FREEFALLING THRU THE FUCKERY: IMPRINT'S THE KEEP, 'DIRECTOR'S CUTS' & EXPECTATIONS

About the heading: Things are Bad, but this is just the Beginning; we haven't even truly started to get into The Bad Times yet - if you're not Hispanic, Palanstinian, a foreign student or a resident alien, you might find that statement slightly laughable & naive. Being an American, that's slightly permissible, since those who aren't MAGA or MAGA adjacent/sympathetic still believe that there is still a chance to turn things around - despite the fact that we've continually squandered every chance given so far.

While America (and specifically Whyte America - because nothing of note actually happens in this country until Pissed-Off Whyte People get involved) does its Hamlet-bit trying to convince itself it still has a soul), it feels like one is just Freefalling Thru The Fuckery until things coalesce into some definite action.

While that slowly happens - I watch movies. I write. At least until I can't do either one or the other.

Or both.

 

 

So Imprint's edition of THE KEEP went up for pre-order this morning and already history seems to be repeating with this possibly selling out even quicker than the Vinegar Syndrome package. What I see happening is a lot more respect for that VS release, which up until yesterday was considered to be an underwhelming POS for not having deleted scenes. The Imprint release just HAD to be Better...

Well, in way it is, but only for hardcore Mann Fans.

The Imprint uses the same 4K restoration and same Theatrical cut as on the Vinegar Syndrome disc.

SAME. THEATRICAL. CUT.
 

There's 4 commentaries on the Imprint: 1) film historians Troy Howarth, Eugenio Ercolani and Nathaniel Thompson; 2) documentarian Stewart Buck, art director Alan Tomkins and photographer Graham Attwood. 
 

The other two are EXTREMELY interesting... 3) F. Paul Wilson (the author of the novel), David J. Schow and Douglas Winter doing a 'previously unreleased' commentary and 4) audio commentary with cast and crew utilizing interview audio from A WORLD WAR II FAIRYTALE archive.
 

And this is indeed 'burying the lead' - this is also the release of the long-awaited documentary A WORLD WAR II FAIRY TALE: The Making of Michael Mann's THE KEEP (aside from the release to Kickstarter donors) which has its own featurettes [interview with Jurgen Prochnow, making-ofs].
It also has the same featurettes as the VS, but adds some new ones (making-ofs from 1983 and video essay) and expands the photo gallery.
 

There's a CD of the 'Official' Tangerine Dream OST and a hardback booklet of essays and a reprint of a Fangoria Magazine article about the makeup effects.
 

But.
 

There's.
 

More!
 

SWAG!!!!!!
Posters, Lobby Cards, reprint of 5 issue comic series, reprint of first draft script - but most of all...
 

YOU GET A CROSS!!!
A replica of the crosses embedded in The Keep walls,  a "heavy, bespoke collector's item" as described on the website.
 

Deleted Scenes? Any of those long rumored deleted scenes in this?
 

Well, no. There IS that alternate ending from the television version on this, finally. But anything like a 'Director's Cut' fabled to exist... Nah. Not here. Never was.

Shit.

---

I like a good Disaster Story. More specifically, I like a good Film Disaster Story.

JODOROWSKY'S DUNE. LOST IN LA MANCHA. LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY'S 'THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU'. DEMON LOVER DIARY.
 

They're popular now and I think that's because they allow people to imagine something Better. Whether it's a project that never actually got into production, like JODOROWSKY'S DUNE; or documenting Things Going Drastically Wrong, like the others named. 
 

If that preview cut of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS ever shows up, after the initial excitement I'd bet there'd be a huge disappointment. Because the finished product can never live up to the legend in people's heads. 
 

That's also been fed by the whole "Director's Cut" cult mindset kicked off by Ridley Scott and BLADE RUNNER in the early 90s and used as an effective marketing gimmick since. ANY 'Extended cut', 'Preview cut' or early assembly is a 'Director's Cut' nowadays, and the two most wanted 'Director's Cuts' that were rumored to exist were for THE KEEP and David Lynch's DUNE.
 

Which, I think we can now safely say is BULLSHIT. COMPLETE BULLSHIT. The Director's Cut IS the Theatrical release in these particular cases.
 

I could understand why, for years, he was pained to talk about DUNE, despite the following it had amdist all the hate. I think that for him, it's a failure - an interesting failure. He did get a lot artistically out of that failure, true... But it's the largest public failure he had up to that time, and I think for him, an artistic one. He had to make compromises early on and in production and he didn't have final cut. What the fabled 4 -5 hour cut that is talked about I suspect was an early assembly.
 

I think that's similiar in terms of THE KEEP; mistaking an early assembly as a fabled 'Director's Cut' There may be elements that still exist, but they're no longer in assembly form. There's a possibility - no way to know until the docu is seen - of including small snippets of scenes but if that's indeed the case, even then no Director's Cut is in physical form.
 

If you're a big fan, then you're gonna get this. Despite there being no Director's Cut - there's enough swag to distract you from that pain.
 

If you got the VS edition, you'll be giving it a lot more respect from here on out. Pick up the Standard Edition later for the commentaries and documentary.
 

Although a commentary track of F. Paul Wilson, David Schow and Douglas Winter giving the film a thorugh roasting is tempting... that's like letting Stephen King do a commentary track on a release of the Kubrick version of THE SHINING. Uncensored and Unfettered. 
 

Damn.
 

Like THAT would ever happen. It's a fantasy.
 

Just like the Director's Cut of THE KEEP...

FREEFALLING THRU THE FUCKERY: THE KEEP

About the heading: Things are Bad, but this is just the Beginning; we haven't even truly started to get into The Bad Times yet - if you're not Hispanic, Palanstinian, a foreign student or a resident alien, you might find that statement slightly laughable & naive. Being an American, that's slightly permissible, since those who aren't MAGA or MAGA adjacent/sympathetic still believe that there is still a chance to turn things around - despite the fact that we've continually squandered every chance given so far.

While America (and specifically Whyte America - because nothing of note actually happens in this country until Pissed-Off Whyte People get involved) does its Hamlet-bit trying to convince itself it still has a soul), it feels like one is just Freefalling Thru The Fuckery until things coalesce into some definite action.

While that slowly happens - I watch movies. I write. At least until I can't do either one or the other.
Or both.

 

I've always sort of looked down on Michael Mann's adaptation of THE KEEP despite liking a lot of the elements of the film. Mainly because I'm a fan of the novel and it was yet another lesson on Failed Hollywood Adaptations. It's comparable to Ridley Scott's LEGEND which came a few years after and sharing not only the same cinematographer, but the same primary problem - both are visually stunning but the mechanics of story & plot are sacrificed in execution and ultimately end up unsatisfying.
Taking in account that the success rate wasn't very high, to be fair - though THE SHINING, BLADE RUNNER, THE THING and DUNE have been reassessed 30-40 years after initial release, that still leaves projects like the tv miniseries of THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES, GHOST STORY... only CONAN THE BARBARIAN seems to have had the luck to had continued success from time of release to current day.

(One of many missed opportunites in The Era Of Streaming is the failure to attempt more faithful takes on GHOST STORY, which is an OK film - held aloft by the presence of Old Hollywood Greats classing things up, Dick Smith makeups and mainly by naked Alice Krige - but a tepid version of the Peter Straub story and THE KEEP, both which would've benefitted from having 8 - 10 episodes to play out, IMO.)

Many reasons have been kicked around for THE KEEP's failure; a troubled production, mortally wounded by the death of their special effects supervisor early in post-production and the inablility to complete things as planned and then cut down from close to 3 hours to about half of that time and released to theaters with very little fanfare all contributed. The main reason lies in the film's conception - in an interview with Film Comment magazine during the production, Mann states that his initial starting point came after making THIEF; wanting to do something along the lines of "One Hundred Years of Solitude" To quote from that interview, "The idea of making this film within the genre of horror films appealed to me not at all."

One can certainly admire the ambition behind that, but one also has to question the wisdom of hanging all of that on a story that is firmly set within the parameters of 'horror'. For all of the name-checking of Bruno Bettelheim's "The Uses of Enchantment" and stating that the film was 'a fairy tale for adults', Michael Mann couldn't accept the fact that he was making a horror movie and that more than anything else undermines the whole film. In more snide terms, I've referred to THE KEEP as Michael Mann proving to the world that he is NOT Stanley Kubrick - Kubrick, at some level, DID know he was making a 'horror film'.

Despite that, it's gained a solid cult following; mainly due to it being the outlier in Mann's filmography and to it not being readily available, save for VHS and a laserdisc release which has been the basis for DVD bootleg releases. That changed late last year with Vinegar Syndrome's UHD/Blu-ray 4K release (the limited edition w/slipcover & booklet selling out quickly).

So, what to think of THE KEEP now? Well, it's still a stunner visually, even more so with the restoration. This time around, I'm a bit more charitable towards the film and to Mann's intentions, having had more exposure to European Cinema since the last time I saw it. In fact, I think the film would play somewhat better if it were dubbed in an Eastern European language. But that doesn't alter the film's main flaw, which wasn't helped by the truncated runtime.

It holds up a lot better than LEGEND does, mainly due to having a solid narrative at its base. I don't know the history of LEGEND's script other than it started as an 'adult fairy tale' and got softened and narratively more nebulous over time, but the lack of a solid narrative just makes the (admittedly stunning) visuals vacuous. THE KEEP flirts with this in its current version, but that may be due to different rhythms; one can argue that Mann may be being 'pretentious', but realizing that he's doing an American version of European Arthouse makes a case that a longer version, if it still exists, could possibly qualify it as a 'masterpiece' that its fans have claimed it to be.

Maybe. I don't know if I'd go quite THAT far yet...

But I'd be pleased if that turned out. Despite some harsh remarks and Michael Mann CineBro Snark, there are elements that stay in the memory - the visuals, obviously and the Tangerine Dream score, both of which converge in a sequence near the end cutting between Scott Glen's character prepping for The Final Confrontation and Ian McKellar's removing a talisman and starting to exit The Keep, which is the thing that hooked me when I finally saw this years ago.

VS gives this an overdue respectable release with great extras - there's a really informative commentary by film historian Matthew Aspery Gear along with several featurettes - the best being an interview with author F. Paul Wilson talking about the genesis of the novel and his view of the finished product; interview with Johannes Schmolling who was part of Tangerine Dream at the time speaking about their work with Mann and some light finally shed on those KEEP bootleg soundtrack releases; interviews with fx makeup head Nick Maley and vfx artist Peter Kuran; an interview with actor Michael Csrter (Molasar) and a short interview with producer Gene Kirkwood.

As great as this is, there was some disappointment that deleted scenes that've surfaced over the years didn't get included or a more extensive documentary, namely the long-in-gestation A WORLD WAR II FAIRYTALE - which will show up on Imprint's edition coming later in the year.

I guess a better comparison rather than LEGEND, would be to Lynch's DUNE - which I like better even in it's truncated theatrical cut, and is much better when longer (Spice Diver cut).