Southland Tales (2006) and the Difference Between the Cannes Cut and the Theatrical Cut

Nearly all movies go through various edits on their way to a general release. There will be a work print that puts everything together to tell a story, not necessarily in the best way. There might be a festival cut as filmmakers test out their movie and decide what still needs to be changed before it gets shown to public audiences. There might be a few other edits along the way where things get moved around, taken out, added in, and all kinds of other things to try and make the story flow better. Then there is the final cut for the release.

Sometimes the different versions of a movie can be very similar to one another. A movie that was shown to the MPA and given an R rating might get a few minor changes to remove gore or sexuality and bring things down to a PG-13. But there are some cases where dramatic overhauls are done between one edit and another. Scenes may get moved around. Narration might be added. The whole ending could be reshot, replacing what was already there. Yet, it happens, and the movie gets released in a form that looks vastly different than what was there before.

Southland Tales went through one of those overhauls between its premiere at Cannes and the time that it was released to theaters. Per director Richard Kelly, the movie was still being figured out when it premiered at Cannes. The people behind it knew that the movie was unfinished. There were things that needed to happen to be ready for a theatrical release. Regardless of the feelings that viewers had on the cut (I think the Cannes cut is the better of the two in the recently released Arrow Blu-ray), they knew that changes had to be made for the movie more palatable. And changes happened. The story stayed close to the same, but the presentation changed drastically.

Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) was an actor married to Madeline Frost (Mandy Moore), the daughter of Vice President hopeful, Senator Bobby Frost (Holmes Osborne). With California on the line as the election approached, it was a bad time for Boxer to disappear and resurface with amnesia. Now in a relationship with former porn-star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Boxer wanted to research his new script about a world-ending rip in the spacetime of the universe by going on a ride along with a police officer, Ronald Taverner (Seann William Scott). Boxer and Ronald witnessed a double homicide committed by fellow police officer Bart Bookman (Jon Lovitz), and ended up in the middle of their own world-ending conspiracy.

There were four key ways in which Southland Tales was changed between the Cannes Cut and the final Theatrical Cut. The first one, and probably easiest for editing purposes, was to trim a couple scenes by a couple lines. If that didn’t work, entire scenes and story threads were cut from the film. The next step was to move things around within the story. Finally, there was a major change in the way information was dished out. Each of these will become clearer upon more in-depth discussion, and each had a major effect upon how the movie was transformed.

The least noticeable changes in Southland Tales were the omission of a few lines of dialogue here and there. Some lines were cut from the beginning of scenes. Others were chopped off the end. It was a quick way to cut down on the runtime of the film, which had been two hours and forty minutes when it premiered at Cannes. It tightened things up a little bit and quickened the pace. Most of the time, they were superfluous lines that didn’t mean much to the scene, while the scene still meant a lot to the story.

It wasn’t always a good thing, though. Sometimes the lines that were cut gave insight into the characters and their relationships. The Theatrical Cut of Southland Tales was confusing at times. Some of that could be attributed to how many characters there were that didn’t get the time to breathe that they deserved. The audience didn’t get to fully immerse themselves in the characters because, even at the slimmed down hour and twenty-four-minute runtime, there wasn’t enough time for character moments. These few lines that were excised were the character moments. One example was when a couple of lines were cut out of the beginning of a scene where Boxer and Ronald were driving down the highway. The scene originally began with Boxer talking about having sex with Krysta, which built up his relationship with Krysta prior to when the film began. That was left out of the Theatrical Cut, thus leaving out a little bit of backstory to the Boxer/Krysta relationship.

It wasn’t only small lines of dialogue that were cut out of Southland Tales. Sometimes there were scenes and storylines cut out altogether. This is one of the easiest ways to trim a film if the runtime is too long or the focus of the primary story is lost. When a writer takes on a story, they might try to interweave together a few story threads. That was the case with Southland Tales. There were many interwoven threads all coming together to tell one, much larger, story. Boxer and Ronald were the primary characters, but Krysta, Bobby Frost, Cyndi Pinziki (Nora Dunn), and Zora Charmichaels (Cheri Oteri) all had their stories going on as well. There were a bunch of threads all working together to tell one tale. When there are so many threads, there might be one that doesn’t connect much to things that are going on. It just kind of runs along the side of things. When editors are tightening up a movie, these side-running stories might get taken out completely.

That happened to a story that followed General Teena MacArthur (Janeane Garofalo). This storyline was mostly a way to flesh out the actions of Simon Theory (Kevin Smith) and the military veterans scattered throughout the movie. She was in constant communication with Theory. MacArthur witnessed many of the events unfold throughout Southland Tales, and even attended the party with Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) at the end of the film. Since it was a mostly reactionary story, it was easily removed from the Theatrical Cut. The nice thing about having it in the Cannes Cut was that it gave a little more insight into what the Simon Theory character was doing before meeting with Boxer near the end of the film.

Removing time from Southland Tales wasn’t the only way the movie was re-edited between the Cannes premiere and the theatrical release. Some scenes were moved around to change when or how they happened in the movie. The most notable of the moves involved a scene where Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn) finalized a deal with an investor. In the Cannes Cut, that scene happened immediately after the prologue, as part of the world building. The Theatrical Cut removed it from that initial world building and placed it partway through the movie as a story beat. The context of the scene changed completely by having it used in a different way during a different part of the movie.

The other big change in when scenes were placed in the film and how they were used had to do with the ending of Southland Tales. There were two main story threads that came together in an explosive finale. One of the threads involved Ronald finding his brother. The other involved Boxer unravelling the entire conspiracy while aboard the super blimp. They had to come together not with a whimper, but with a bang. The Cannes Cut used a lot of intercutting between shots, breaking up a single shot into many smaller inserts as it kept going back from one story thread to the other. This was one case where the Theatrical Cut did a better job. It didn’t cut back and forth quite as much. The two stories were allowed to breathe a little better, without any jarring cuts between lines of conversation. The entire pacing of that final portion of Southland Tales was changed by re-ordering when things happened.

The final piece of the puzzle in how Southland Tales was changed between cuts was in the way the story was told. The film was the second half of a story. There were three graphic novels released that told the first three chapters of the Southland Tales saga. The movie covered the final three chapters. For audiences who didn’t read the graphic novels, or didn’t know there were graphic novels at all, something needed to happen in the movie for them to understand the world as they jumped into the middle of the story.

In the Cannes Cut, the world building was doled out through Pilot Abilene’s voiceover. He would set up different aspects of the Southland Tales world at different moments in the movie, filling audiences in on anything they might not know. It was simple narration. Many people might have dismissed it as telling instead of showing, but it made for an easy enough understanding of what was going on. When it came time for the Theatrical Cut, a new approach was devised. There was a television interface sort of thing throughout the film that showed different news broadcasts and things. The largest one happened immediately after the prologue, where there was a large exposition dump to set up the world. That exposition dump got a tad confusing because there was so much information coming so fast. It was easy to miss details, which ultimately left the world building of the Theatrical Cut more confusing than that of the Cannes Cut.

Southland Tales went through many changes between the Cannes Cut and the Theatrical Cut. There were four major ways in which the film was re-edited to try and make it more palatable to potential audiences. Some seemingly superfluous lines were removed from the beginning or ending of certain scenes. Other scenes and story threads were pulled out altogether. Some scenes were moved around or intercut in different ways. And then there was the way the framing changed from narration to a television overlay sort of thing. They were some major changes that made the Theatrical Cut of Southland Tales feel like a wholly different movie from the Cannes Cut that had come before.

Movies go through this same re-editing process on a regular basis. There have been various cuts of almost any movie that has ever been released. Some of them had endings that tested poorly with audiences. Those needed some rewriting, reshooting, and re-editing to put something better into the finale. Other movies had side storylines that didn’t add to the main story of the film and were removed between versions to streamline things. Work prints are an entirely different beast. The process of editing involves re-editing again and again. It involves testing things, putting things in, moving things around, and taking things out. The magic of making a movie is in finding the movie, which is why different cuts exist in the first place. It’s movie magic.

Now for a few notes to close things off:

• Southland Tales was Sunday “Bad” Movie number seven for Jon Lovitz. His other appearances were Bark Ranger (week 183), Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186), Hamburger: The Motion Picture (week 197), Sandy Wexler (week 231), Mother’s Day (week 233), and The Ridiculous 6 (week 344).
• Wallace Shawn joined the five-timers’ club this week. He was in Furry Vengeance (week 162), Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186), Air Buddies (week 270), Cop and a Half: New Recruit (week 340), and Southland Tales.
• Amy Poehler was in Southland Tales. She was also in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (week 20) and Free Birds (week 209).
• You might have noticed Curtis Armstrong in Southland Tales. He could previously be seen in Jingle All the Way (week 160) and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (week 221).
• Janeane Garofolo returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Southland Tales. She was also in 200 Cigarettes (week 161) and Sandy Wexler (week 231).
• Christopher Lambert was in Mortal Kombat (week 140) and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (week 260), as well as Southland Tales.
• This was the third time that Bai Ling popped up in Sunday “Bad” Movies. She previously appeared in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance (week 241) and Wild Wild West (week 296).
• Dwayne Johnson was Boxer Santaros. He was also himself in Jem and the Holograms (week 238) and the title character in The Scorpion King (week 380).
• Will Sasso showed up in Southland Tales. He previously showed up in Movie 43 (week 243) and did voice work in Russell Madness (week 382).
• Senator Bobby Frost was played by Holmes Osborne, who was also in Air Buddies (week 270) and All About Steve (week 409).
• Finishing up the three-appearance people is Kevin Smith. He was in Southland Tales, but before that, he showed up in Vulgar (week 269) and Another WolfCop (week 411).
• First up in the two-timer section is Eli Roth. He had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance as a man getting shot on the toilet in Southland Tales. He was also in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (week 110).
• Jill Ritchie was in D.E.B.S. (week 111) and Southland Tales.
• Mandy Moore returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Southland Tales, after first appearing in Chasing Liberty (week 155).
• Sab Shimono appeared in both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (week 184) and Southland Tales.
• Southland Tales marked the second appearance of Seann William Scott in Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was previously in Movie 43 (week 243).
• Miranda Richardson could be seen in Fred Claus (week 265) as well as Southland Tales.
• Did you know that Becca Sweitzer has appeared in two Sunday “Bad” Movies? She was in Southland Tales and From Justin to Kelly (week 325).
• Justin Timberlake was Pilot Abilene in Southland Tales. He also had a small bit in the end credits of On the Line (week 342).
• Finally, Beth Grant appeared in both Southland Tales and All About Steve (week 409).
• Have you seen Southland Tales? Did you have a chance to see the Cannes Cut? What were your thoughts on either of the versions? What do you think about alternate cuts of movies? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• I’m always open to suggestions about what I should be checking out for Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. If you have a suggestion for me, find me on Twitter or leave the suggestion in the comments. It’s a fun way for me to add movies I might not have otherwise thought of.
• Check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram, where I frequently post pictures and videos for the movies being covered.
• Now let’s talk about next week for a moment. Today is February 7^th. That means that next Sunday will be the 14^th. That’s Valentine’s Day. I’ve already seen Valentine’s Day (week 168) for Sunday “Bad” Movies, so I won’t be covering that again. I’ll be sticking with the romantic theme, however. Romantic comedy, to be specific. I found one that seemed like it would fit perfectly among the movies I watch. The Beautician and the Beast, a 1997 romantic comedy starring Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton, will be the subject of next week’s post. I’ll see you then.