We now visit that famously vague, gossipy realm of Internet discourse known as the IMDB message boards, where a translation of a French-language interview with Tree of LIfe DP Emmanuel Lubezki has surfaced to announce that director Terrence Malick hasn't finished tinkering with the film. To wit, who's up for a six-hour cut?
I know what you're thinking: "But didn't I already watch a six-hour cut?" Har har, whatever. Whether or not it sees the light of day, apparently it's really a thing -- according to an English translation of a Cahiers du Cinema article featuring a Mexican cinematographer talking about a famously slow-working American who's already incubating no fewer than two other previously announced projects. Ahem.
Translated, the exchange went like this:
Does Malick think about editing when he's filming?
We speak about it almost every time. But most of the ideas about the editing we share on the set don't make the final cut. We maybe have been shot 600.000 metres (around 370 [hours]) of film. The first cut was 8 hours long. Terry is working on/preparing a 6 hours long version of the movie. What I've seen (of this) is absolutely incredible, it's wonderful. The longer version will have to/will likely, for the most part, relate to the children part. There were outstanding things, we've shot many, many things about Jack's childhood: his friends, his evolution, his changes, his awareness of the loss of his childhood. I don't know if I'm supposed to say all of this!
I don't know -- I'd rather he didn't say it; I like Tree fine the way it is. Moreover, the middle section with the kids is the most impressive part of the whole enterprise because of its compression, not despite it. Still, Malick's going to do what Malick's going to do, and one must presume there's an audience for even his most overbaked edit-suite follies. Are you among this crowd?
ยท Terrence Malick Preparing Six-Hour Cut of The Tree of Life [Film Stage via /Film]