As someone who spends what most would consider an unhealthy amount of time indoors watching movies, I often find myself thinking about how to enhance my film-saturated existence. It’s not that I only watch movies, but at any given time, I tend to be thinking about cinema more than any other subject. Lately, I’ve been going over some of the ways I’ve been enhancing my film-watching experiences; from the latest episodes of my favorite podcasts ever-ready on my phone, to commentary tracks and other supplemental features that actually add to my enjoyment and knowledge of a certain film.
This series will provide you with some simple ways to fully immerse yourself in film and film culture. Some of these activities are based around experience, while others seek to inform and deepen your knowledge and understanding of the movies. Some are just for fun. For this installment, I’ll be trying to talk you into staying inside and digging through your old DVD collection.
Special Features
If you’re any kind of movie lover, you probably have at least one Deluxe, Anniversary, Collector’s or Special Edition DVD or Blu-ray of one of your favorite films just lying around. Why not dig into those special features? Just spend a few hours learning everything you can about that film. You don’t have to watch every single second of behind-the-scenes footage, but you might out find something fascinating about an aspect of the production you never considered before.
Documentaries
There are plenty of discs out there with feature-length documentaries that are as engrossing as the film itself. Docs such as The Shark is Still Working or Beware the Moon: Remembering ‘An American Werewolf in London’ are great supplements that serve as fair films in their own right. Films such as Burden of Dreams (1982) or Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991) are essentially feature-length making-of docs that some have considered better than the films whose productions they document. There are even documentaries about movies that never were, such as Lost in La Mancha, which started out as a making-off supplement for the DVD of Terry Gilliam’s ultimately doomed Don Quixote (a project he apparently still hopes to complete). Even the recent Jodorowsky’s Dune explores legendary filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ideas for an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction novel that never came to be. Though Dune was eventually adapted for the screen by others, it’s fascinating to learn of what could have been.
Commentary Tracks
Though often considered an essential special feature for their ability to provide information while the movie is actually playing, commentary tracks can be daunting, especially since there are plenty that are simply not worth your time. Sites such as Blu-ray.com and DVD Beaver are essential in helping figure out which tracks you’ll find interesting, and which ones aren’t worth sitting through.
A personal favorite track of mine is the one recorded for the Criterion Collection edition of Michael Bay’s 1998 epic Armageddon, whichfeatures Bay, Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Jerry Bruckheimer. It isn’t just because I love the film, but that the commentary track manages to be informative and damn entertaining in its own right. Willis and Bruckheimer offer some insight into the production and their personal experiences making the film, but Bay and Ben Affleck are the real treat. Affleck proves himself a pretty funny guy, offering some fun voices and stories about the shoot, while Bay comes off like the dick you just know he is. This track is worth a listen just to hear how Bay fired a costume designer. Its outrageous how pissed he gets just remembering it, and after hearing him you won’t feel so shocked once he eventually kills someone making a Transformers sequel.
Outtakes, Deleted Scenes, and Extended Footage, and Director’s Cuts
As Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films have shown us, sometimes perfectly fine footage gets cut from a movie simply because it isn’t commercially viable to release a 4 ½ hour film to theaters. Sometimes movies get shortened or altered by studios, and sometimes filmmakers just aren’t satisfied with how a particular film turned out and try to save it through editing. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is notorious for the amount of times it has been tinkered with, leading to multiple home video releases, resulting in five different available versions. Similarly, Oliver Stone has never seemed content with the way his 2004 epic Alexander turned out, and has released four different cuts of the film, the most recent having come out on Blu-ray just this week. For classic film buffs, Orson Welles’ final Hollywood film, Touch of Evil, has an excellent Blu-ray release in the US that includes three versions of the film: a preview version, the original theatrical cut (which contained studio edits Welles did not approve of), and a version restored as close as possible to Welles’ specifications.
Though alternate versions of films can make for some fascinating comparisons and re-watches, sometimes just exploring deleted scenes or outtakes can provide remarkable insight into how the finished film plays. Sometimes great moments need to be discarded in order to keep the focus on a particular character or story beat, and their absence ultimately benefits the finished film. For a fascinating look at how alternate footage can be used to create more finished material, check out Anchorman: Wake Up Ron Burgundy, which took a storyline from Anchorman that just didn’t completely work, and spun an entire film out of it that plays as a sort of side adventure to the original film. Even more interesting is the home video release of Anchorman 2, which contains not just one, but two alternate versions of the film, one running for an extravagant 2 hours and 23 minutes. For that particular movie, the alternate versions not only provide more content to enjoy, but they also provide an interesting look into how Adam McKay, Will Ferrell and the others involved go about crafting characters, scenes, and jokes and then sorting them all together into one coherent film.
With the amount of supplemental material available today it might be daunting to dive into just any deluxe edition set, so make sure you choose something worth you time. The Criterion Collection is the gold-standard for home video, with all-around great supplemental material and AV quality, but if you’ve already got a DVD or Blu-ray collection there are bound to be plenty of great features just waiting to be utilized. Just a reminder though: local libraries can be a great place to find viewing material, and, although some companies have been taking bonus content off rental-only discs, you can still find plenty of supplemental material through Netflix discs in the mail. A personal favorite site of mine simply for building my home video collection has been Swap A DVD. The rules and prices have changed slightly recently, but it is still one of the cheapest and simplest ways I’ve found to slowly add worthy titles to my shelves.
While you’re diving into your discs, search for any potential easter eggs. You might find some surprising stuff hidden on your discs.
