- Kevin and the rest of the crew have returned triumphantly from France, with Dogma receiving rave reviews as well as a long line of distributors hoping to get their hands on the film for theatrical distribution this SEPTEMBER OR OCTOBER! Also, it seems a few more minutes are going to be trimmed (sigh) from the film, due to general comments from critics stating that the film still ran just a little long for mass consumption. Here’s Kevin:
Back from the dead. Or rather, feel dead. Did a lot of press in a very short amount of time. But it was worth it.
The screenings went great – way better than I’d hoped for. The press (while unanimous in their belief that the flick is too long) dug us (couldn’t ask for better pieces by Janet Maslin and Kenny Turan at the Times’ – NY and LA respectively). Granted, I’ve just read ol’ Todd McCarthy’s review for Variety, which isn’t the first thing you want to see early on a Monday morning, after you feel like you’ve succeeded. However, let him rail, I say; I don’t agree with his take on the procedings, and Todd’s reviews are hardly sacrosanct (his review of ‘Amy’ didn’t bode well for the box office of the pic, and his review of ‘Slingblade’ also insisted on cuts being made to avoid disaster; he was wrong, it seems, on both accounts).
But he’s not too far from the mark on the length issue (though his too-high estimate of 30-40 minutes is a bit laughable). Every journalist I sat down with said they dug the flick, but cuts needed to be made. They almost all threw out a figure of ten to fifteen minutes, though – a far cry from a half hour or more. So once we’ve settled in, it’s back to the Avid for some more trimming.
All that aside, Cannes was pretty sweet. Walking up the red carpet, the Palais screening, the standing ovation (which doesn’t really count in my book, as it seems they do it at every flick). Earlier the day of the screening, Pierson had told me that at the Cannes ‘Dead Man’ screening two years back, the notoriously frank French audiences not only booed (which they apparently did a few times as this fest too), but yelled directly at Jarmusch. John said “One guy waited ’til it was quiet and called out ‘JEEM! THEES EES SHEET!'” That spooked me. The whole screening, I was waiting for at least half the audience to belt out a chorus of boos when the lights came up. But even at three in the morning (when the lights came up), they were applauding, standing, whistling, with nary a catcall or “KEVEEN! CUT THEERTY MEENUTES!” interupting the good will.
Couldn’t have asked for anything more, as far as I was concerned.
On the distrib/release front, you can all put away your Artisan hats. The fools offered to take video – VIDEO, for heaven’s sake. Word was they called back Saturday afternoon after the NY and LA Times pieces hit the street, offering that perhaps they were too hasty. Needless to say, I’d like to go another way.
There’re cats who’re jockeying for position that I’m excited about, and I think Harvey wants to take his time to hear everyone out (except Artisan at this point). I’m hearing September/October as the release date now, depending on whether or not we get into the NY Film Fest. Regardless, it’ll be shortly after summer ends, if all goes well.
The other thing the critics seemed to all agree on was the complete lack of controversy the film contained. Irreverent, yes; blasphemous, no. Most agreed, too, that it was entirely pro-faith, and far from ‘anti-Catholic’ (including most of the Italian jouralists I spoke with, even though one of them is now insisting that we had some sort of ‘disastrous’ screening; go figure). Needless to say, I felt a bit vindicated by that. I am, after all, nothing else if not a booster for the faith.
All in all, a great trip, with wonderful memories, strong prospects for the future of the flick, and time spent with good friends for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Ol’ Todd’s review notwithstanding, I feel excellent.
Thirty to forty minutes…
What a maroon.
Well, we suppose this news eliminates at least one response from this week’s poll topic. Offering VIDEO distribution ONLY? How rude! We thought Artisan was smarter than that. Anyway, Kevin’s obviously being vague about which distributors are front-runners, but we’re sure it’ll be made clear soon enough.
As for the reviews Kevin refers to, especially the notorious Variety review, see below.
It really is a shame to hear that more cuts are going to be made. As devoted View Askew fans (as we know you are, too), the film would actually play much better to us had MORE of the material been kept in. However, viewing Dogma as a film for MASS consumption (not just the die-hard fans like us), cutting the running time does seem to be a good idea. The problem is that, with Dogma‘s large amount of well-written, all important characters, and complex storyline, it really deserved a long running time to flesh things out nicely. The film we witnessed really did have an epic feel to it, and shortening the running time will definitely take away from that a bit. Some of the more painful losses that we’ve heard about are the “hospital” ending sequence (which may have needed some trimming, but will be sorely missed by us), as well as some of Carlin‘s performance. We can rest assured, however, that all of the outstanding footage that was shot WILL indeed resurface on video versions of the film (likely sometime next Spring).
In short: Dropping the length of Dogma to what the final release will contain won’t please the hardcore fans of Kevin‘s pacing and snappy dialogue, but it should help keep mainstream audiences happier, which is better for the film in the long run.
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