At the end of filming, Leone had about 8 to 10 hours worth of footage. With his editor, Nino Baragli, Leone trimmed this down to about 6 hours, and wanted to release the film in two three-hour parts but producers refused
Does anyone know anything about the strange moment where De Niro is being stalked by a frisbee, then the film cuts to him getting out of prison? I remember in Richard Schickel's DVD commentary he mentions that there may be footage cut here.
It might of been interesting as an experiment to put everything back in but as Sergio's no longer around whose not to say, having seen everything put in, he might have said take that out etc. To have them seperatly allows us to enjoy them restored without making a 'restorers cut' of the film rather like the 2006 Pat Garett Cut.
Hang on I'm confused, they are restoring the footage back in to a new version? Another article posted here said about a new DVD release with the footage avaliable sepertatly not restored back in. The thing is if Leone and Baragli did this six hour cut then there must be a version of this somewhere. In editing it works like this. You first have the work print which collects all the footage together so the editor and the director have something to work from. The next version to be made is called the directors cut. This is the version of the movie the director feels is his and how he sees it. This is then often screened to the studios and producers who make their own versions till a version is made which both sides agree on. So in theory the 6 hour version would be Leone's directors cut which also means there must be a copy of this to go back to when creating the new restoration version. If they can find this they they should be able to use this a guide. Of couse I would like to see how they're going to do the dubbing (i.e impressionists or the original cast)