts, I always think of course, ‘its genius,’ perspective, it’s like no one could do better. And by the time I’m in the editing room I’m like chopping it apart [thinking], ‘why did I do this? I totally didn’t need this, I could have shot two weeks less than I did,’ and I realize all my mistakes and how deluded I was.”
A candid Solondz also explained that cutting actors from his films is something that has happened to him on “every single movie” of his, which sounds about right considering the fact that Selma Blair told EW in 2002 that Emmanuelle Chriqui, Adam Hann-Byrd and “Welcome to the Dollhouse” star Heather Matarazzo were all cut from “Storytelling” as well (in fact Blair, who is ostensibly one of the leads of the film even said she had “an even bigger part”).
“I have a list of actors [that were dropped]. James Van Der Beek just happens to be one of the actors dropped. I’m not even sure he’s the most well-known actor who has been dropped. I have dropped actors in every single movie and not because I didn’t like their work, but a movie has to breathe, it has to have its proper life so you have to as they say, ‘kill your babies so the whole can live.’ So certainly [he wasn’t dropped] because someone told me I had to get rid of him or the sex scene was too explicit, nothing silly like that. No, it was an artistic decision.”
Well, that seems to be that and based on Solondz’s tone in the Q&A that seems to be that and it’s doubtful some “Special Edition” DVD is going to excavate those scenes anytime soon, but yes, for curiosity’s sake seeing those one day might be interesting. Though like most DVD extras, these scenes tend to be cut for the right reason — they just didn’t work (And that said, we still want to see Orlando Jones’ excised scenes in “Magnolia“).
We guess that explains why Paris Hilton didn’t appear in “Life During Wartime” even though she was announced by the trades? — additional reporting Jon Davies.