squarekid - Tumblr blog

[squarekid]

The Re-Making of Grace of Monaco: the Unfinished Cut

In the summer of 2013, I was invited by the now defunct U.S. distributors of a feature film I had written called GRACE OF MONACO to participate in the editorial process for a U.S. theatrical cut. As a writer, it was a rare and unusual position to be in. I had never edited a movie before. Never meaningfully set foot in an edit room. Only seen working cuts. Though I was very reluctant about stepping into the arena, I knew this work was going to happen anyway. As a producer on the movie, it was part of my required duties on a project that had been subject to much behind-the-scenes drama (check press for details). I decided to assist how I could in the attempts to restore some of the narrative focus, tone and characterizations that were in the screenplay but not in the finished movie. So much of cinema is about interpretation of the written word — lighting, dressing, design, direction, delivery and performance — that it was never a process of recapturing what was on the page (even if some of the scenes and dialogue were exact). But about re-imagination and careful detective work. About trial and error. A look here. A smile there. A line here. Page by page. Scene by scene. Reshaping story arcs and character movements. Work that often, I have since learned through post-production on my subsequent movies working with some incredibly talented and giving filmmakers, is ideally meant to be part of an intense collaboration between director, writer and producer. 10 years on, it’s become clear with the passing of time that this experience was a black swan that I will never live through again in my career.  But yet it seems with the passing years, and the changing headwinds in the business, this cut will be lost for good. I'm not aware of any other copies existing anywhere else. It would be a shame, because those few instructive and fascinating months proved educational enough for me personally to share as an academic and historic record (should any film historians find use for this). 

As such, what follows is FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. 

A few words about what you're going to see for those of you who have never been in the process. This is not a finished movie. This is a working print of the movie many weeks prior to a picture lock; the moment the picture edit is done and you move on to other post production work —  VFX, color correction, Automated Dialog Replacement (ADR), looping, scoring, sound mixing, and so on. As such, there is no grading, the film is raw stock dailies, incomplete VFX, temp score, and you'll be doing as much reading as you would watching for all the ADR work. It was meant for many weeks more of input from the director, from the producers, from test audiences. It’s a work half-done. It's a unique viewing experience, but I hope an educational one. Also, no reshoots! The goal was to recut using existing material using the original script for guidance.

So, how is this cut different?

From Melodrama to Drama. A considerable toning down of the heightened style, to get to a more sober portrayal, and more evocative of the era. This included a more subdued and direct form of editing, and a new approach to the score.

Narrative cohesion to center on Grace’s journey and her conflicted relationship with Rainier. At its heart this was a story about a husband and wife who got married first, then figured the rest out later. This is all about POV and the choices Grace has to make to double down on or reject what may have been the biggest mistake in her life.  An unhappy woman who married her glamorous Prince, but now trapped in a grotesque place — except she has kids, and doesn’t know how to get out. It’s a tragedy. A story of acceptance. There is no nobility and quite a lot of sadness to the love affair. There were some baroque moments in the script that weren’t shot (for example, Grace taught her kids not to bite by biting them), that would have helped with getting into Grace's psyche. Nevertheless, the intent was to restore some of the essence of this to the movie. To get to the core of Grace’s self-actualization.

Create context for Monaco. Monaco in 1962 was trying to reframe itself as a tax haven to come out from under French colonial rule. They had rich people, they had grotesque people, but at its core, it was mostly a small provincial principality trying to make the most with very little. Monaco in 1962 was different to the Monaco of today, which Rainier subsequently remade into his vision of unbridled wealth and excess. When he echoes Thomas Jefferson in this cut, during a speech that was in the script but not in the other versions, there is an attempt to understand the underlying darkness of this. That though we may not (and should not) agree with him, we can see where his underlying motivations are what Grace has got herself into.  

Restructuring of the plot in some cases for more clarity and suspense. To more effectively balance the marriage story with the thriller aspects of the coup plot.

Delivery and additional dialogue. ADR requirements were extensive due to the shift from melodrama to drama. These are an attempt to mute the power of the delivery. So you’ll be reading a lot, as you will in context-setting scenes such as the opening “wall of sound” news-reels.

A final word on the much discussed original screenplay, with almost a decade of hindsight. It was written without much expectation, and a good deal of naivety. The work of a young writer starting out in Hollywood, who found a small pocket of history he found fascinating. Did I think it would end up under such intense scrutiny? Never in my wildest dreams. But fools go where angels fear to tread. Reading it back today, it feels like a great early draft, but not yet a movie, and with a lot of story and character left to be mined. For this I’ll need a whole other essay, but suffice to say it needed more time to develop. I regularly use it today as an example for young writers to show the pitfalls of moving to the production phase before the screenplay has been properly cooked. I will also make available the original treatment and first draft screenplay soon, again FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. The treatment I remain very fond of because of the cleanness of its execution.

Finally … is this cut better or worse? Does any of this matter? I don’t know. That’s not the object of this exercise. I leave that for you the viewer to decide. It’s just different. It's impossible to remake a movie after its inception and execution. But the U.S. theatrical cut, as it was to be in an alternate timeline, exists in an orphaned semi-completed state. I moved on a long time ago but Quarantine 2020 opened up some time that allowed me to crack open old files, reflect and revisit those memories, good and bad. Not least of all learning how radically different versions of a movie are possible in post-production with the same material and with creative re-writing. Editing and screenwriting it seems do go hand in hand. 

Amel

Quarantine, April 2020