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As an opening caveat, I'm not a CineD regular, as far as posting is concerned, and I hardly post much of substance on SA in general. That said, I still check this forum just about every day. This might make me sound kind of crudely opportunist, but then again, no one's making any money from this, right? Here's my hat in the ring. I propose an essay on Margaret, directed by Kenneth Lonergan, starring Anna Paquin, Allison Janney, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, and Matthew Broderick, among others. A Fox Searchlight release, its production budget was $14 million dollars—fairly modest, especially considering the cast. Anyway, its domestic total gross was $46,495. Forty-six thousand, four hundred ninety-five dollars. Released to only fourteen theaters, Margaret was in and out of its American release in less than a single month. And it gets worse! Shot in New York City from September to November 2005, Margaret didn't see release, in any form, until September of 2011. If this delay were wholly a case of studio or executive interference, that would make a grim amount of sense—sometimes movies get shelved. But that wasn't the case with this one. Lonergan and his producers started out on reasonably good terms, with him being promised full creative control of his project, save for one caveat: the film, unequivocally, had to clock in at under 150 minutes. Lonergan's first edit ran three hours. Excising that unacceptable 30-minute surplus took five years, three lawsuits, as well as personal favors of time, effort, and hundreds of thousands of dollars from Lonergan's cast and professional allies. A whole murderers' row of Hollywood professionals stepped up to the plate to help finish the picture, including the likes of Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, who took a crack at the editing bay, working for free on attempted edits. Eventually—miraculously—the film got done. The divisive result? Upon the release of its 150-minute theatrical version, some critics reported back saying they'd witnessed a sloppy, aimless mess. Others saw brilliance. The home video release the following year of a 186-minute "extended cut" complicated discussions of the film's artistic merit; neither version is necessarily definitive, and Lonergan seems to stand by both. It makes the movie something of a hard nut to crack, critically. Speaking for myself, I saw this movie on TV for the first time this year by chance, knowing none of this, and walked away feeling certain I'd just seen an underappreciated, overlooked masterpiece. I haven't watched it again since then, but for months, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, either. Its originality, its depth, its richness—I can't honestly think of another film I could accurately compare it to. So what I'm pitching is a short essay, highlighting both versions of the film, with a truncated version of its prolonged production as preface. I don't intend to spend too much time on the movie's making, except for context—I'd rather focus on its many, many merits. There have been bigger bombs than Margaret, critically, commercially. But there might not be a flop on Earth that's as close to being fundamentally perfect as this one. Anyway. I don't have PMs, but I'm guessing you'll post accepted pitches ITT?
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Sep 2, 2013 14:14
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 22:36 |
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