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Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs  Just read the censorship part of the booklet and have a question. Is the Director's Cut just the x-rated version with the rape of Christ sequence restored, or all the footage removed by the BBFC restored? Seems there was quite a lot removed by our moral guardians! |
For the benefit of those who don't have the booklet, the so-called "director's cut" is essentially the 1971 British cinema version with one scene reinstated (the "rape of Christ") and another slightly extended (the thigh bone scene).
But there's still several minutes of footage missing, presumed irretrievably destroyed - so it's only a "director's cut" in the sense that Russell was involved and that he prefers the 2004 version to any other that's actually viewable. But there's no question that his true "director's cut" is what he showed to Warner Bros and the BBFC back in 1971 - and that, sadly, is almost certainly gone for good.
Because of the nature of film editing back then, that actual workprint would have been physically taken apart (there's no video record of what it looked like, let alone an electronic copy), so the only way of returning to that version is for the original footage to have survived (doubtful) and for Warner Bros to allow original editor Michael Bradsell to try to reassemble it (equally unlikely, since they requested many of the cuts in the first place).