1 hr 50 mins?
I just downloaded this movie and it was 2 hr 12 mins. Maybe they had cut.
There's something wrong with Esther.
Besson cut out a long middle section that didn't really fit with the story arc of the theatrical version (i.e. didn't show Mathilda as a child protected from involvement in his work). In addition, an American test audience responded badly to a short scene near the end of the final theatrical version, so that short scene was cut from it. Besson's only comment about this short cut is that taking it out made it less clear that Leon had no sexual interest in Mathilda.
After the success of the film, Besson created an extended version in 1996, while still pointing to the short version as his director's cut. He described the extended cut as a gift to fans who wanted to spend more time with the characters and it generally appears as the "International cut," as it was only ever released in a few Paris theaters before being released in the DVD market.
Interesting that he refers to the shorter theatrical version as his Director's cut, but at the same time says he would have preferred to originally release the International version theatrically, which I find just a mite contradictory in nature.🐭
shareHe was talking about adding back in the one minute of time where she propositions Leon and he refuses, with his back story, and her happily accepting this. He thought having them just wake up in bed together and then Leon saying he loved her at the end, would send the wrong message about what had happened.
He had included this short scene in his original version of his director's cut, but found that the American test audience was nervous and uncomfortable with it, so he reluctantly took it out of the actual release. The studio didn't force him to cut it. It was his choice. The theatrical release was still his director's cut.
That test audience never saw the twenty minutes beginning with her Russian Roulette sequence and ending with him saving her from machine gun fire (from their last job together). Killing together and celebrating killing in a restaurant didn't add to his planned scenario of Leon protecting her innocence, so he left it on the cutting room floor.
He was talking about adding back in the one minute of time ...No, not according to Lisa Nesselson of Variety. Just the opposite in fact.
http://variety.com/1996/film/reviews/leon-version-integrale-1200446098/
This 132-minute director's cut of 1994 Gallic smash "Leon" ("The Professional" in the U.S.), runs 26 minutes longer and is, according to Luc Besson, the more poignant and sensitive version he'd have released had he not been obliged to excise scenes that tested disastrously with L.A. preview auds.🐭 share
There is no telling what people will say when they want to promote a new release.
All I can tell you is that Besson himself, in his book about the film published in 1995, and his producer in an interview on the deluxe edition DVD and also on the new Sony Deluxe Blu-ray, stress that the only thing removed from this version was the short scene near the end.
Besson reiterated that the shorter version was his director's cut and he alone made decisions about what to cut in a Manchester Guardian interview with Richard Jobson on March 23, 2000:
Q: What do you think of directors repeating themselves, and why did you feel the need to do a director's cut?
LB: Let me remember why...I was happy with the first one, it was mine, my director's cut, no one asked me to cut it. But at the same time you still have 25 minutes that nobody has seen. I think it was the beginning of the summer; in the summer France is like a desert, the people are on the beach, but there are some poor guys who stay in the cities to work, so we decided to make a long version, an extended version, to play in a just a few theatres for the people who stayed. Why are you laughing? It's true!
RJ: It's totally ridiculous.
LB: No, it's true. So we had like five screens and people loved it and sent their friends and then the Japanese called and said: "We want the long version, please."
That is why the long version is called the International cut and not the director's cut.
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There is no telling what people will say when they want to promote a new release.Yes, there's no doubt he's a showman and equal parts producer, as much as director/writer.🐭 share