Rob Caravaggio Commentaries

Lisa Cohen, interested in her teacher. RC-2013-104: Margaret (Extended Cut) (2011) Your browser does not support this audioIt took a while, but Kenneth Lonergan's follow up to You Can Count On Me finally got seen by audiences in 2011. During the marathon commentary (for, Lonergan's extended cut stretches past the three-hour mark), I go into the legal wrangling that delayed the release of Margaret. I comment on the theatrical cut's benefit's and shortcomings before declaring that Lonergan's cut—the film he turned in—is a masterpiece. (Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker oversaw the editorial paring-down process that produced the theatrical cut, and though Lonergan ultimately approved, I will argue in this episode, he knew his cut was better.) After pointing out some of the differences between the cuts—which include everything from sound design to score to whole storylines that were excised—I settle into gush mode and praise the film's fresh approach to familiar themes. I spend the rest of the epi