Is there a director's cut of this movie? I think it was cut up too much and the story line suffered from it. It was cut in such a way that one was unable to grasp the progression of time, the coming and going of characters, and the characters did not age with the time covered. It looks like it covered about 15 years.
shareNope there isn't a directors cut and, considering the film came out 40 years ago, we probably won't see one. Anyways the one released was pretty much what the director wanted. I heard he cut a lot of the sequences about the McCarthy witch hunts in the 1950s because of preview audiences reactions and to keep the running time down.
shareThe cuts made by Sydney Pollack were, for the most part, effective. However, I think he made a mistake with the elimination of two scenes.
The first one appears at the start of the clip I've linked below. It's a college era sequence in which Hubbell admits to Katie that he's aware of the power of his good looks; he's almost embarrassed by it. It's a fascinating admission, and I think it gave his character added dimension.
The most grievous cut was a crucial scene which explains why Katie and Hubbell are parting; it begins at 6:13 in the link below -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDfdzcLD1s4
When it comes to The Way We Were, cutting this scene was (and remains) Pollack's biggest blunder.
Thanks, I never guessed that. Like she said, I thought they split because he slept with an old girlfriend who, in their days on the east coast, Barbra could not stand. Those scenes really plug the gaps. I knew there had to be something like that on the cutting room floor.
My then wife and I watched that movie as one of "our favorites" several times and I never "got" the politics of it until her mother, who lived during that time, pointed it out. My wife and I went our separate ways in 1985 and looking back on it, I never caught it till years that she was like Katie in that she did not like my family and friends. I guess love is blind. I don't think I have watched it again since before the divorce. I wish her well wherever she is.
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It slays me because Pollack, himself, said he didn't want the split to look as if it was over another girl. Yet, he took out the one scene which would've proved they weren't!
So many times directors ruin their own movies by taking out their best scenes. it infuriates me!
Sad to say, the movie we have IS the 'director's cut.' And he sure did cut.
"In my case, self-absorption is completely justified."
please look it up on YouTube. There is a long scene that establishes that she was divorcing him because her political activism was going to get him on the Hollywood Blacklist and she did not want that to happen. It changed the entire meaning of the ending.
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