Wednesday, April 27, 2005

After a show on AMC called "Bleep!", I can't decide which side I come down on.

They showed a scene from "The Bourne Supremacy" in it's original and sanitized version. Since I haven't seen the movie, I can't say which is better, but I will describe them for you. The scene takes place after a car accident, and Matt Damon is pointing the gun at his driver. In the original scene, there is a shot (which I can only describe as lingering) of the driver slumped over the steering wheel with blood soaking his hair. The scene then cuts to an over the shoulder shot towards Damon. The edited scene starts with Damon pointing the gun, then cuts directly to the over the shoulder shot.

I cannot, for the life of me, understand why there was a 30 second scene of a dead guy with blood is his hair is central to the theme of the movie. But again, I haven't seen it.

Then they showed this scene from "Traffic" where a woman sells her body for drugs. the original scene had no nudity, but lots of thrusting. The edited scene eliminated the over the shoulder shot of the bored woman and showed the guy giving her money. Now here I don't understand the cut. It's obvious that the woman has no desire for the man paying her, and that she's only doing it for money. The cut scene deletes this bit of subtext

One director, I wish I could remember who, said that the technology exists to eliminate Jews and Blacks from films in the same way film sanitizers eliminate violence, sex and profanity. Maybe a group of directors need to "sanitize" a film by removing blacks or Jews to see how these edits stand up in court.

I think that someone ought to apply the sex/violence filter to the Bible.

If Adam and Eve were the first people on Earth, then Cain and Abel, their sons, married women who were their sisters. Genesis implies that incest is okay! If it's in the Bible, it must be true!

The whole David and Goliath thing? Deleted! Excessive violence. The Sodom and Gemmorah story? Lot offers his daughters to the crowd instead of the men he has taken into his home (the homosexual theme has to go and the whole sex out of wedlock thing, too). Song of Solomon? Gone! Too suggestive. The Book of Revelations? Way too violent for children. Gone!

Isn't sanctimony fun?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Driver of the Car Killed his Girlfriend from the first movie and so he went to Russia specifically to kill him after the car chase he wanted to make sure the dude (Eomer from Lord of the Rings) was dead. Sorry for the spoiler but you asked for it

6:36 PM  
Blogger hiikeeba said...

Thanks for the background of the scene. It still doesn't alter my opinion of the cut scene. Why focus for 45 seconds on a guy with blood in his hair, when we should be focusing on Matt Damon's character being releived/satisfied/disappointed that the dude was dead? Is it 'cause Damon can't act? Nope. Don't buy that. That 45 seconds didn't define or explore the main character. But the edited scene focused on Damon, making it, in my opinion, a bit more powerful.

8:54 PM  

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