I've just watched A Night At The Opera. Wonderful film, but if you're familiar with it, you may have noticed that it has some very odd cuts in it. It starts very abruptly, without explaining where we are in the world (Vienna), and during several conversations, there are abrupt holes, clearly several seconds missing, very clumsily cut.
I had assumed the original negative had been damaged. But in the commentary it is explained that the film (the original) was cut for release during WWII... because they wanted to remove any and all references to Italy, which was then An Enemy.
How about them apples? Would you like Freedom Fries with them?
Pascal:
...Aaaand 63 years after the end of WW2,they still haven't released a restored version? I thought Berlusconi's Italy was a good friend and ally in the Iraqi adventure now.
They can't. The friggin' idiots cut the original negative!
...Aaaand 63 years after the end of WW2,they still haven't released a restored version? I thought Berlusconi's Italy was a good friend and ally in the Iraqi adventure now.
ReplyDeleteFat-free-dom fries indeed. No grease, no oil, no salt, no starch... no guilt... very light and innocuous.
It's also technically called "air".
"Eat air" in Lebanon is a polite way to say "eat sh*t"...
):-P
They can't restore it. The friggin' idiots cut the original negative!
ReplyDeleteAnd threw away the cuts? Santa Madona, score another one for American genius! I bet they even burned these lost pieces...
ReplyDeleteYou know the saying: only fools never change their mind. (No `S`, one mind is more than enough.) And never even expect to. Just like that Atomic Cinema essay pointed out: censors are always dead-convinced that their values are eternal, universal and unchanging.
:`(
I'm surprised how come they never censored these passages in Genesis which state that God created humans naked and was okay with it, and then told them to mate as much as they could!
Have you noticed how many classic male statues are without a penis, or without genitals altogether? In my childhood candor, I thought they broke off like so many other fragile statue parts, and that they were just more at risk, similar to fingers. Not quite: from what I read somewhere, they were systematically castrated by State censors of many countries...
(Couldn't they have settled for just a circuncision? I mean, ouch, man!)
Another, completely different type of foolishness: Charlie Chaplin was an incredible perfectionist. Anything he didn't see fit for a movie, he threw away and ordered destroyed. It is therefore only by great luck that some never-published (and quite good!) scenes of the loveable tramp character survived to be rediscovered. Mr CC was very stern on himself with quality. Way too stern, I feel.
Similarly, one of my absolute fave classic musics is Nutcracker (pun unintended). It just... speaks to me! But Maestro Tchaikovsky was quite displeased with this specific one of his creations. Go figure!
Speaking of Freedom Fries. France is currently in national mourning after losing 10 soldiers at once... in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan! And they spontaneously went to help there two years before the refusal to go fwazz up in Iraq earned them all sorts of very low and small name-calling in the USA. All the way to a "heel" tag team in the national wrestling Federation, called "La Resistance", whose characters/gimmicks are, naturally, treaturous cowards.
"Better a good enemy than a bad friend", another famous frenchman (LaFontaine) said a few centuries earlier. In the fable "The Bear and the Garden Lover". This guy in the fable loved wandering in the huge forest gardens of these days, and one day he met a fearsome bear. By his smooth talk he managed to make a friend of the not-so-witted beast. So much, that afterwards he could take leisurely naps, with his fearsome buddy watching over him. Until one day, the bear saw a fly about to land on his friend's face and risk awakening him. So the bear took a huge rock, and mightily smashed the fly! Um... woopsie?