The Way I See It: Directors’ Cuts January 5-18 at the Quad Cinemas

The Quad presents a bounty of Directors' Cuts for the New Year with 19 titles from Ridley Scott's personally sanctioned Blade Runner: The Final Cut on 35mm to Kenneth Lonergan's preferred version of Margaret—with Lonergan in person!—and many more

While the auteur theory and the concept of director as star had afforded new power and prestige in the 1970s, the increased corporatization of film studios and financiers meant that there would be a lot more second-guessing and contractual meddling. The attendant creative drama often played out in the cutting rooms, but the advent of the DVD and the switchover to digital cinema have encouraged preservation and restoration of footage thought to be lost. Whether defiantly reassembling preferred versions of their work with memories still fresh or thoughtfully revisiting a piece some years later, filmmakers have sought to make clear their original artistic intent—sometimes for audiences’ edification, sometimes for posterity, and/or sometimes just due their own quixotic impulses. There is always a frisson when a viewer experiences a director’s cut of a movie—especially one boasting previously unseen footage. From beloved hits to risky epics to deeply personal stories, the Quad offers you a series of films that reveal themselves to be at once as you remember them and yet different.

The Abyss James Cameron, 1988, U.S., 171m, 35mm
Alien Ridley Scott, 1979, U.S., 116m, DCP
Amadeus Milos Forman, 1984/2002, U.S., 180m, DCP
* With Producer Saul Zaentz's son, Paul Zaentz, in person
Apocalypse Now Redux Francis Coppola, 1979/2001, U.S., 197m, DCP
Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986/2005, France, 185m, DCP
Blade Runner: The Final Cut Ridley Scott, 1992, U.S., 116m, 35mm
Das Boot Wolfgang Petersen, 1981, Germany, 275m, DCP
Brazil Terry Gilliam, 1985, U.S., 132m, 35mm
Close Encounters of the Third Kind Steven Spielberg, 1977/1980, U.S., 137m, DCP
Heaven’s Gate Michael Cimino, 1980, U.S., 219m, DCP
The Last Picture Show Peter Bogdanovich, 1971, U.S., 127m, DCP
Margaret Kenneth Lonergan, 2011, U.S., 186m, DCP
* With Kenneth Lonergan in person
Mask Peter Bogdanovich, 1985, U.S., 126m, 35mm
My Brother’s Wedding Charles Burnett, 1983/2007, U.S., 80m, DCP
Once Upon a Time in America Sergio Leone, 1984,Italy/U.S., 254m, DCP
1776 Peter R. Hunt, 1972/2015, U.S., 177m, DCP
THX 1138 George Lucas, 1971/2004, U.S., 88m, 35mm
The Tin Drum Volker Schlöndorff, 1979, West Germany, 167m, DCP
Woodstock Michael Wadleigh, 1970/1994, U.S., 224m, 35mm