Why is "studio interference" have such a negative connotation?

Unless you really can't sit though a long film watch the longer European cut, the American cut is not only vastly shorter but removes the device of the story jumping around in time via flashbacks.

When it comes to mainstream US cinema I personally think you see a golden age in the late 60's to the late 80's. Around that period creative directors were arguably given the most control, even when things switched from new Hollywood to blockbusters the films were still mostly driven by the creative side. It was during the 90's that the studio's started to reassert power I'd say, CGI and franchises became bigger draws and someone like Nolan became a rarity as a mainstream director with a lot of creative freedom.

Brazil. Terry Gilliam

https://www.thefourohfive.com/film/a...es-and-won-151
Here is a good reason. If you ever saw the original vs. the "Love Conquers All" version you would see what studio interference can do. They ok'd the movie, then the studio heads changed and they did not want it. They basically ruined the film in order to get a short tv movie out of it.

I tried watching Brazil but I had trouble getting through it cause I found it to be way too over the top and pretentious. It was a version around 3 hours and I got 90 minutes in. If that's the Love Conquers All version? I should maybe try to watch the whole thing.

I really like Brazil, mostly for the world building. It's a film you can just spend time with while soaking in the ambiance. I've always thought of Brazil as more avant garde than pretentious, but that's just me.

Indeed, Brazil would be the reverse of pretentious for me as it looks to give the impression of an absurdist comedy at surface level whilst bringing in more weighty ideas behind that.

You might think Gilliam is pretentious (although I agree with Citizen Rules and Mororless) but if you saw what they did to Brazil you would see what studio interference could do. They did not even leave a movie. It seriously was no more than a couple funny scenes strung together by cuts that left each scene out of context. It seemed like more of a form of revenge on Terry Gilliam than a movie. It took a movie with some pretty hard hitting themes and left a fluffy bit of nonsense. Te movie was not meant to please everybody, and it certainly did not. But it was a great movie for those of us who appreciate dark comedy. 1984 meets Monty Python.

Well her perhaps I need to watch it again and all the way through then .

One movie I can think of where they gave the director free reign was Spawn (1997), but I remember reading that the studio regretted this as they felt the director went way too far with action and special effects, and cut out too much background story. So would that be a case of where maybe the studio should have interfered since the movie concentrates a lot more on action and effects, that character and story development?

I guess it depends on the studio interference honestly. You referred to one type in your original post which is producers cutting down the length of a movie, which isn't always a bad thing. But then other examples would be the "film by committee" approach some big studios take where you wonder why they even hire a director. Stuff like the Warner Brothers' approaches to the DC movies, where they'll make some focus group test (or really just watch a popular Marvel movie) and then say "oh yeah we got this feedback so we need this in our film now," like with Suicide Squad becoming a big music video filled with a song every 4 minutes because Guardians of the Galaxy blew up like 8 months before. Not that I'm saying those movies would be perfect if not for the studio meddling, Zack Snyder has been their lead guy for half the movies to be fair, but there have been multiple reports of how Warner Bros. will just change stuff up on a dime because the bean counters in suits have to tailor fit the product to their "market testing or focus groups that are totally the key" and it doesn't ever work out.

I still wonder how The Magnificent Ambersons would have looked like in its original form. It's a great movie, but horribly edited where you can tell entire scenes have been removed that probably helped develop the characters more. Maybe it could have been a masterpiece if it didn't get messed with. We'll never know.

Have you seen the theatrical release of Highlander 2?

The Director's Cut of Brazil, which is the longest cut is 2 hours and 22 minutes. Are you sure that you didn't watch Dune?

Oh it was that one then. I thought it was longer for some reason.

No, I haven't seen any release of Highlander 2.

Because directors are perceived as the main ideologists of the movies they make, so any change made from a third party is seen as against the very artistic purity of the project. I think it's not a monolithic good vs evil thing, but knowing if certain scenes were edited out is, if anything, useful information to understand the creative process behind the movie and how much of it belongs to each party involved.

You probably won't like it if you did not like it the first time. The point is you can't please everybody at any time. If you try to please the most people you are writing and directing to the lowest common denominator, which usually removes any artistic accomplishments from a film, and if you select a specific audience you want to please you are either as successful auteur (Woody Allen, Scorcese, etc) or relegated to independent films. There are some exceptions, but Hollywood is skittish about taking risk for artistic expression. Some of that is because of people like Gilliam who consistently go over budget, or take to much time developing an idea. The problem is that Gilliam usually has something worthwhile when he is done. it is okay not to like Brazil, however, studio interference could have prevented those of us who do from ever seeing it. This is just one movie. I am sure you have favorite movies or directors who have been effected by studio interference whether you know it or not.

Gilliam was a bit lucky in a way that he slipped in via the pythons just as the gate that opened up in the late 60's in Hollywood started to close again in terms of auteur film makers getting significant budgets.

Can't think of many true art films with high budgets made by Hollywood after Brazil, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut?

That is the funny thing about films. They are so collaborative that any person in the creative chain can influence or change a film. The producer, the director, an actor, the screen writer, etc. It is hard to say when someone has interfered with a movie or who has made an artistic contribution. it is not black and white. My reactions in the case of Gilliam are based on the fact that the film was finished, it was already released with some success in Europe, and somebody decided that the film would not be successful in the US based on their standards of success and by underestimating the viewing public's ability to appreciate it.

Nothing should be judged, but we obviously do it, because we can, and because everyone can and do it, the relevance of what people have to say is of no importance whatsoever, which is a good thing if well used. When people realize of the non importance of there opinion, they're not tied up on the perception of what other people will think about it, and in that honesty genuine art is born. I don't believe a director, a painter or anyone should think about the audience, that's why I disagree with what Yoda said, and I believe once you become famous, you are ruined artistically because you're expressing your ideas on the expectation of others. You should always make something that you believe in, it doesn't matter if people either don't understand it, or don't like it. For obvious reasons, greed, studio interference is necessary to keep directors from making things that are interesting to them but not to the masses, because the more people you get into the theaters the more money you get. Art should be an identification with the artist, something of you that you see in a piece of creativity, the less common it is, the better.

It's true that many think along those lines that all creative forces flow from the director...But it's the writer of the film who deserves much more credit than they get, and same with the film editor.

There's a famous quote from Orson Welles, "The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room."

If my memory serves me, most of the studio messing about came at the ending scenes of The Magnificent Ambersons. Orson had filmed a much darker and more pessimistic ending, but the studio re-filmed some of the last scenes and made it into a happy affair.

I heard about this time when Orson was much older and he was in a hotel room, (I think Peter Bogdanovich told the story)...anyway they were watching TV and The Magnificent Ambersons was playing and Orson was happily watching it, until towards the end of the movie when he grew sullen and shut it off, saying the rest of it wasn't his movie.

Sadly most all of his well known major release films got heavily edited by the studio without his permission. It kind of killed him inside and he left Hollywood to do his own thing making small indie films.

One of his most famous films Touch of Evil ended up being hacked by the studio, which ruined the pacing and ruined that extra long, one shot tracking scene that opens the film. Orson was so pissed that he wrote this really long detailed letter (something like 50 pages) on how he wanted the film edited. Of course the studio ignored his request....BUT recently Touch of Evil was restored and edited to the specifications that Orson laid out in his long letter. So at least with that movie one can finally see the masterpiece that Orson intended Touch of Evil to be.

There are other reasons


Some Producers or studios want to leave their mark on a film whether it helps the film or not. Living vicariously through influence on the director, or whomever. They might not even understand what the screen writer or the director want to accomplish, but they left their mark.


Producers don't seem to give audiences much credit for being entertained by anything that might challenge them to think. (Brazil)


To me the difference between studio interference and studio contributions to the film is based on whether they understand and truly want to contribute, or if they act in self-interest and hurt the artistic elements of the film for perceived financial or other personal gain.