Gotta love news you spotted almost a week ago and are just getting to. Ahh, Cannes we love you regardless.
Was the decidedly cool and mixed reactions to Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” (a film we honestly felt was uninspired filmmaking and going-through-the-motions page-to-screen transference) too lukewarm for Universal and The Weinstein Company?
Anne Thompson noted over the weekend that the two studios are “talking to [Tarantino] about returning to the editing room post-Cannes to make some edits that might include adding a scene, says [Quentin himself], who reminds us that the film, at two hours 27 minutes, is well under his contractual final cut length of two hours 48 minutes.”
Honestly we’re not surprised about adding and not subtracting from the film. But it’s a little bit damned if you do and damned if you don’t at this point. The film feels truncated and scenes are definitely missing from the original script (a flashback sequence with Eli Roth’s character and all of Maggie Cheung’s role), so in that respect the film is too short. However, even at its current two hours and 27 minutes cut the film is meandering and slow. The solution? There isn’t much of one to be honest, but at this point TWC and Universal would be wise to let Tarantino fill the gaps of the film. It won’t save or salvage the picture, but it’ll help it feel a little bit more fleshed out and fully realized.
Hell, make it the full two hours and 48 minutes, seriously. It’ll at least make some scenes feel a little less rushed and more coherent (especially after the Louisiana bar-fight sequence which ends abruptly and jumps to its next scene with equal unevenness). Don’t expect Maggie Cheung’s Madame Mimieux character to be inserted retroactively though. Her part is far too long to get shoe-horned back into the picture. It just wouldn’t make sense at this point, mark our words.
Tarantino archives say that anonymous sources told them QT had cut about 6 minutes from his original cut after notes from the studio resulting in what was screened in Cannes. Maybe they’ll rethink those 6 minutes? Hard to say.
