Director Todd Field currently triumphs with his film “Tár” (starring cate blanchett), but twenty years ago he fought so that his first film “In the bedroom” be exhibited with its original edition. That tape was distributed by the company Miramaxwho directed Harvey Weinstein (currently in prison for various crimes), known for discouraging young directors by telling them that their jobs required a version with many cuts.
In a recent interview with New YorkerField said that when he was informed that he should do a second edition of “In the bedroom” he became very desperate, but he turned to one of his great friends. “She was crying in the bathroom. Call to Tom Cruise and I said, ‘Something terrible has happened.’ He basically told me, ‘This is how you’re going to play it. It will take you six months and you will beat him (Weinstein), but you have to do exactly what I am going to tell you to do, step by step.”
Cruise’s strategy was for Todd to let Harvey do the reissue, confident that that version would do very poorly in test screenings. Thus, the director could tell Weinstein about the positive reviews that the film had received long before at the Sundance festival, so that it would finally be released commercially in its original version. In 2002 “In the bedroom” was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture.
Tom Cruise and Todd Field acted together in the 1999 film “Eyes wide shut.” From there they became very good friends, Cruise being the one who encouraged Field to try his luck as a director, leaving him shortly after his long acting career.
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