Leos Carax followed his short film Strangulation Blues (1980) with the tragic Boy Meets Girl in 1984. Starring Denis Lavant and Mireille Perrier, Carax’s first feature announced a new and exciting presence in both French and World cinema. Boy Meets Girl premiered in May 1984 at the Cannes Film Festival in the Independent Critics Week section, …
In his review of The Grandmaster, Josh Spiegel notes that the American cut of Wong Kar-Wai’s new film “never stops letting its audience know that a fuller cut exists.” The blame for those missing 20 minutes appears to rest squarely on the shoulders of Harvey Weinstein, studio executive and co-founder of The Weinstein Company.
It’s almost impossible to consider the U.S. cut of The Grandmaster without wondering what’s been lost, to the point of regretting that either Harvey Weinstein or director Wong Kar-Wai (depending on which story you read) doesn’t trust American audiences to pick up on simple nuances, character titles and motivations, and historical context.
I love the Weinstein’s. They represent an old school image of the big, cigar chomping Hollywood producer of days gone by. But this week they failed to close a deal for more than 600 million dollars to reacquire the mini-studio they built, from the Walt Disney Company. Bob and Harvey Weinstein founded Miramax 31 years …