- The Guardian, Monday 14 May 2001
Other art forms have their equivalents. Peter Guralnick's great biography of Elvis Presley recounts the scores of songs that ended crumpled in waste bins in Memphis studios because the singer had not taken the right combination of pills or eaten sufficient burgers or whatever. On another cultural plane, it is easy to imagine, in Rome in the 1600s, parties being regaled by the tale of the young man whose face was going to appear on a Caravaggio canvas only to have it painted over at the last minute after a sudden swerve in a patron's requirement.
But in film at least there are second chances. At the Cannes festival, Francis Ford Coppola has just shown a recut of Apocalypse Now. The new version, released 22 years after the original, adds 53 minutes to the running time, which now extends to 3 hours 17 minutes.
Coppola says his artistic integrity has been restored in this director's cut. But some people object to mucking around after the event, as if Hollywood film directors were authors rather than rude mechanicals dependent on producers, script writers, money men and so on down the credits list. But imagine the jubilation in retirement homes in Burbank and Pasadena. Extras and walk-ons sweated all those months in the Philippines when the film was being made, only to find themselves excised. Rescued from celluloid limbo, they now will live again. All Mr de Botton has to do is wait patiently for Bridget Jones, the director's cut.
