Call it the COVID effect: 2022 has been a year of directors returning to their past and reinterrogating it. Alongside prominent works of autofiction like James Gray’s “Armageddon Time” or Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” there’s a less conventional but no less revelatory work that also emerged this year: Mark Pellington’s “Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit.” Note the semantics of the title. Pellington doesn’t provide a director’s cut here, with him simply making a few tweaks to present a slightly altered version of what audiences first saw. Instead, “Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit” entirely reimagines the film into something altogether different from what audiences saw in 1997 at its Sundance premiere and its brief theatrical run.
Pellington’s initial adaptation of Dan Wakefield’s 1970 novel of the same name took on a lighter tone as a sexual romp for two Korean War veterans, the magnetic Gunner (Ben Affleck) and the withdrawn Sonny (Jeremy Davies), as they bristle against the conservative 1950s Indianapolis they return to after combat. The new director’s edit proves a darker, more psychologically complex version of the same story, a radical departure in both tone and content. As remastered by Pellington courtesy of Oscilloscope, “Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit” now functions as an X-ray for an America in denial through an incisive investigation of Gunner and Sonny’s friendship dynamics. All their stifled longings and sublimated desires reflect a vision of a hopelessly repressed nation.
Some of that newfound brooding comes courtesy of Pellington hewing closer to his original assembly cut of the film, working with editor Leo Trombetta to eliminate specific narrative threads and restore others that tighten the film’s focus on its two leading men. But Pellington also adds in untested elements, such as a new title sequence and voiceover narration, that bring an entirely new energy to the project. The reshaped edit takes materials from a quarter-century ago and makes them feel vibrant and new. Somewhat in keeping with the film’s rueful mood, “Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit” functions as a dual love letter and lament for the largely unrecognized virtuosity of its two stars, Affleck and Davies. There are other excellent early supporting performances from young talents like Rachel Weisz and Rose McGowan, too, as well as Nick Offerman‘s onscreen debut.
After a run in Los Angeles in November, “Going All the Way: The Director’s Edit” makes its New York debut at the Quad Cinema on Friday, December 16. The Playlist spoke with Pellington ahead of a weekend of Q&As about how industrial forces shaped the film’s past and present and what he discovered by revisiting the material. In light of the release of Pellington’s new edit, here’s an exclusive clip that showcases the tenderness and intimacy between Ben Affleck and Jeremy Davies that shines through in this new iteration of the film.
Can you set the stage a little bit about the film distribution ecosystem and how a movie can disappear like this? People often act like what’s happening with content erasure now is a new phenomenon, but there was also a boom and bust created by the home video market in the late ’90s.
Ironically, “Going All The Way” was bought by Gramercy Pictures, which was a division of Polygram, a European company that folded in ’99 before releasing “Arlington Road.” So the ancillary distribution of “Going All The Way” kind of went nowhere. There was a bad limited DVD of it. I could never go find it in Blockbuster. It was basically out of print. It never made its way to cable, to TV, to airplanes, etc. So, in those days, that was like it didn’t exist. People would be like, “How do I find it?” Part of the impetus for the re-edit was Lakeshore, the company that had made it, had folded. Their library was with a company that I was doing some TV stuff of “[The] Mothman [Prophecies]” and “Arlington Road” with.
I had found the three-and-a-half-hour version of “Going All the Way” and decided I was just going to re-edit it with the editor, Leo Trombetta, on my own. And we looked at it and said, “This is pretty good!” So, I said to [the company], “You have a Ben Affleck movie that nobody ever saw!” Immediately, their eyes perk up, and that’s how the whole thing started. Because of that death of no ancillary, no home video for the film. That gave them the idea that there could be an appetite for it now.
How does that inaccessibility affect the film?
It not existing anywhere for people to see; that’s horrible. It’s like doing a TV pilot that never gets seen. I put it on my website. It’s very sad when you can’t when something isn’t part of that opportunity for somebody to find it. I just did this very dark and beautiful dance film that Kino Lorber is going to put out. Maybe we’ll do a few screenings in New York, or maybe we put the screening of it with a couple of screenings of “Mothman” to get that crowd. The point being: if Kino Lorber has it, and people know that they can find it, that’s important to me that that exists out in the world as opposed to only being on my website. I’m just realizing your generation is really into screenings and word of mouth. People are really into music videos and how did that connect to this movie? Which is nice, because it is the body of work.
I also think that, innately, there’s a generation now that is feeling like things seemed to be a lot [freer] then. Same way that when I was coming up, it was like, “Man, those ’70s guys, they fucking HAD it. They could really be brave and tell stories.” But the ’90s was a little bit more like, “Ehh, money! Numbers. Are you selling at Sundance?” I think that’s why there’s a nostalgia for it because there was a certain thing that pops off the screen, the speakers, or ages that weren’t as under the microscope. There weren’t 10 people looking at it and putting their thumbprints on it.
Did those conditions dictate the original form of the film? I watched the director’s edit cold and was shocked at how it was originally made and marketed like a teen sex comedy. Were you making the movie you thought the market wanted?
If you saw the movie now and you saw the original, you would be like, “Oh, who’s that character sleeping in Sonny’s bunk bed? Oh, there’s Sonny masturbating. There’s Sonny throwing away his magazines.” It made his mother [the late Jill Clayburgh] this kind of Machiavellian character who is trying to control Sonny’s life. If you make your movie about fantasy and masturbation, and you laugh at it, that’s why it became about sex. It clouded, in a way, his failure sexually with Gale [McGowan] because it made it about the voyeurism of it and not the people themselves. It gave Sonny an easy way out as opposed to him having really to confront things.
So, if you watch the first movie you’d be like, “Where’s [Ben Affleck’s] beard?” There’s no beard. “Where’s the quarry? Where’s the healing of the friendship? Where’s them swimming, the sandwich, and the campfire?” Not any of it’s in there. The deeper, more resonant friendship story of guys growing away from their mothers wasn’t in that first version of it.
You made a project for Quibi in the brief lifespan of that platform. Do you still see echoes of ’90s Sundance with a big, exciting, cash-flush moment that faded away? But at that moment, the distribution channel dictated the type of content that was being made.
I think people will all be like, “Well, that was a bad idea.” It was really more of a marketing thing, 10 minutes on the go. That had been tried for ten years before. People were watching music videos and content on their phones … they weren’t revitalizing it. These ten-minute things giving filmmakers a chance to tell stories with breaks in them, they were then arrogant and said, “Well, you can’t put it on your computer or your TV.” It was very short-sighted.
[I] made one for both split-screen, for horizontal and vertical. When we made the vertical version, you’re using the triptych of screens in a much more interesting way. We made two episodes with the triptych, and I was like, “Nobody’s ever gonna watch the traditional version because this is so interesting.” I can see a single, a close-up, and a two-shot all at the same time. The same way when you’re on your computer, you’re watching a movie, and you’re on your phone. It’s hitting the same senses.
Jeffrey Katzenberg was like, “Keep it just one image because it’s too confusing.” And I was like, “It’s not confusing at all!” Look, I was 57, but I came up at MTV and explored that stuff in the ’80s. No way it’s too difficult to watch! We did the demos, and people couldn’t stop watching it. But he put a kibosh on it, and I think it was that kind of misguided thinking that sunk that thing.
You’re definitely on to something. I’m not sure traditional moviemaking has caught up with just how rapidly people can consume and process information in this current ecosystem.
Yeah, it’s a single-frame experience. The action stuff that’s too fast cut, it’s alienating. People are still cool with a certain pace, but you go back to ’80s movies, which seemed fast at the time, they’re very slow. When you saw “Fatal Attraction” in the theater, it just felt so kinetic. Right now, it feels like a prestige TV show. It’s still a great film, and Adrian Lyne is still a great director. But go watch the Adrian Lyne movie that he did with Ben Affleck, “Deep Water.” It’s not as good a story, but it’s digital … and Adrian Lyne’s a film guy. There’s stuff through a window with the light, but it doesn’t have a feeling. It’s lost its mystery, the way even he lights now. Digital’s a very different beast.
I remember working with Larkin Seiple, who shot “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” on a commercial. I’m in the room, and there are no lights. There were a couple of things coming from outside, but the inside was very dark. But you look at the onboard monitor, and it was all balanced. He was an artist at understanding the chip and the data. He understood the digital realm of exposure in a brilliant way. Larkin Seiple knew who the masters were: Conrad Hall and Gordon Willis. The key is for that aesthetic mastery to go despite whatever the technology is.
Do you think there was some element of fearing audiences at the time might not be ready for these more sophisticated elements about male friendship and interiority?
The film we screened at Sundance was 15 minutes longer than the film that came out in theaters. And it was good enough that it was bought, but they were like, “Yeah, maybe we can shorten this. And maybe people don’t need to see him cut his wrists?” Because no studio is ever going to tell you to make a movie longer. They’re never going to have you make a movie darker. So I did. It was my first movie, I didn’t have any clout to say, “No, you’re ruining my movie!” These are subtle little shades. [The studio said,] “You sold your movie! It’ll play better!”
I think we did a screening of it shorter, and the “numbers” were better. That’s definitely prescient about the algorithmic culture. The focus group test scores were better with it shorter and funnier. But, now, because nobody cared about it, you can put the things in that give you the best, most resonant, version of the book that I could render.
How did adding in the voiceover, which was new to this edit, help you achieve that? Was it just to get a different perspective?
The book was heavily interior, in the third-person with a lot of internal description. I don’t think any film truly can capture that internal state of mind. There [are] times that it replicates it, but [film] kind of strips it down to plot. I felt the new score, the new titles, and the new voiceover could restore some of that interiority to it. That feeling of perspective that you’re watching this guy go through this experience. How does Sonny feel if you’re only relying on Jeremy Davies’ performance? He doesn’t sit there and say, “Hey Gunner, why would you hang out with me?”
Had you written the voiceover before? Or was this entirely new?
The voiceover was all lifted directly from the book. I had underlined passages of the book that I love, gave it to the editor, and said, “Try this.”
There is an intriguing tension between watching a film made and shot in the ’90s and the perspective that you’re bringing to it now in the ’20s. Particularly with the stardom of your cast and the different associations that we have with the actors now, were you working with that tension consciously? As an easy example, you’re making this director’s edit for an audience who knows Ben Affleck is and all these things that he couldn’t know about who he would become.
Interestingly, yes. I think about that in every movie I’ve watched Ben in since “Going All the Way.” I thought about it in “Pearl Harbor.” I thought about it in “Reindeer Games.” It was like watching Gunner grow up. I see him in “The Tender Bar,” I’m like, “THAT’S Gunner as a Long Island bartender!” I remember writing Ben a letter after “The Way Back” because I was very proud of his sobriety, and that performance was really good. That’s Gunner conquering some demons.
Even with the tabloids and all the stuff, innately, all I remember is the guy that I met in my apartment who I thought was a great character for the movie, worked really hard, and did a good job. His qualities and strengths as an actor have always been evident. Sometimes he uses them, sometimes he doesn’t. He’s had a very successful career. It’s phenomenal when people you know go into that stratosphere, but it’s just weird. Nobody wants to be under a microscope like that. So, I was pleased to work with him.
You bring up a lot of what Oscilloscope did. They’re like, “It’s just another movie now. It’s not an old movie.” It’s like you’re watching like a deepfake of Ben Affleck and all the actors. Like “The Irishman.” Except Rachel Weisz, who hasn’t aged a day.
It’s like you’re watching a brand-new performance from them. It feels like they are already in such command of their skills, but at the same time, it mirrors where they were as actors at the time. They’re just learning how to be people as the characters are.
A very insightful, excellent take on it. This [edit] has so much more material where they’re at their best. There’s 55 minutes of new footage, which is pure great performance from both [Ben Affleck and Jeremy Davies]. That stuff at the campfire in the quarry is my favorite. The simplicity of it, too. One camera, usually only two takes – maybe sometimes one. It was all I had time for, so I had to rely on them to be really good. It’s almost like they were just being Gunner and Sonny. If you made a sequel to it right after, they’d be so self-aware of who they are. They’re not conscious that they’re acting. They’re some extensions of themselves saying these words.
I’ve always been struck by the vulnerability it takes to essentially hand your work and craft over to someone else. You’re at their mercy. How have the actors responded to seeing their work re-cut and re-interpreted?
We showed it and gave it to all of them. I’ve not gotten responses from all of them, but the ones that have just love it. Hats off to Leo Trombetta, the editor, that’s where they shape it. The actors are protected by the editor. Because they were very humble, they hadn’t done enough movies to be like, “That was one of my best performances.” They just were excited to be there and be the leads in a film.
Other than getting to show the film to Dan Wakefield before he lost his eyesight, who are you most eager to see this version of “Going All the Way?”
Wakefield was really the main one. Getting the cast and the people that worked on it is really important. We’re coming to New York, and my family’s coming up. My sister, who just passed away, got to see it. She came and took care of me after a knee surgery, and she got to come to the first screening in Los Angeles. That means a lot to me that she got to see it. Because I loved it, and she had never seen it when it came out. My brother is coming up to see it. My two best friends from high school and college. It will be full circle.
I know you’ve got a few irons in the fire right now for future projects — do you think those will be impacted by your experience re-editing this film and seeing how tinkering with fundamental concepts like context or tone even slightly can make such a big difference in the finished product?
I feel like I’m scratching the surface at making movies. I’ve made eight of them, and I have so many more than I’d like to make. Everything I want to make is not easy. I don’t have the drawer full of superhero or horror movies. They’re all unique or challenging in their own way, so I have to find my fans. Doing this, it deepens your respect for writers. It has made me think about one other movie of mine that I would love to go revisit and reshape tonally. I feel like there’s a better, more effective version of the film in there. I just said to the editor, “Let’s look at this again.” I found the first [cut], and it wasn’t three-and-a-half hours. But, again, you could say that about a lot of things. You could remix, rewrite every article, every book, everything you’ve ever written.
Look, Cameron Crowe is doing “Almost Famous” as a musical now, so that’s an interesting thing. “I Melt With You,” the most polarizing movie I ever made that got annihilated by critics in 2011, it’s got a lot of fans now. Increasingly, as the years go by, people are discovering that movie. I almost jokingly said, “Boy, I’d like to go make a Broadway musical of a deeply polarizing Sundance misfire.” It was literally a New Wave, punk rock exploration of the male midlife crisis and the birth of toxic masculinity … why not? That’s the great thing about films, they’re out there forever.
I interviewed Richard Kelly a few years ago when he re-released one of the “Southland Tales” cuts. And I asked him bluntly: “Is a film ever really finished? Or do you just release it?” How do you feel about that?
That’s the famous statement, right? They’re never finished; they’re just abandoned or given up. I don’t know if I could go back and change anything in “Arlington Road.” I think it depends on the story and how plot-driven the story is. Is it an experiential thing? Is it an engineered narrative? Or is it a character-driven thing? I guess it’s also a cost thing. I always said about music videos; why don’t they release different versions of it?
I did a bunch of music videos where sometimes you’d make two versions of it, and I’d be like, “Release it! Who cares?” People get stuck on one version of something.
“Going All The Way” is in select theaters now and begins expansion on December 23. More details can be found on the Oscilloscope Laboratories website.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.