What editions are available?
- Theatrical Cut (116 min.)
- Director’s Cut (120 min.)
Peter Bogdanovich’s The Thing Called Love was released in an director’s cut on DVD in 2006, and is currently out-of-print. The theatrical cut has not been released on DVD. Although Bogdanovich never simply states “the director’s cut is my preferred cut,” he talks about the reinstated scenes with regret and emphases on how that scene would give the character a deeper meaning. Here are some of his comments on three new scenes in the director’s cut:
“This is a rather beautiful song that River [Phoenix] wrote. And one of the additions we made for this director’s cut, we added about 40 seconds to the end of this, and let him finish the song. Originally, this faded out. Right here it begins, the part we put back. I thought, he does it so well, it was important to let him finish the song. ”
“… And this shot of him waking up with her being gone was also added to this director’s cut. And I think the poem and this moment of insecurity both revea a great deal about their characters. And I always felt that the poem was a very important moment that I hope one day we could restore. So happy that it’s back.”
“That’s another piece that wasn’t in the original release. Again, all these little bits add up to deepening the characters, getting to know them better, finding out aspects of them that we didn’t know. And it just deepens the rest of the sequences. It makes it more… which makes everything clearer.”
Source: Peter Bogdanovich’s commentary track on The Thing Called Love director’s cut DVD
The director’s preferred edition: Director’s Cut
Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com
List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD
