To Make a Very Long Story Short

Many is the Hollywood film that has earned its studio additional money from the release of “special editions” or “director’s cuts” that vary in content--and frequently are much longer than--the movie that audiences saw in theaters.

But video industry analysts are eagerly anticipating discerning movie fans’ response to what could emerge as a new, highly profitable trend in the home-entertainment industry: severely truncated “studio cuts” of the spate of epic and overlong films directed by revered, sometimes self-important artists who can’t bear to part with a foot of precious footage in their bloated masterpieces.

“Kevin Costner released a four-hour version of ‘Dances With Wolves,’ ” said Archibald Prevaricant, chairman of the Camembert Assn. for New Trends. “What was up with that? And what on Earth do we need with an even longer version of ‘Natural Born Killers’? These ‘studio cuts’ will provide the busy film fan of today a chance to hustle through a major motion picture without having to alter his hectic lifestyle, and give his aching hind quarters a welcome break.”

“These major filmmakers have final cut called for in their contracts, and then they turn in this tedious, self-indulgent [expletive],” said one studio president, who didn’t request anonymity but we thought it was probably a wise idea anyway.

“And all you can think is, ‘Thank God they didn’t have final cut on “Leave It to Beaver” or “RocketMan,” or there would’ve been riots in the theaters.’ God, I hate my job sometimes.”

Herewith, a list of the titles slated for release in a “special edition studio cut,” along with projected changes in each film:

“Titanic.” The studio cut of James Cameron’s three-hour watery yarn jettisons the star-crossed romance between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio entirely, beginning immediately with the ship being hit by the iceberg, followed by an hour of the spectacular computer-enhanced special effects.

“It becomes the story of the captain and the guy who built the ship--oh, who am I kidding, it becomes the story of the special effects and that alone,” said a studio employee who picked up the phone. She lamented, “If we had released this version to theaters, we could’ve had seven additional screenings a day. We tested this version behind Jim’s back, and the scores went through the roof that was above the roof that we said his version’s test scores went through.”

“Amistad.” Steven Spielberg’s 2 1/2-hour slave-ship epic has been radically restructured, patterned largely after the ‘hood movies popular with urban audiences. The new version will begin with Cinque’s capture and imprisonment aboard La Amistad. The gruesome Middle Passage sequence will follow, and the movie will climax with an “amplified” version of the slave revolt aboard the ship, with added scenes of bloody confrontation.

Virtually none of the material of the three trials will be used, save for a brief, kinetically edited sequence in which Anthony Hopkins, as John Quincy Adams, repeatedly tears up the Declaration of Independence backed by a thumping bass groove.

“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” Only material that actually, factually occurs in the best-selling book by John Berendt will be used in the studio cut of Clint Eastwood’s 2 1/2-hour meander through eccentric Savannah, whittling the movie significantly, removing John Cusack and Alison Eastwood completely, and making it eligible for a 1998 Oscar Copyright for best live-action short subject.

“Jackie Brown.” There will be two different studio cuts of wunderkind Quentin Tarantino’s latest 2 1/2-hour crime melodrama --one removing all the gratuitous profanity and one omitting those lengthy patches of wheel-spinning dialogue that occur when Tarantino discovers he simply can’t stop typing. Both reduce the film by an hour or more.

“Contact.” All scenes featuring Matthew McConaughey and his unconvincing romance with Jodie Foster’s character will be removed from Bob Zemeckis’ 2 1/2-hour cosmic drama.

“Any key plot point introduced by Matthew--and believe me, there aren’t very many--will be provided by computer-generated images of President Clinton,” says an attendee of industry functions. “We figure that since he got mad at us for using footage of him so much in the original, we don’t have much to lose.”

“The Devil’s Advocate.” Studio executives found that by simply excising any scene in which Keanu Reeves struggled with his Southern accent, they could easily whittle a half-hour out of Taylor Hackford’s 2 1/2-hour movie without damaging its narrative integrity, because it didn’t make all that much sense to begin with.

“Boogie Nights.” Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2 1/2-hour journey through the halcyon days and dark nights of the porn industry will conclude just before the close of the ‘70s, with all the characters healthy and wealthy and happy, in the studio cut.

Explains someone who knows something, “That way it’s more of a feel-good movie--people who want to see sex hardly want to feel bad about wanting to see it--and you don’t have the rise-and-fall element, which is such a vexing description of a movie about porn.”

“Kundun.” Martin Scorsese’s two-hours-plus bio-pic of the Dalai Lama will not be released on video; instead, it will be marketed as an expensive “motion painting” designed to hang on walls and in galleries.

“It’s a gorgeous movie to look at, but we forgot that one of the basic rules of cinematic storytelling is to depict things actually occurring in a dramatic fashion--oops! Silly us,” admitted someone who observes things.

“The Postman.” The studio will simply release the four-minute trailer as its definitive version of Kevin Costner’s three-hour post-apocalyptic opus, because, as one person who considered himself “on the inside” at the time of the interview noted, “You pretty much get the idea, and anyway, it has all the laugh lines.”*