Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)

[JMULL222]

That's my POV. I had already resigned myself to just hoping a workprint would leak to torrent trackers. So while I'm a bit sad it's DVD and no Blu, I can hardly consider it some kind of travesty.

[MichaelB]

Pretty much. It's probably SD because that's all that exists. We'll be lucky if there isn't burned-in timecode.

Yes, I think that's by far the most likely scenario. If the longer cut doesn't already exist on an off-the-shelf HD master, the cost of adding it increases significantly - and this film is hardly a serious moneyspinner.

[zedz]

That makes perfect sense, but I still wish Fox was ballsy enough to take more of a gamble with this film. It seems like the perfect film to build its reputation on home video through word of mouth and could be a good seller in the long term. The big problem is, the studios don't (deliberately) make films like that any more, and certainly have no idea how to market them.

EDIT: Oh, and the other thing that's been in the back of my mind is the possibility that Lonergan's longer cut isn't as good as the release version. I'm dying to see it of course, but there's always the chance that more plot and character information might upset the film's powerful ambiguities, or more pillow shots might diffuse the tension. Or maybe we'll just get tighter / looser variants of essentially the same film. Whatever the outcome, let's not forget that the released edit of Margaret, which we'll be getting in HD, is a great film in its own right.

[John Cope]

A thorough background on the project.

[mfunk9786]

That's where things remained until September 2011, when Searchlight finally released the Lonergan cut - in exactly two theaters, one in New York and one in L.A. With almost no promotion, a movie that cost more than $12 million grossed $46,495.

I'm confused... isn't the writer talking about the 2.5 Scorsese cut here? Or is the 2.5 hour Lonergan cut still in the discussion?

I'm also a bit curious still as to whether the extended cut of the film that's going to be released is Lonergan's preferred cut, or just the theatrical film with a bunch of deleted stuff thrown in by the DVD's producers.

[Dylan]

I'm confused... isn't the writer talking about the 2.5 Scorsese cut here? Or is the 2.5 hour Lonergan cut still in the discussion?

The writer seems to mix up the facts here. The 2.5 hour version is the compromised studio cut with a copyright date of 2008 - Lonergan "approves" it (probably with his back against the wall) but it's not his preferred cut. As far as I know, his preferred version is what he worked on with Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (who are not credited anywhere - even as special thanks - on the 2.5 hour cut) - I don't believe anybody outside of post-production (and the DVD folks at Fox, if this is what they're releasing) has seen this version. I don't know what was tested for audiences in 2008 - it very well could've been the compromised cut or the four hour version composer Nico Muhly speaks of in interviews.

I'm also a bit curious still as to whether the extended cut of the film that's going to be released is Lonergan's preferred cut, or just the theatrical film with a bunch of deleted stuff thrown in by the DVD's producers.

As I understand (and I spoke to Thelma Schoonmaker ever so briefly about it earlier this year) the 3 hour cut is/was a different assembly than the 2.5 hour cut. At the time, she didn't know what Fox's plans were with this version. It would be pretty awful indeed if Fox just decided to scissor some scenes from another assembly and drop it straight into the 2.5 hour cut - have they done that sort of thing before?

[MichaelB]

Oh, and the other thing that's been in the back of my mind is the possibility that Lonergan's longer cut isn't as good as the release version. I'm dying to see it of course, but there's always the chance that more plot and character information might upset the film's powerful ambiguities, or more pillow shots might diffuse the tension. Or maybe we'll just get tighter / looser variants of essentially the same film. Whatever the outcome, let's not forget that the released edit of Margaret, which we'll be getting in HD, is a great film in its own right.

Well, I've just watched the longer cut, and I have to say that I can see why Lonergan underwent such agonies trying to get the running time down - despite the running time (179 mins on my PAL review copy, presumably 186 mins on NTSC), individual scenes are very tightly edited, with very little scope for trimming - and while one or two scenes could have been removed outright without damaging the film, I'm not at all sure about the feasibility of removing over half an hour.

Annoyingly, though (if only for comparison purposes), I've only seen the longer cut, so couldn't tell you what was missing from the theatrical/Blu-ray version. I took copious notes, though, so once I've trawled through a few reviews ticking off cited scenes, I'll pop back here with a list of ones that might be unique to the long version.

Incidentally, the UK DVD transfer looks and sounds fine - SD video, obviously, but nothing distracting. (Certainly no burned-in timecode!)

[MichaelB]

OK, can anyone who's seen the short version confirm whether any of these scenes are in it? They're listed in chronological order.

Spoiler

1. Joan doing a creepily accurate vocal impression of a newborn baby in a restaurant;
2. Lisa bursting into Joan's bedroom unannounced and very nearly catching her masturbating;
3. The theatre rehearsal (Lisa is a technician) leading to a group therapy session with cast and crew encouraged to explore their differences;
4. Lisa's dream, in which she sees Joan standing at the foot of her bed, and then blood coming out of the bathroom taps;
5. Joan at the opera house, complaining about standing ovations and being told in advance that she's meant to like something (this is a separate, much later scene from the similar one discussing the pretentiousness of getting "bravo/brava/bravi" right);
6. Lisa having a pregnancy test, a row with Joan about the father's identity ("he could be a lot of people"), and a trip to an abortion clinic

[dustysomers]

OK, can anyone who's seen the short version confirm whether any of these scenes are in it? They're listed in chronological order.

Spoiler

1. Joan doing a creepily accurate vocal impression of a newborn baby in a restaurant;
2. Lisa bursting into Joan's bedroom unannounced and very nearly catching her masturbating;
3. The theatre rehearsal (Lisa is a technician) leading to a group therapy session with cast and crew encouraged to explore their differences;
4. Lisa's dream, in which she sees Joan standing at the foot of her bed, and then blood coming out of the bathroom taps;
5. Joan at the opera house, complaining about standing ovations and being told in advance that she's meant to like something (this is a separate, much later scene from the similar one discussing the pretentiousness of getting "bravo/brava/bravi" right);
6. Lisa having a pregnancy test, a row with Joan about the father's identity ("he could be a lot of people"), and a trip to an abortion clinic

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes
5. No
6. No

[MichaelB]

Thanks for that - I guessed that (6) had been removed, because it's a reasonably lengthy subplot (two complete scenes) and I didn't see one review referring to it directly. Which, given that most of the reviews I read were American, and the content of the second scene, seemed a little implausible. But I can see how it was relatively easy to remove it while retaining the subsequent confrontation with Matt Damon.

Similarly, (3) is probably the heftiest of the school scenes that could have been removed without noticeably affecting the film. And in many ways I wish (5) had still been left on the cutting room floor, as it's painfully self-conscious - especially given that this is a film that already cuts from a scene in which its protagonist makes a possibly audience-alienating decision to an English classroom in which it's explained at length that just because Shakespeare has his characters expressing an opinion doesn't mean that the playwright himself shares it. You know, just in case the slower-witted among us hadn't quite got it.

As you can probably tell, I'm ambivalent about Margaret - when it's good, it's thrillingly good, and I wasn't bored for an instant (it certainly didn't feel like a full three hours), but I rewatched You Can Count On Me last night and was struck both by how similar Lonergan's films were and by how many more bullseyes he managed to hit first time round. I hadn't seen his debut since the DVD came out, but it really is one of the great American films of the past two decades - and it looks absolutely effortless. Whereas Margaret is too obviously a calculated attempt at making a Great American Film to actually succeed in being one, and the strain really shows at times - though I daresay its hellishly protracted post-production didn't help matters.

[zedz]

Thanks for that - I guessed that (6) had been removed, because it's a reasonably lengthy subplot (two complete scenes) and I didn't see one review referring to it directly. Which, given that most of the reviews I read were American, and the content of the second scene, seemed a little implausible. But I can see how it was relatively easy to remove it while retaining the subsequent confrontation with Matt Damon.

I have no idea whether to spoiler this or not - it's rather a unique situation - but I'll err on the side of caution.

Okay, now this is an interesting and major difference between the two cuts,

Spoiler

since in the shorter cut the whole thing about her having an abortion had, as far as I recall, no objective supporting evidence, and thus her confrontation with Damon played for me like it could be no more than a desperate invention, Lisa's aggressive neediness being dialled up to 'Kamikaze'.

I'm now very optimistic that the longer cut will play quite differently to the shorter one, and would therefore recommend that newcomers watch the release cut first, since it seems like you'd be more likely to get two significantly different experiences that way.

[MichaelB]

I suspect it may not play as differently as you're hoping, largely because

Spoiler

it isn't made clear who the father is, because Lisa clearly doesn't know herself.

So the only real difference between the shorter and longer cuts as far as that particular subplot is concerned, at least based on your description

Spoiler

is that we now know that she isn't totally fantasising when she runs into Matt Damon again, but she might still be fantasising about his responsibility.

But it's a pretty minor detail in the wider scheme of things, and for the most part the descriptions of the film in the reviews of the shorter version very closely matched what I saw.

[antnield]

MichaelB's DVD review for Sight & Sound is now online.

[Cronenfly]

A very good review, Michael; the only point I would (potentially) take issue with is this one:

When Lisa takes a crucial mid-point decision that risks alienating the viewer, Lonergan cuts to a nudge-nudge classroom scene in which Matthew Broderick’s English teacher emphasizes that the opinions of Shakespeare’s characters are not to be taken as confirmation of authorial approval.

Maybe this is a scene only in the longer cut (or one which is given different emphasis in that version), but if it is the same as in the theatrical (discussion of King Lear passage "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods"), then I thought the point was to emphasize the narrowness and childishness of Broderick's handling of his students' discussion. The boy sitting next to Lisa keeps on insisting on the insufficiency of human consciousness versus divine consciousness within the context of the quotation, where Broderick can only see "a very dark view of the arbitrary nature of human suffering". He finally flat-out tells the boy that he's wrong, that's not what Shakespeare meant, throwing a mini-temper tantrum and sipping from a juice box in a most infantile manner.

Authorial approval per se is not the central focus of the discussion (or at least not in any straightforward sense; if anything, the Broderick character undercuts his own assertion that the opinions of Shakespeare and his characters are distinguishable in order to shut the boy up), though I guess one could just as easily condemn Lonergan for making the Broderick character behave in such a narrow-minded fashion. As well, the scene comes after a discussion with Jeannie Berlin’s lawyer friend (in which the legal gears are set in motion with regards to the bus accident) in the theatrical cut, not any particular “crucial mid-point decision” on Lisa’s part, so the longer cut may well handle things very differently (and not necessarily in an advantageous way).

[JMULL222]

Working on a piece on the subject, but let me just be the one to come out and say it: the extended cut is an ENTIRELY different film from the 150min cut, which now basically looks like a sloppy chopped up workprint without finished sound design. Even if you've seen MARGARET, you haven't seen MARGARET. And I loved the original cut! I had it 5 on my top ten last year. But if this 3 hour cut was released, it may very well have been the film of 2011.

[goodguy]

the extended cut is an ENTIRELY different film from the 150min cut, which now basically looks like a sloppy chopped up workprint without finished sound design.

Really? I've seen the theatrical cut and while skimming through the extended one I've got the impression that it is exactly like the theatrical, but with a few additional scenes. Having not watched it properly, I could of course be entirely wrong.

[JMULL222]

Trust me, no offense, but you are.

Spoiler

I don't want to go too in depth because I plan to publish a piece on the subject, but they are working from entirely different aesthetics. The 150min cut is all-over-the-place, overrun with what appeared to be intentionally jarring cuts that line up with the messiness and uncertainty of Lisa's life. No doubt, it's an audacious decision, and one I felt worked perfectly - when I saw it first.

On the other hand, Lonergan has added like 15-20 needle drops to the extended, all opera or classical music, and it makes the scenes flow in a way that is the polar opposite of the startling edits of the theatrical. Here the films aesthetic appropriates the fact that Lisa is seeing her own life as an opera - instead of cutting it as a commentary on her, as I feel the theatrical did (by being overtly uncertain and jarring) this is cut in a way that suggests how Lisa sees herself - bombastic, defiant, and operatic. The first cut is a great movie. But the extended cut is a classic.

[bearcuborg]

For those on the East Coast. Free screening tonight.

[hearthesilence]

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh! NOW I find out....

[R0lf]

Margaret has grossed more playing one cinema in Australia than it did for the entire US and is set to top the worldwide gross.

[wigwam]

wow, great - how long has it been playing there? It was here and gone in Dallas on one screen w/in one week - but it was so worth it on the big screen, especially the dark bedroom scenes and the finale

has anyone gotten their BR/DVD yet? I'm having hourly check-ins w/ my wife at home while I'm at the office, she'll probably be at the divorce lawyer's by the time I get home, but just so long as Margaret is there...

I plan to watch the theatrical cut first to get my bearings and then the extended \:D/

[Matt]

has anyone gotten their BR/DVD yet?

I have it right in front of me on my desk, what do you want to know?

[NABOB OF NOWHERE]

has anyone gotten their BR/DVD yet?

I have it right in front of me on my desk, what do you want to know?

Don't know about wigwam but i'd like to know if this is a Dual format edition in the sense that both versions are available DVD and Blu? Thanks

[Fierias]

I have it right in front of me on my desk, what do you want to know?

I've heard some reports that the Canadian version of the blu-ray had a factory error, where the bonus DVD - despite having 'Extended Cut' written on the face of the disc - has only the shorter Theatrical version. Could you verify that your set includes the Extended Cut on the bonus DVD?

[wigwam]

what do you want to know?

same as NABOB + are there commentaries on either/both/which or any other bonus features (I've looked on Amazon and DVD Beaver and this thread and can't tell)

thanks!