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January 08, 2007
The Amazing Mr. Weinstein: Factory Boy
I dragged myself out to see the “new cut” of Factory Girl tonight… and lo and behold, it is quite a different movie than the one I saw on December 6. And the movie I saw tonight could actually have made a legitimate Oscar push for Sienna Miller as Sedgwick and for Guy Pearce as Andy Warhol. It’s still not a very good movie, but it is good enough to serve as a platform for the actors and had this cut been available in November, they would have had a real shot.
As it is, it is still pretty unlikely, no matter how many 100 seat screenings they do.
The magical thing is, this is a pure Harvey Scissorhands job. No question that George Hickenlooper, his producer, and editor Dana E. Glauberman did the heavy lifting. But the changes scream, “Harvey was here.” Really, in this generation, there is no other producer with as clear an editorial voice… especially in movies that don’t really work… and occasionally and very painfully, in ones that did.
The edit is very reminiscent of the last minute work on Bobby. More period context. More real history creating audience nostalgia. Less chatter, chatter, chatter (except for the new voiceover).
The big change was an extreme simplification of the storytelling. All of Hickenlooper’s effort to create a stylized filmic language that blended into reality is gone. What is real is real. What the “art” was is art.
The first act is 100% a celibate love affair between Warhol and Sedgwick. I don’t actually know what was floating around on the digital editing room floor before, but my slightly educated guess about what they shot when the shot more in November was almost all Warhol and Sedgwick hanging out and a framing device that has Ms. Miller talking to a therapist with no make-up (or the illusion of no make-up) on, raw and earnest and begging for an Oscar nomination. Some of the footage that was stylized was, I think, returned to the original footage without digital enhancements. And mostly, the editing cleaned the whole thing up to an extreme degree.
There is also now a Harvey-trademark voice over, explaining emotion. And the odd romantic love triangle that was once there, but blurred, is now very structured. First act, Edie and Andy. Second act, Dylan shows up and now is clearly Edie’s one true love, even though he is a completely self-absorbed jackass. (They cut all the talking heads and any use of any name, false or real, for the character in this cut, which makes the whole thing seem less coy.) Third act, she is left alone by both men and descends into her own hell.
The film moves along at a clip. Jimmy Fallon, Shawn Hatosy, and Mena Suvari have more screen time in this cut. Guy Pearce really gets the room to let Andy breathe. And Ms. Miller really gets the most benefit of all. In Hickenlooper’s earlier cut, she and everyone else were kind of relied on to be, naturally, as intense and charming as they are meant to be… and with the exception of Warhol, they were not. But here, it is clearly Miller’s film, her voiceover, and her big dramatic moments have more ground under their feet.
What is sad, in a way, is that there was something really interesting about what Hickenlooper had been trying to do. It was all there really was, so the film really didn’t work that way. It works a lot better now. But it lacks any real magic. Even the moment I wrote about, perhaps a little unkindly, the last time I wrote, Ms. Miller writhing on top of Mr. Anakin Dylan, is not as compelling… perhaps because while that was the rawest, truest emotion in the entirety of the other cut, here it is just another beat.
This version also comes close to – but doesn’t quite get to – what I believe now to be the truth about Sedgwick. She was not all that special. But she was of the moment, willing, wanting, hungry, and allowed the wave of the moment to carry her. Like Ms. Miller, she was not an extravagant beauty. But also like Ms. Miller, her beauty was pronounced and fundamental enough that her personal charm made her the hottest woman in any room she was in.
It’s always hard to judge an improved version of a film, since it is hard to figure out what is the film itself and what looks so much better by improvement. I can’t say I am really into this film now. But like I wrote at top, I think it is now simple and clean enough to have been – like the really not very good Transamerica last year – a base from which to make an acting awards push. But six days before noms close, it’s probably too late.
Still, again, Harvey. Amazing. If I had a movie that worked and he wanted to mess with it, I would be very upset. But if I had a mess, there is no one on the planet who I would trust more to get it close to presentable.
Posted by poland at January 8, 2007 11:50 PM
Comments
Theory: In 2038 a movie will be made called It Girls and it will centre around the monotonous droll lives of the likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and so on. It will be a stylised and hip retelling of the era between 2004 and 2007 when they were famous. It will feature an actress giving an Oscar-worthy performance as Paris who struggles to deal with her fame for fame's sake. But what will tip audiences over the edge and get them to scream "OSCAR! OSCAR!" will be a scandalous scene where Paris gets out of a car and flashes her bits.
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 9, 2007 05:14 AM
Careful there, Dave. If your review isn't positive enough, Hickenlooper might sue.
Posted by: Josh Massey at January 9, 2007 05:56 AM
I hope Harvey keeps his scissorhands away from the new Wong Kar-Wai...
Posted by: Kambei at January 9, 2007 06:06 AM
This review raises interesting questions about how or whether a movie "works." Dave, you seem to be saying that the new version of Factory Girl (and I've never seen any version of it, though I plan to when it hits NYC) "works" better in the screenwriter/beats/"story" sense... but has lost a lot of what was interesting about it for the sake of it being less of a mess. But in saying this, your point seems to be that the result is a movie that's somewhat better overall, but maybe lacking the curiosity or novelty factor present in the messier earlier cut. (Maybe I'm misreading you, but that's what I got from this review.) That raises the question of whether
an interesting mess is preferable to better-structured, more coherent roteness.
I know your POV is that it's not much of a movie either way, so it's not really a travesty to discuss how the Weinsteinized version "works" better. But I guess it's hard for me to muster much appreciation for a movie that "works" as a story (or for any positive writing about a movie that uses the term "beats" in terms of story; that's just a personal pet peeve of mine; the term gets way under my skin) but is ultimately less interesting and/or more conventional than something less polished.
Yet at the same time, I'm always one to say that if (say) MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III succeeds more as an action-adventure movie than BABEL does as a drama, then I prefer MI3, "points for trying" be damned. And a lot of movies are overlong, so in theory I'm not opposed to a ("scissorhands") 95-minute version of whatever over the 120-minute version; I'm not always a stickler for ambition over competence. But it can be a conundrum in the gray areas -- losing thismuch "magic," as you put it, in exchange for thismuch coherence.
Posted by: jesse at January 9, 2007 08:18 AM
do you know if the move is going to open in iowa soon
Posted by: toast at January 9, 2007 09:03 AM
I saw Factory Girl last week in LA during its qualifying run. I have no idea which version I saw. There was a voice over, so I must have seen the new version. I actually quite liked the film, and for the first time ever, Sienna Miller. I thought it had a lot to say about the silly celebrity-obsessed culture we embrace now, a la the Parises and the Lindsay's and how Edie Sedgewick sort of blazed this trail for all these girls who are really more famous for being famous than they are for any great work.
Posted by: iowabeef at January 9, 2007 09:29 AM
So DP reviewed it last week (or whenever it was) based on an unfinished cut, or when it was doing its 'qualifying run'?
Posted by: jeffmcm at January 9, 2007 01:29 PM
All the Sienna hate was way premature. She's quite a good actress, and her work in Factory Girl supports that.
Really, the hate for the film comes from hate for Harvey more than anything else.
Though in the end, DP is right, there is no question that Harvey improved Hickenlooper's cut, which was all over the place. Hickenlooper just isn't an A list, or really a B List director. Let's give him a B minus.
Posted by: The Carpetmuncher at January 9, 2007 03:25 PM
I wasn't hating on Sienna.
If you saw the version I saw - which is what they showed LAFCA for award consideration - you would agree, I think, that she was completely unimpressive.
And in this version, she is much better.
Posted by: David Poland at January 9, 2007 05:49 PM
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