this past Tuesday I've been given a handy excuse to once more make my intentions a reality. What follows is a numbered, point-by-point subjective breakdown of 's two versions. Though I have full confidence in all the differences I note herein (having seen both cuts very close to each other) I did rely primarily on memory during my research, as I did not have the means to do a side-by-side comparison of the two cuts.
I think it works better as a blog entry than as an essay and I hope it will act as a much-needed rebuttal to those (among them producer Sarah Green and film critic Roger Ebert) who have rather ridiculously stated, in one form or another, that "You won't notice the changes." I think this quite strongly proves otherwise. Prologue and finale are exactly the same in both versions.
Malick essentially leaves the entryway and exit (both scored to 's ominously triumphal arpeggios) untouched while reworking the interior. Consider the film a river that, in the first cut is all about ebb-and-flow - Malick will often lead us down a dead-end tributary (typically signified by a cut to black) before retracing his steps and continuing along the main body of the river. In this sense he is as much an explorer in the first cut as the viewer is.
The second cut is, conversely, about movement. Here Malick is our guide and the tributaries are not blocked, but flow ever onward, out of and back into the river's main body. flow" and "movement": two equally valid thematic metaphors for the destructive/creative forces that effectively birthed, and continue to shape, the United States, the latter metaphor being especially potent when taken in view of the cartographic end credits, which conclude in both versions with a westward pan over the soon-to-be-California coastline.
Expansion of the character of Captain Newport (Christopher Plummer). In both cuts, Captain Newport is the first face we see head-on. He more immediately becomes a background presence in the first cut, whereas the second cut gives him a grounding expositional monologue (explaining the exploratory intent of the Jamestown settlers) that offsets John Smith's (Colin Farrell) searching internal voiceover.
The Christian allegory is heightened in the second cut: Newport comes across more strongly as God the Father to Smith's naïve, earthbound Son (Adam let loose in Eden). Smith is also given more time to silently explore his surroundings in the second cut, which I think encourages a stronger sense of audience identification. John Smith's voiceover begins at alternate points.
Smith's first voiceover line is different between versions: a question ("How many lands behind me?") in the first cut, a statement (comparing "The Naturals" to "a herd of curious deer") in the second cut. In the second cut, Smith's formerly opening line ("How many lands behind me?
") now plays over a more harmoniously composed sequence wherein Captain Newport directs the Jamestown settlers offscreen while, onscreen, the Indians interact with the English soldiers and explore the newly erected Jamestown battlements. Soundtrack mixed differently between versions, specifically with regards to voiceover placement. In the first cut, voiceovers are quite often placed over "non-sensible" images, where in the second cut the voiceovers are married to more "sensible" visuals.
(This is in no way a declaration of preference for one over the other). A few examples: a) During Smith and Pocahontas' (Q'Orianka Kilcher) initial love scene, the moment where he says, "Love. Shall we deny it when it comes to us?
" is in the first cut played over silhouetted images of the Indians preparing fishing nets. In the second cut it plays over a fade-to-black as Smith and Pocahontas caress each other. b) Similarly, Pocahontas' declaration, "I will be faithful to you.
True," is, in the second cut, said in rhythm with a lighting flash and thunder crack, where the line had a more arrhythmic placement in the first cut. c) I'm also convinced that the throwaway moment where Smith says "Bad water," over the image of a snake in a pond differs between the two versions. In the first cut Smith says the line and the snake swims down.
In the second cut the snake swims down first, then Smith says the line. Either way, the movement of the snake in the water creates a kind of aural punctuation mark to Smith's thought that plays differently according to its placement. This furthers my belief that Malick's film is essentially an epic poem in motion that relies heavily on visual/aural interpositions.
this past Tuesday I've been given a handy excuse to once more make my intentions a reality.
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