Tarantino To Re-Edit Inglourious Basterds: Adding More?

[GreenScar]

It got mostly good reviews at Cannes but most said it fell short of the masterpiece Tarantino promised.

Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming WWII film Inglourious Basterds premiered at the Cannes Film Festival the other day to mostly positive reviews, with one person even calling it his best work since Pulp Fiction. The cut people saw at Cannes was 2 hours 27 minutes, a fair length for a movie that’s reportedly made up of mostly dialogue-driven scenes. And yet it seems that may not be the version the general public will end up getting: We will most likely see an even longer cut.

From Tarantino himself comes the word that his Cannes-cut of Inglourious Basterds is over 20 minutes short of the 2 hours and 48 minutes he is contractually obligated to produce. So what does this mean for the movie? Well, it appears that to make up the time, Tarantino will be re-editing the movie post-Cannes, changing things here and there and perhaps even adding an entire scene.

The more the better, I say!

Some of the negative reviews (which thankfully are the minority of them) have criticized Basterds for seeming incomplete, the reason some people are citing that is the fact that he rushed like crazy to get it done in time for Cannes. Some people are saying that he should have taken his time, and presented a rougher edit of the movie, play it out of competition, and thus he would have avoided such criticism.

The reason Tarantino rushed to get it done is because he had the opportunity to premiere it at the Cannes Film Festival. Who the hell would turn down that chance? I know, with the passion Tarantino has for movies, that he would be the last person to turn that opportunity down. He has a history with the festival, with his first two movies, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, playing there (the latter winning the prestigious Palm d’Or award, something which is considered by a lot of people to be a higher honor than winning Best Picture at the Oscars). He was also the President of the Jury a few years back (where he pushed for Oldboy to win the Palm d’Or over Fahrenheit 9/11, sadly to no avail).

However, if the editing rush employed to get the film ready in time for the festival resulted in the movie’s quality suffering, then it may not have been such a good idea after all. Having said that, I’m sure a cinephile like Tarantino wouldn’t let his newest project premiere at the most famous and respected film festival in the world if it weren’t ready. If anything, it’ll give him a chance to make fixes from the criticisms before it hits the world stage.

Do you think Tarantino should have took his time with the editing of Inglourious Basterds or did he do the right thing by frantically editing to get it done in time for Cannes?

Inglourious Basterds is scheduled to be released on August 21st this year.