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With the popularity of DVDs (though of course the tradition goes back to laserdiscs), there's been an increased availability in access to deleted scenes from a film. My question is how big a role does and/or should this additional footage play in your appreciation/understanding of the film?

For instance, there's an extended deleted sequence in Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty involving one character's failure to assist a homeless woman that for me is so crucial to understanding that character's role in the film that I'm unable to separate it from the final film, even though I know that it doesn't exist in the film per se. I'm conflicted as to whether this is just information gained that you're not supposed to have, the kind of ethics behind how a parent can't use anything against their daughter that they've secretly read in her diary. So should deleted scenes be off limits in that sense but useful as a guide in helping find similar evidence within the film? Or are they fair game when discussing the film itself?

They're not part of the text (yet - future 'director's cuts' may change things), so I reckon they shouldn't be essential to a reading or analysis of it. You can't necessarily know why they were cut (change of heart, studio interference, or just a contract clause about maximum running time), so it's safest to 'read' the film without them. However, they can provide evidence for the filmmakers' intentions in the finished films (e.g. if they deliberately decided to remove a piece of disambiguation, or if they spell out what was arguably hinted at in the finished work): supporting rather than primary evidence for a reading.

Despite this, some deleted scenes have irrevocably altered my appreciation of a film. Sticking with Wenders, I can no longer think of Wings of Desire without thoughts of the narrowly averted concluding pie-fight straying across my mind, so that film has acquired a mysterious aura of near-debacle that resonates strongly with many of his subsequent films.

The spell-it-out (but thankfully deleted) closing scene of Fat Girl now makes me wonder how conscious the saving ambiguity I saw in the released ending really was. There are lots of reasons why Breillat chose to delete the scene - she wasn't necessarily intending to rewrite / reframe the text. Same thing with Donnie Darko, where the deleted scenes (and ultimately the Director's Cut) indicated that what I saw as the virtues of the film were probably unintentional and unwelcome!

zedz wrote:I can no longer think of Wings of Desire without thoughts of the narrowly averted concluding pie-fight straying across my mind, so that film has acquired a mysterious aura of near-debacle that resonates strongly with many of his subsequent films.

I assume you have the same problem with Kubrick and Dr. Strangelove as well?

The deleted scenes from Tarkovsky's Stalker would be worth seeing: from what I can make out the film was shot and in the can and then had to be scrapped because of poor quality Soviet celluloid - finally being completely re-shot with a different camera man.

I have a similar problem with reviewing films that are based on novels that I know well - to the extent that it's hard to avoid adding additional information gleaned from the novel, even though it's not in the film and may have been rendered deliberately obscure by the director/screenwriter.

On the other hand, my appreciation of In the Mood for Love isn't remotely damaged by seeing the deleted scenes, because I was so glad that Wong had the sense to cut them!

Incidentally, my understanding with Stalker is that it's not so much a case of "deleted scenes" as "complete first draft" - the second draft being so radically different from the first (it had to be made on a sharply reduced budget and schedule, for one thing) that there'd be no point trying to reinstate the material, even in the unlikely event that it still survives.

Any extra material, whether deleted scenes or documentaries, are important as they give greater insight into the filmmaker's decisions. The film itself is sacrosanct and should be judged purely on its own merits but as zedz suggested with Donnie Darko deleted scenes can help you see whether you like the film for a reason completely unintended by the filmmakers themselves(!) or whether you agree or disagree with their intentions to leave that scene in or out.

I feel that while we should be aware that it might have occured almost more by luck than by judgment that doesn't mean films like Fat Girl, Wings of Desire or even Videodrome are less than masterpieces (it would be similar to suggesting that an improvised film couldn't be a masterpiece because any great moments would have occured by accident).

Quality and insight can vary as much in deleted scenes and documentaries as in the films themselves but I've learned enough from deleted material (and commentaries that the director sometimes puts on them) to feel that they add to my understanding more often than not.

Just off the top of my head - Lee B. Simms in the Chopper thread talks about the deleted scenes for that film and they are extremely interesting, especially the long take on one of the cell mates reactions to Read's continued stabbing which in the film itself is cut away from. The Dancer In The Dark documentary includes rehearsals for an expanded version of Selma's walk to the gallows.

When you get to more improvised films or films which do not have a particularly intricate plot or are non-narrative then deleted scenes become less off-cuts than an extended chance to wallow in the world of the film. This is even more important in documentary films as you can get information that takes you deeper into specific areas that might have just been briefly covered in the film itself - perhaps the best example the hours of indexed interviews on the second disc of The Corporation.

The documentary on In The Mood For Love is absolutely essential both to understanding the way the film was created and the various tangled directions the relationship in the film could have travelled before it was pruned back into the final product.

It is probably easiest to look at this on a case by case basis, though I have to agree with zedz in that they are not part of the text. With your example Domino it is like bringing evidence to a case you know you cannot submit. I think the biggest consideration is why the cuts were made. The excised material from The Magnificent Ambersons would never be called deleted scenes and if we ever get to see it (in heaven) it would form part of the text and could and should be judged as so, though this is not to say that excised material cannot form part of the interpretation of a film. I recall not so long ago I referenced a cut scene from Fight Club in an essay I wrote on gender and sexuality, I wrote that Fincher was obviously discussing such issues as castration (my point was essentially that Fincher had reversed the roles of Tyler and Marla, Tyler being sexualised like a woman and Marla, ragged and dirty like a man), the scene in question was one demanded cut by the MPAA (I think) in which Marla tells Norton's character she wants to have his abortion (it was eventually changed to "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school"). My tutor thought it was an excellent inclusion. Though the scene never ended up forming part of the text it is easy to see how it forms part of Fincher's themes. A shame actually as the latter line seems more offensive in my opinion and isn't as evocative as the original.

With regards to the inclusion of these scenes on DVDs I would like to think that it is of the opinion of the director as to whether or not they should be included though of course I would think that most studios would be happy to plunder the material they own even against the director's wishes (if the director is not in a position to stop them).

Faux Hulot wrote:

zedz wrote:I can no longer think of Wings of Desire without thoughts of the narrowly averted concluding pie-fight straying across my mind, so that film has acquired a mysterious aura of near-debacle that resonates strongly with many of his subsequent films.

I assume you have the same problem with Kubrick and Dr. Strangelove as well?

For me the Strangelove equivalent would be a deleted scene of Kubrick himself making a heartfelt to-camera plea for tolerance and peace, brothers, in front of a CND banner.