Twixt (aka B'Twixt Now and Sunrise) - February 28, 2023

[ninfan81]

Originally Posted by willo007

Does this release come with a Slipcover, the reviewer here stated it does, however the copy that I got delivered from BestBuy didn't have one and the pictures on Ebay of the product does not show any slipcover.

My Amazon order had no slip

[Rayjg]

No slip? LG getting lazy

[Adam2]

OK, huge Francis fan here. Gonna report on the differences I noticed.

Mild spoilers


No real noticeable changes until the last half hour or so. The basic setup and groundwork for the story is all the same.

Some shots and details about the young girl "V" concluding her story in the black and white dream sequences are different.

The main difference in this cut seems obvious now. It's the emphasis on the scene on the cliff with Edgar Allen Poe and Baltimore, where he confronts his pain from the death of his daughter years before.

Poe convinces Baltimore to channel his lifelong pain and emotional guilt from the death of his loved one, into his art as a living monument to them. The parallels with Francis Ford Coppola losing his son Gio is obviously the whole heart of all of this. As one online reviewer I read somewhere noted, after all those years FFC finally achieved peace with his son's death in the late '80s by processing and channeling it into his own film and art.

The new cut ends on the moment of emotional catharsis, with great credit work. All the schlock elements of the original ending are thankfully just cut. The silliness of "Flamingo" and the vampire gang is kept to a bare minimum, the "Bobby LaGrange" sheriff/detective character just peters out and we deservingly pay him little mind, and the murders in town and Hal Baltimore's book writing are all left open ended. Again, the annoying vampire "Flamingo" character is kept to a bare minimum and never heard from again at the end. And thankfully, no cheesy text at the end explaining who ended up where.

Oh, and the music throughout seems different. More classical and somber. Much better.


The BluRay.com reviewer is an Idiot. Didn't even see the freaking original. That opinion is meaningless, Idiot. Let a Francis fan actually tell it to you straight.

[Protozoid]

Originally Posted by Adam2

Mild spoilers

No real noticeable changes until the last half hour or so. The basic setup and groundwork for the story is all the same.

Some shots and details about the young girl "V" concluding her story in the black and white dream sequences are different.

The main difference in this cut seems obvious now. It's the emphasis on the scene on the cliff with Edgar Allen Poe and Baltimore, where he confronts his pain from the death of his daughter years before.

Poe convinces Baltimore to channel his lifelong pain and emotional guilt from the death of his loved one, into his art as a living monument to them. The parallels with Francis Ford Coppola losing his son Gio is obviously the whole heart of all of this. As one online reviewer I read somewhere noted, after all those years FFC finally achieved peace with his son's death in the late '80s by processing and channeling it into his own film and art.

The new cut ends on the moment of emotional catharsis, with great credit work. All the schlock elements of the original ending are thankfully just cut. The silliness of "Flamingo" and the vampire gang is kept to a bare minimum, the "Bobby LaGrange" sheriff/detective character just peters out and we deservingly pay him little mind, and the murders in town and Hal Baltimore's book writing are all left open ended. Again, the annoying vampire "Flamingo" character is kept to a bare minimum and never heard from again at the end. And thankfully, no cheesy text at the end explaining who ended up where.

Oh, and the music throughout seems different. More classical and somber. Much better.

Thanks for sharing! You must be a true fan if you could spot those differences. Kudos.

Sounds like Coppola has done it again. His recuts are so underrated for how thoughtful and purposeful they are, and it sounds like this is no different. I wonder if a reappraisal will follow, since the movie's personal dimensions have been brought more into focus. Perhaps the reduced schlock was only there in a half-hearted way before in order to market it as a conventional horror picture, and Coppola has returned it to what it was meant to be all along: a mood piece.

Excited for my copy to arrive tomorrow!

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Protozoid

Thanks for sharing! You must be a true fan if you could spot those differences. Kudos.

Sounds like Coppola has done it again. His recuts are so underrated for how thoughtful and purposeful they are, and it sounds like this is no different. I wonder if a reappraisal will follow, since the movie's personal dimensions have been brought more into focus. Perhaps the reduced schlock was only there in a half-hearted way before in order to market it as a conventional horror picture, and Coppola has returned it to what it was meant to be all along: a mood piece.

Excited for my copy to arrive tomorrow!

I watched this last night and it was awesome. Highly recommended!

I agree Coppola's new cuts are all fantastic, truly a talented filmmaker.

[Adam2]

Thank you, and yes you are right on the mark. Thoughtful, purposeful editing.

OK FFC, now hit MEGALOPOLIS out of the park!!!

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Crimson King

Looking for a US digital code.
PM ME with your price.

FYI the digital redemption for this movie isn't currently working on VUDU

[Adam2]

You know, how misunderstood. And what about Val Kilmer. It used to be like "oh what a bottom of the barrel indie film, story about a bargain basement Stephen King with a real life bargain basement actor and bargain basement FFC..."

Now look at. Val Kilmer can barely speak and looks totally different. What a great performance from him. The scene on the cliff and his emotional reaction had me personally in tears.

[badfingerboogie]

Originally Posted by Adam2

OK, huge Francis fan here. Gonna report on the differences I noticed.

Mild spoilers

[Show spoiler]
No real noticeable changes until the last half hour or so. The basic setup and groundwork for the story is all the same.

Some shots and details about the young girl "V" concluding her story in the black and white dream sequences are different.

The main difference in this cut seems obvious now. It's the emphasis on the scene on the cliff with Edgar Allen Poe and Baltimore, where he confronts his pain from the death of his daughter years before.

Poe convinces Baltimore to channel his lifelong pain and emotional guilt from the death of his loved one, into his art as a living monument to them. The parallels with Francis Ford Coppola losing his son Gio is obviously the whole heart of all of this. As one online reviewer I read somewhere noted, after all those years FFC finally achieved peace with his son's death in the late '80s by processing and channeling it into his own film and art.

The new cut ends on the moment of emotional catharsis, with great credit work. All the schlock elements of the original ending are thankfully just cut. The silliness of "Flamingo" and the vampire gang is kept to a bare minimum, the "Bobby LaGrange" sheriff/detective character just peters out and we deservingly pay him little mind, and the murders in town and Hal Baltimore's book writing are all left open ended. Again, the annoying vampire "Flamingo" character is kept to a bare minimum and never heard from again at the end. And thankfully, no cheesy text at the end explaining who ended up where.

Oh, and the music throughout seems different. More classical and somber. Much better.


The BluRay.com reviewer is an Idiot. Didn't even see the freaking original. That opinion is meaningless, Idiot. Let a Francis fan actually tell it to you straight.

Thanks for the write-up - at last, some clarity. Very keen to check this out.

Would you say the film had any major differences on the visual front? Or was it basically the same in terms of the overall look?

[Adam2]

Visually the film looked just like it did. I don't get the negative reviews about how the dream sequences look. That's how they're supposed to look.

[JoeKryten]

Originally Posted by Adam2

You know, how misunderstood. And what about Val Kilmer. It used to be like "oh what a bottom of the barrel indie film, story about a bargain basement Stephen King with a real life bargain basement actor and bargain basement FFC..."

Val Kilmer was many things but he was never considered a bargain basement actor. He was considered a great actor from very early on but as his career unfolded he went down the path one of his idols (Marlon Brando) also went down: he became so aggravating to work with that his prospects diminished.

[Ruined]

FYI the VUDU digital redemption is now working

[ToonySpoonGoon]

Originally Posted by Adam2

OK, huge Francis fan here. Gonna report on the differences I noticed.

Mild spoilers


No real noticeable changes until the last half hour or so. The basic setup and groundwork for the story is all the same.

Some shots and details about the young girl "V" concluding her story in the black and white dream sequences are different.

The main difference in this cut seems obvious now. It's the emphasis on the scene on the cliff with Edgar Allen Poe and Baltimore, where he confronts his pain from the death of his daughter years before.

Poe convinces Baltimore to channel his lifelong pain and emotional guilt from the death of his loved one, into his art as a living monument to them. The parallels with Francis Ford Coppola losing his son Gio is obviously the whole heart of all of this. As one online reviewer I read somewhere noted, after all those years FFC finally achieved peace with his son's death in the late '80s by processing and channeling it into his own film and art.

The new cut ends on the moment of emotional catharsis, with great credit work. All the schlock elements of the original ending are thankfully just cut. The silliness of "Flamingo" and the vampire gang is kept to a bare minimum, the "Bobby LaGrange" sheriff/detective character just peters out and we deservingly pay him little mind, and the murders in town and Hal Baltimore's book writing are all left open ended. Again, the annoying vampire "Flamingo" character is kept to a bare minimum and never heard from again at the end. And thankfully, no cheesy text at the end explaining who ended up where.

Oh, and the music throughout seems different. More classical and somber. Much better.


The BluRay.com reviewer is an Idiot. Didn't even see the freaking original. That opinion is meaningless, Idiot. Let a Francis fan actually tell it to you straight.

watched tonight, I thought it ended even better than the original cut and was much tighter edited, already loved the movie but this cut is a vast improvement, bless Coppola

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by ToonySpoonGoon

watched tonight, I thought it ended even better than the original cut and was much tighter edited, already loved the movie but this cut is a vast improvement, bless Coppola

Yeah IMO no need for original cut after this one. In fact probably better never watching the original cut lol.

[postmodel]

I’m glad to hear the positive response to the new cut. I like the original but it just felt like something was missing. Looking forward to the new one! My copy delivered today so I’ll hopefully check it out soon.

[Protozoid]

Okay, here's my long book report. I went back and forth between the versions for a couple of hours, but I may have missed some small trims here and there.

I'll refer to the two versions as Twixt and B'Twixt.

The changes:

- Principle change, as noted by others, is the movie ending four minutes earlier in the story. B'Twixt now ends with the scene with Hall Baltimore and Edgar Poe on the cliff. The only new footage in the movie that I noticed is the final shot of the movie being extended slightly to let the final moment linger, and the new title card appear before the credits roll. The final sequence is also edited slightly differently. In Twixt, we cut to Baltimore in the middle of Poe's final line, splitting Poe's line over two shots. Now his final line plays over one shot, and then we cut to Baltimore's reaction. This way, the second-to-last shot of the movie is Baltimore absorbing Poe's message before the movie ends. Helps it land, I think.

- A little bit of the deleted final 4 minutes (V waking up in the morgue after Baltimore removes the stake from her heart) has been used earlier in B'Twixt, around 38 minutes in, when Baltimore is trying to begin his new book and he's doing impressions. In Twixt, he ends up in a reverie thinking about his daughter, then he goes to the morgue. The reverie has been replaced with a shortened version of the stake removal scene, presented as a fantasy. The daughter reverie is moved to the end of the movie and incorporated into the cliff scene. The music from the daughter reverie in Twixt replaces the "Nosferatu" song as the end credits music in B'Twixt.

- Two sequences are combined. In Twixt, the process of Poe telling the story of V and the murdered children was split into two parts. After the scene where Poe describes his process for composing "The Raven", Poe tells Baltimore a little bit about the mass murder of the children. The rest is told at the climax. In B'Twixt, the entire story is told in one sequence at the climax. In combining the two sequences, Coppola also shortened them substantially. Trims include: making lemonade; Poe addressing the camera to say "But the monster caught her and put her in chains in he vault"; and all of the screaming as V is chained up.

- When Baltimore visits Flamingo in B'Twixt, most of Flamingo's dialogue has been removed. Now he just recites French, Baltimore remarks "You're educated. You know Baudelaire." Flamingo responds, "I know the dreams of Baudelaire", speaks some more French, and then the sheriff arrives. In Twixt, they have a longer conversation about the missing girl before the sheriff arrives.

- In all, there are over four minutes of trims before the cliff scene, and the four minutes after is gone (besides the stake-removal scene which was moved earlier and substantially shortened).

Side note, they changed the menu design, possibly because the menus for Twixt featured a couple of shots that were cut from the film.

Generally speaking, I think the trims made the movie more dreamlike. By withholding Baltimore's reverie about his daughter, we don't know much about what happened until the last scene of the movie. The same is done with the murdered children. By not connecting as many puzzle pieces until the end, I think it makes the middle of the movie more dreamlike, and the ending more emotional. And of course, the Twixt version ends more comically. The end result is a more emotional experience, and it feels less like Coppola is using horror and humor for levity and entertainment.

Removing the climactic scene in the sheriff's station/morgue was a good idea, too, because now there are no "real life" scenes after the sheriff realizes that Baltimore is onto him and hits him over the head. There are now no "real" horror scenes in the movie aside from that moment. It's left implied that the sheriff is the stake killer, but that's the only resolution we get.

Also, by combining the two Poe-narrated Chickering Hotel scenes, and removing the final sheriff's station scene, the number of times we re-visit certain locations has been cut way down. I think this makes the movie feel bigger, because we aren't re-using locations so much. And it makes the narrative flow better and feel less episodic, especially in the second half.

Pretty sure the first 38 minutes of the movie are identical, although I may have missed some subtle nips and tucks. Also fairly certain there is no new footage besides the extended final shot.

Another great Coppola re-edit, imho. It's still not one of his major works, but it does feel like Coppola was being more emotionally and artistically authentic, removing the more commercial stuff and committing to making it an arty and personal ghost story. I would be very surprised if anyone preferred the original cut.

[Ruined]

@protozoid Great write up

I think the enhanced dreaminess of this version really did wonders for the film and really anyone remotely interested should take a look at this new version.

I have to wonder if the original version was unintentionally made less emotionally impactful as a sort of defense mechanism, perhaps due to hitting a little too close to home

[Protozoid]

Originally Posted by Ruined

@protozoid Great write up

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Ruined

I think the enhanced dreaminess of this version really did wonders for the film and really anyone remotely interested should take a look at this new version.

I have to wonder if the original version was unintentionally made less emotionally impactful as a sort of defense mechanism, perhaps due to hitting a little too close to home

Yeah, I can't be sure if he was trying to make the movie more commercial, or if like you said he was defensively taking the movie less seriously in the Twixt version. I interpret the fact that he's calling this "The Authentic Cut" to indicate that he's being more emotionally and creatively authentic with this new version.

Knowing that he used to perform this movie "live", I wonder if he ever used to sometimes end the movie with the cliff scene? Was he trying to read the room, and going back and forth between the "sad" version and the "cool" version depending on how he was connecting to that audience?

[blackadder213]

I had mixed feelings about Twixt. I found it intriguing and loved the b&w sequences, but the goofy Kilmer bits felt out of place and ruined the mood. Also, the twist was identical to that of

[Show spoiler]Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool

.

I had no idea this was out until I just now saw it at Best Buy. For $15 I was interested enough to pick it up. And yes, it says 79 minutes on the back.

[Protozoid]

Originally Posted by blackadder213

I had mixed feelings about Twixt. I found it intriguing and loved the b&w sequences, but the goofy Kilmer bits felt out of place and ruined the mood. Also, the twist was identical to that of

[Show spoiler]Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool

.

I had no idea this was out until I just now saw it at Best Buy. For $15 I was interested enough to pick it up. And yes, it says 79 minutes on the back.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

From what I recall,

[Show spoiler]Swimming Pool

and Twixt have different twists.

[Show spoiler]Pretty sure we know from the beginning Hall Baltimore's daughter is dead, at least in the 2011 version. That may be less clear in the new one but I don't think it's a twist in either version. I think the only real twist is that the sheriff is the killer, and that's treated as a secondary plot-line in the new version.

According to my notes, B'Twixt Now and Sunrise is 75 minutes without end credits. Almost exactly 8 minutes shorter than Twixt.