Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

did ... the Fitzcarraldo DVD include the amazing documentary Burden Of Dreams? That's a great example of the "making of" story being just as compelling, at least, as the finished film.

Ooooh, another in this category is the DVD of The Blair Witch Project. It's the commentary track that's just as, if not more, compelling as the feature. In fact, on the rare ocassions I watch this disc, I always choose the commentary over the movie.

The filmaking process was far more interesting, and almost scarier than the story that was filmed. They got three amateur actors, told them the general outline of the story, and then filmed them (and had them film each other) while they completely improvised.

The actors were left alone in the woods for days. Each morning, different actors would receive different notes about the direction their characters were to take in the story. They also awoke to all the scary crap the film's characters awoke to, experienced the same frightning stuff in the night, and one day had one actor simply disappear with no explanation. The actors eventually became completely sh!tscared, and their freaked out performances were not really "performances" in the usual sense at all.

It's one of the most interesting filmmaking stories ever told, and one of the rare times a DVD extra is arguably better than the feature film.