There’s apparently a four-and-a-half-hour cut of Ridley Scott’s Napoleon out there
The theatrical cut of Ridley Scott's epic biopic clocks in at a measly two and a half hours
Aux News ridley scott
There’s a modern-day war currently raging amongst film fans. According to one camp, movies nowadays are way too damn long, with recent outings like Oppenheimer, Avatar: The Way Of Water, and Scorsese’s upcoming Killers Of The Flower Moon clocking in at 3 hours, 3 hours and 12 minutes, and 3 hours and 26 minutes respectively. For the other camp, favored directors—to borrow a sentiment from Joaquin Phoenix’s dramatized Napoleon—simply never make mistakes. If the man in charge says his movie works best at 3 hours and 26 minutes, then we should all be thankful that’s the version being sent to the silver screen. Often, long-runtime appreciators aren’t so lucky.
Case in point: the “fantastic,” nearly four-and-a-half-hour cut of Napoleon that director Ridley Scott just teased fans with during an interview with Empire Magazine (via Variety). Now, don’t get us wrong: the cut that is being released is still a whopping 158 minutes, in case you were worried that a single historic battle, sword swing, or dig at Napoleon’s height had been left on the cutting room floor. The longer, 270-minute version reportedly features more of Napoleon’s wife Joséphine’s life before she meets the infamous emperor.
“[Scott would] love Apple (who funded the film) to eventually screen it. But what they have now is hardly slight,” Empire’s report continues. “‘It’s an astonishing story,’ Phoenix says of Napoleon’s life. ‘Hopefully we captured some of the most interesting moments.’”
“Joaquin studies the psyche, and the psyche of Napoleon is so strange,” Vanessa Kirby, who plays Joséphine, added. “He was a dictator, a war criminal, really. [The film] couldn’t be rousing, because that man killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men, in my opinion needlessly. And for what? To get an empire, for what? In the end, it all disintegrated anyway. That psyche run wild is dangerous as hell, and very strange. And this is a portrait of that.”
Napoleon premieres in theaters November 22.
22 Comments
There’s a four-hour version of most movies. It’s called the assembly cut. It’s always so goofy when people breathlessly conflate that for some unfairly squashed hidden masterpiece.
Oh, I don’t mind at all nor am I surprised when laymen and general film fans conflate those two things. But it’s both infuriating and embarrassing when someone in *the film business* confuses an assembly cut (mostly the work of the editor(s) completed just after production) with an early director’s cut, as you are doing here. It just misleads people.
Oh, I can easilty forgive laymen and general film fans for conflating the assembly (which is constructed by the editor during production) with an early director’s cut. But it’s infuriating & embarrassing when people in the business, or claiming to be experts in film, misleadingly or ignorantly confuse the two items.
Even goofier is when the misinformed confuse the standard editor’s “assembly” with an actual early director’s “cut”, which are entirely different things.
“No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” — Roger Ebert
Like most catchy sayings it’s very simplistic and not very accurate (and reinforces reductive good/bad binary thinking). Oppenheimer is a pretty good movie but it’s also too long, for instance.
But are there really things you can point to as being worthy of being cut in it? Otherwise it is like the Emperor’s empty complaint in Amadeus that Mozart’s music had “too many notes”.
Inject that into my veins.On the other hand, Scott is excellent at pulling off 100-120min movies that feel jussst right, so maybe not.
FWIW, his Kingdom of Heaven extended cut should have been the only cut.
100% agreed
JFC fix Kinja!
Kinja may be immolating because you are misspelling “Benvenstanciano” from the script, which was a jokeytribute to the long Italian names of “townsfolk” characters used in “The Abbott & Costello Show”.
Yes
Really living up to your username huh
As are you, what with your blathering nonsense.
Accusations of blathering nonsense from the guy who thinks tossed salad goes with scrambled eggs???
It’s surprising they can make so much when they can only fit about half the showings of a normal movie into a day.But they do, and the bottom line is the bottom line.
Just release the extended cut on Netflix, Ridley Scott. We’ve been here before with Kingdom of Heaven.
Normally I’m against movies being that long. This is an exception. Anything under five hours makes it feel like I’m being cheated.
#ReleaseTheScottCut
In which we get to see Napoleon’s trou du cul. And more scenes with his sidekick Cyborg.
Release the short cut!Just like Napoleon to try to be bigger than he needs to be.