Donnie Darko (2001) - Director's Cut Cinema ReRelease

[Dave]

This thread will be spoiler-ridden. I suggest that you watch the film first, or you'll spoil a good one. There is another thread called "Donnie Darko - Anyone Seen This" if you want to know about the film in more general terms

I loved the way Donnie wrote 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds on his arm on the Golf course, the way Samantha Darko asked "what is a *********?", and what Donnie said to Jim Cunningham during the lecture.

But according to the actors commentary on the DVD, Donnie saves the town.

I'm not sure that I get that completely. Was the world really going to end, not just Donnie's world? So, now his family went through a wormhole in the aeroplane and exist in another reality, when the end of the world doesn't take place. That's the only explantion I can think of. (But neither Eddie or Elizabeth Darko were on the aeroplane.)

Otherwise, if Donnie had never been warned by Frank, he would never have done the things that he did; and they wouldn't have gone to Roberta Sparrow's house, and Gretchen would never have had the road traffic accident and died.

I still don't understand why the jet engine still falls on his room in this alternative reality, or how Frank can go back in time and speak to him when he is dead (with a bullet through the eye), or why things would get any better for Cherita Chen.

And who exactly was that fat man in red jogging suit who kept appearing?

Was Roberta Sparrow/ Grandmother Death a time traveller? How did she get to write a book that explained exactly what Donnie saw?

How did Karen Pomeroy get to write "Cellar Door" on the blackboard? Did a famous writer ever say such a thing? it seems doubtful.

Some things were never explained.

Good website here

80's music soundtrack in the film:

"The Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen
"Head Over Heels" by Tears for Fears
"Notorious" by Duran Duran
"Proud to Be Loud" by Dead Green Mummies (cover of a song by the '80s heavy metal band Keel)
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division
"Under the Milky Way Tonight" by The Church
"It's a Mad World" originally by Tears for Fears (covered by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews.) Michael Andrews is the composer of the score for 'Donnie Darko'.

 

[Tabitha]

Just a quick note - will be back later - am I right in thinking that the song "It's a mad world" is the one is which one of the lines is "The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had"?
I didn't catch that lyric the first time round, but it is perfectly placed within this film.

 

[Dave]

Re: mad world lyrics

Yes, it is.

Also as it begins at the end the camera pans around passing over everyone that the story has touched, and they sing:

"All around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces...."

I was thinking that maybe Frank is actually a ghost. Don't some people believe that ghosts are Time Travellers? That would explain why he can be dead, as it is just his spirit. I actually saw a deeper religious theme to the film, but that might just be me....

Particularly in Donnie's discussion with the science teacher and Fate versus Choices, and how you had no choice in your Time Travel if you followed "God's path". At which point the teacher said he could no longer talk because he would lose his job.

If you take that together with the "Fear versus Love" rubbish that they were being taught, I think that it is meant to be an indictment of religious teaching in American schools -- aren't some of them still not allowed to teach Darwin, even today?

And a number of recent films have focused on these American Evangelical Christian preachers who do not practise what they preach. The fact that Jim Cunningham actually was at the centre of a paedophile ring was pointing at that. Whilst not condoning arson, the film was probably correct in the fact that having found a paedophile ring, the police would be less interested in looking for the arsonist.

I wondered whether "things will be better" for Cherita Chen and the other children now because they were victims of the paedophiles. The only problem with that is that in the new Timeline Donnie would not burn down Jim Cunningham's house, and the ring would not get exposed.

I found this site with some answers:

http://www.tonystuff.co.uk/darko-spoilers.htm

The Tangent Universe in which Donnie doesn't die no longer exists, and is replaced by the Primary Universe in which Donnie sacrifices himself, saves Gretchen from being killed, and because he doesn't burn down Cunninghams house, saves his mother from being on the plane (as the other mother could take the kids on the trip instead). He also doesn't kill Frank. In closing the black hole, everybody then wakes up on what would be back on the 1st of October (the start of the movie) and to the news that Donnie has died from a jet engine landing on him.

Because he meets Gretchen he no longer has a fear of dying alone, and he knows that he has saved the town from a number of bad events.

His shrink also admits that Donnies medication are placebos, indicating he's not as mad as he thinks (this is on the DVD as a deleted scene).

No explanation of how the axe got in the bronze statue though.

Why did he burn down Cunnighams house?
It leads events to making his mother go on the trip with his sister, thereby setting up the plane in the correct position to deposit its engine into the worm hole.

Why did Donnie flood the school?
Basically, if he didnt he wouldnt have hooked up with Gretchen, as Donnie says "he was glad the this happened today" as he "never would of had this conversation".

Do "The Manipulated Living" know what happened in the Tangent universe?
Memory of life within the Tangent Universe could be explained as deja vu - for example, in the newspaper articles referenced at Donniedarko.com, Jim cunningham killed himself on the 12/10/1988...10 days later.

"Police searched Cunningham's expansive Middlesex tudor mansion for a suicide note, but were surprised to find all of his furniture and other belongings removed from the empty house"

Which would include all evidence of the 'kiddy porn dungeon'. This suggests that there was some memory of the Tangent Universe but could only be seen as a premontion or feeling of guilt on Jim Cunninghams behalf resulting in his suicide.

So, things would get better for any children involved in the paedophilia.

It's a confusing film, that does not explain everything properly. I think I understand it now, mostly but I will have to watch it again sometime. I've returned the DVD now though.

Not a 10/10 film for me, maybe an 8/10.

 

[Tabitha]

Nice dissection of what was going on in this movie, Dave.

I think the major sticking point for me was Cunningham and the peodophilia. I thought that although he was uncovered in the tangent universe, if Donnie died he would be able to continue doing this horrible stuff. You mention a suicide note and newspapers - are these things from the 'real world'? Implying that he was found out even though Donnie died?
If that is the case this would make me infinitely happier with how the story ends - originally Donnie sacrifices himself to save a plane load of people, Gretchen and Frank, but I always wondered why he might not have paused and wondered whether uncovering a child pornography ring might be more important. Not a decision I would personally like to have to make, but one that surely ought to be weighed at least.

Another thing that still hirts my head is the plane engine....

So, in the tangent universe, we are to assume that the engine that falls off his mother's plane travels through time and lands in Donnie's bedroom, but he isn't there. We know that there is something strange about this engine when the men in black types try to cover the event up - and they do specifically mention that there is no plane it could have come from, don't they?

Now, at the end of the movie Donnie decides he needs to die to stop lots of bad things from happening, but that still doesn't explain where the engine comes from. Does it still time travel?
I was of the impression that if Donnie died, there would be no more strange phenomena, that it was either some kind of premonition or vision that led him to his decision, rather than things that could actually happen in the real world.

Mind you, if it was all in Donnie's head, then the obvious reverberations within the group of people affected depicted at the end would have no meaning.


I think my favourite part of the film is at the very end when Gretchen and Donnie's mother wave at each other - I am not even sure I know why I like that part, I just do.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by Tabitha
You mention a suicide note and newspapers - are these things from the 'real world'? Implying that he was found out even though Donnie died?

They are on a website, but I think I remember the end of the film showed some newspaper reports (not close enough to read though) and this was apparently them. If you just watch the film, the film doesn't explain that though, and I think that is a problem with the film.

Originally posted by Tabitha
Another thing that still hirts my head is the plane engine....

.....they do specifically mention that there is no plane it could have come from, don't they?

I remembered it slightly different. I thought they said that the serial numbers on the engine were duplicates. So, another aeroplane is still flying around with that engine attached to it. That's because it hasn't fallen off it yet.

What about Grandmother Death?

There was no explanation of her book, or how she fitted in to it all.

 

[Tabitha]

I wasn't sure if they said it was a duplicate, or that no plane was missing an engine. I guess they said both.
Still - does that mean the plane will still crash, it just won't have Donnie's mother and sister on it? I assume she "takes the red eye" because she left the kids home alone, and that the new timeline the original teacher that is to take the girls to the competition will go and take the girls home at a more leisurely pace. If not - those girls will still get on that same plane and still die.
Do you think Donnie knew that his mother and sister were on the plane that the engine came from? Or is he motivated by preventing Gretchen's death only?
A plane will still need to crash, and hundreds of people still die, so Gretchen (and potentially Mrs Darko) is really the only one who comes out of this scenario better off.


As for Granma Death, I'm not to sure what her deal is. I got the feeling that she was not that important a plot element - more there for exposition than anything else. Maybe she had a similar experience to Donnie all along.

As I have said before I lean towards thinking the entire tangent universe is something that Donnie's brain cooks up to justify his death. And like a dream elements from one's daily life creep in - he had always wondered what was up with Granma death, and found a way to work her into his fantasy.
I have just had a breakthrough here. After Donnie's death there is no confusion shown over where the engine comes from, is there? I'm not saying it doesn't happen off camera, but what if it DID come off a real plane, no time travelling involved? I had always thought that explaining where the plane came from was the sticking point in the "its all a dream/fantasy" explanation.

if you take the engine-appearing-out-of-nowhere as part of a fantasy, then just about the only inexplicable thing is Gretchen, whom Donnie would have never met if he did indeed die that night, and therefore how could she have been in his fantasy.


edited to add: I just thought about something else that my theory doesn't take into account - Frank. A living person shown at the end of the movie with a grotesque bunny mask. Something that Donnie would never have known about if it was all a figment of his imagination.

 

[Dave]

I think Donnie is disturbed (who wouldn't be) but not insane. I think that is just there to make you guess until the end. I think all the events are real. If I had been more observant I should have noticed that it was getting near Halloween and that the rabbit was just a costume. I think that making it a rabbit (as in the James Stewart film 'Harvey') was just another way of making you believe Donnie was insane.

I think that the engine could still have come from a different reality into ours, without the aeroplane actually crashing in this Primary Universe.

Does anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[ray gower]

Originally posted by Tabitha
I wasn't sure if they said it was a duplicate, or that no plane was missing an engine. I guess they said both.
Still - does that mean the plane will still crash, it just won't have Donnie's mother and sister on it? I assume she "takes the red eye" because she left the kids home alone, and that the new timeline the original teacher that is to take the girls to the competition will go and take the girls home at a more leisurely pace. If not - those girls will still get on that same plane and still die.

I think you have rather assumed that because the plane has dropped an engine, it crashes.
Some may remember the fit of Boeings lobbing engines into gardens in the late 80's, out of a dozen events over a period of 3 years, there were only two crashes. Since there have been a number of modifications to 747's (and others) to reduce the risks further.
If an engine does fall off, it is going to be very uncomfortable, and will undoubtedly wake the driver up. But given some height, there is a fair chance things can be recovered.

Has anybody read the Graham Greene story they featured?
Neen a very long time since I read it and I don't have a copy anymore to check it. But I don't recall major acts of sexual debauchry or drunken vandalisim?
Certainly not enough to get excited about, even for a bible thumping creationist.
Burning the money was more of a case of them being cold in an unfriendly place, but that could be my rose tinted specs

 

[Dave]

The Graham Greene story was called 'The Destructors' and you can read it online here:

http://www.upol.cz/~prager/e_texts/destructors.htm

In the story, a gang of youths smash up the bathroom of someone they don't like. They then set about taking apart the whole house, but it is a lorry that finally finishes it off.

The version of 'Mad World' here wasn't the '80's original by 'Tears for Fears' but a new cover by Gary Jules. It's presently No. 2 in the UK charts and could be the Christmas No. 1.

I also forgot about that spate of Boeing aircraft loosing engines in the '80's that Ray mentioned. That all makes more sense now. The aeroplane could have lost an engine and yet not crashed.

This film works on so many layered levels, it really is excellent. I must see it again soon.

 

[Dave]

from SciFi Wire

Darko Director's Cut Due

Newmarket Films will release a director's cut of 2001's SF movie Donnie Darko, which made a paltry $517,375 in its initial release, Variety reported. The new version will include 21 minutes of footage not in the original release and will premiere May 29 at the Seattle Film Festival, the trade paper reported.

Newmarket head Bob Berney told the trade paper that the company then plans to release the film on about 10 screens in the city as a test run for a wider national release. Newmarket will mold its national rollout of Darko this summer, tentatively set for July, based on how it fares in Seattle.

Kelly, who recently completed the new cut of the film, told the trade paper that it includes some deleted scenes found on the DVD "and some of the extra material I intentionally left off the DVD."

Darko stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a disturbed teen who may have supernatural powers and is tormented by visions of a 6-foot-tall rabbit.

This may include the details in the Newspaper reports that you could only see on the website, but which explained some of the story. I still don't understand it completely.

Donnie Darko is now a huge Cult film -- up there with 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', 'Get Carter', 'The Blues Brothers' and 'Blade Runner'. It is always in the top ten lists of SciFi/Horror films.

I expect that it will do really well this time around, but I think that that the marketing last time around had most to do with it bombing. In the UK we had to wait for six months even for it's very limited cinematic release, and even longer for the DVD to come out.

 

[Col. Jack]

Yeh, but it made a great xmas present for me.
Great film. And I agree. What advertising? The first time I saw
was just luck. I was in blockbuster and just picked it up because there was nothing else and the front cover looked slightly
twisted. I didn't even know what it was about.

 

[Jax]

For me the film has always been about fate. Donny was supposed to die. That was his destined fate. But something goes wrong with the time continuum that changes his fate, and therefor reality. We can only speculate why something has gone wrong, whether it be deliberate to allow him understanding of why he must die, or some freak accident.

I think the wormhole is simply a side effect of the rupture in time, perhaps like some natural defense system of space time to correct the problem.

The point about fate is more apparent if you think of the worms growing out of their chests to indicate a predestined path that we all follow.

The rest of the film is about Donny being steered by various people to realise his predicament and to understand that the universe is beginning to unravel (through the bad events that begin happening to everyone) And that he is the only one that can put things right by sacrifising himself.

The big question is who is sending all these messages to Donnie through other people, and who sent frank to him as a guide. It raises the thought that there must have been some greater intelligence at work to steer Donnie in this way. Someone was definately trying to get Donnie to put things right. I'm not extrememley religious but the only person that could do all these things would be god. This is what stands the film apart from normal run-of-the-mill sci-fi nowadays.

Of course the big paradox is the engine itself. It becomes a question of 'which came first, the chicken or the egg'

 

[Dave]

I don't have a problem with the engine. If you subscribe to the theory of parallel universes it just fell off the same aeroplane in a slightly different reality and came into our reality through the wormhole.

I do have a problem with the way the film didn't explain some things: Grandmother Death's identity being one, needing to be totally familiar with 'The Destructors' and to have to have read the fake Newspaper articles about Cunningham on the 'Donnie Darko Website' being others. I have a feeling there was more in the film that was cut, and that the new 'Director's Cut' DVD might restore them, but a film should contain everything you need to know in order to understand it.

 

[Jax]

Yeah I know what you mean. I too visited the website a couple of times. I probably got the most understanding listening to the directors commentaries on the dvd, and I agree that some of the clues in the film could have been expanded.

What I did find interesting was that when I first saw it, I had to watch it four times over to try and get to grips with it. Normally this would result in me getting bored and giving up, but the film had me hooked each time. I can't remember feeling like that about many other films, and for this alone it has become one my favourite films of recent years.

 

[Jax]

Re: Donnie Darko - Discussion

Originally posted by Dave

And who exactly was that fat man in red jogging suit who kept appearing?

He was the flight official from the beginning of the film who investigated the engine. They obviously suspected mischief and began following Donnie.

Also I was under the impression that Cunningham was spared when Donnie dies. Although people may find that difficult to accept, but I thought the point was that everyone gets a second chance, no matter what they have done. ('god forgives all' kind of thing)

 

[Dave]

I've read a lot of comments about this film basically saying that it is a teenage flick unworthy of any serious discussion, appealing only to kids obsessed by suicide, self-harm and anti-authority.

I would disagree. The fact that there are things about the film that I still didn't understand, such as the 'red jogging suit man' shows how many levels it has and works on.

There is certainly a very strong underlying religious theme to it.

 

[Jax]

Yes, I'd agree. I love a good film that does not follow the usual format of hollywood blockbuster, and really makes you think. Discussions in the pub afterwards are all the more interesting.

As I think back, I don't remember many films that really made me think like this one did. Possibly Kubrick's 2001 space oddyssy (that needed a sequal just to explain the first film), or Cronenberg's Naked Lunch spring to mind. A different class of film, that a lot of people don't like, simply because they don't understand it.

Edit : And how could I forget Alan Parker's Angel Heart (who could forget Robert DeNiro as the Devil!) Quality stuff.

I think it's also worth noting, that Donnie Darko was Richard Kelly's first film, and I think that is exceptional.

 

[Dave]

Originally posted by Jax
I think it's also worth noting, that Donnie Darko was Richard Kelly's first film, and I think that is exceptional.

That's something Jonathan Ross also commented on when he reviewed the film on the BBC. I did a search at IMDB and he has made two shorts which seem interesting:

Visceral Matter (1997) -- about experiments in Teleportation
The Goodbye Place (1996)

He also has three films in pre-production:

Knowing (2004) -- A construction crew finds a time capsule from an old elementary school containing pictures that portray the greatest tragedies of the past forty years, and also one event that has yet to come true.

The Box (2005) -- A small wooden box arrives on the doorstep of a troubled married couple, who open it and become instantly wealthy. Little do they realize that opening the box also kills someone they do not know...

Southland Tales (2005) -- A musical/comedy set in 2008 where a three-day heatwave in Los Angeles culminates in a huge Fourth of July party.

 

[Dave]

from SCIFI WIRE

Star Likes New Darko

Jake Gyllenhaal, star of the cult 2001 SF film Donnie Darko, told SCI FI Wire that he's pleased about the upcoming re-release of the film in a new, extended director's cut. "I know that [writer/director] Richard [Kelly] is sort of recutting it from ... [the] perspective [of] what he thinks it should have been after three years," Gyllenhaal said in an interview.

Gyllenhaal added, "It'll be 20 more minutes. ... I'm really interested to see if it's just kind of going to stay this thing that people want to be underground and in the shadows, or if people are really going to want to see it like that. I'm not so sure. I don't think it really matters to me, but I'm just happy, because things like that don't get a second chance that often."

Newmarket Films will unveil the director's cut with new visual effects and music at the Seattle Film Festival on May 29 as a test for a wider re-release later in the summer.

Gyllenhaal added with tongue in cheek that he and Kelly could have done a commentary for the new release. "We were joking the other day, my friend and I, like, that the new version would be, like, me and Richard doing a commentary over it," he said with a laugh. "People walk into the theater, it'll be like, 'That was such a fun day. I know.' People [would be] like, 'This is the new version? Like, this sucks!'"

 

[Dave]

I've bought the DVD. I like this film for the very reason that I still don't think I fully understand it.

Originally posted by ray gower
Has anybody read the Graham Greene story they featured?...

I don't recall major acts of sexual debauchry or drunken vandalisim?
Certainly not enough to get excited about, even for a bible thumping creationist.

I think that having the book on the English syllabus only became an issue after the vandalism of the school. One other change in the primary timeline would be that Karen Pomeroy would not lose her job because of this any more.

I see the religious theme and question of Fate versus 'free action' much more strongly now. If you notice near the end inside the wormhole the jet engine has only 2 ways to go -- straight ahead, or a sharp turn to the left. I think this ties to Donnie's discussion with the science teacher. He can choose to turn to God's path or carry on another path. He has no choice, he can deliberate about his path, but ultimately it makes no difference to what will eventually happen. All that it produces is that he is able see the Good that he did by being alive, in the same manner as 'A Christmas Carol' or 'A Wonderful Life' showed their characters.