By The idea of a six-hour long version of Tree of Life may make some people dry-heave and others a little bit aroused, but despite it’s sensational nature, the evidence to support this claim is actually a bit weak. Apparently Tree of Life‘s cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki was in an interview with French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema when he mentioned that Malick was working on a six-hour version of the oddly controversial film. Click the jump to read the full quote.
I don’t know, I find it hard to believe that someone would make a six-hour version of any movie, simply because that would require an insane amount of footage, but according to Lubezki the original cut of Tree of Life was eight hours long. Though, considering this is Malick we’re talking about, I wouldn’t put it past him.
[via /Film]
Here’s the full quote from Lubezki. It’s translated from French, so the grammar is a bit wonky.
“We maybe have been shot 600.000 metres (around 370 miles) of film. The first cut was 8 hours long. Terry is working on/preparing a 6 hours long version of the movie. What I’ve seen (of this) is absolutely incredible, it’s wonderful. The longer version will have to/will likely, for the most part, relate to the children part. There were outstanding things, we’ve shot many, many things about Jack’s childhood : his friends, his evolution, his changes, his awareness of the loss of his childhood. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say all of this!”