Recently, IFC News was at the Walter Reade Theater for a New York Film Festival Press Conference for the Brian De Palma film Redacted, where the director was found defending his edit. At the end of the film disturbing images are shown in a montage sequence, photographs that Brian De Palma says "all exist on the internet." That may be so, but Magnolia Pictures owner Mark Cuban doesn't want them on the big screen.
On team Cuban is Magnolia President Eamonn Bowles, who interjects from the audience, and on team De Palma is producer Jason Kliot, who gets up on stage to defend the director. Perhaps the two sides should team up, as it seems the photos were not "redacted" from the film because of their graphic nature, but because they could all be sued for using them without authorization. Movie Indie City has a recap of the conference, and another statement from Eamonn Bowles, who said: "De Palma has been on a toot about how we've compromised his film, and then he stated publicly at the official NYFF press conference that in no uncertain terms Mark Cuban, for aesthetic reasons, wanted the photos out of the film. The sole reason that the photos are redacted, is that it is legally indefensible to use someone's unauthorized photo in a commercial work."
Our own Karen Wilson, who saw the movie at NYFF, says "DePalma's movie looks amateurish and half baked (maybe on purpose, maybe not). But for him to conclude his sensationalist tirade against the ineffectual and boorish nature of the US armed forces in Iraq with brutal photos of war atrocities is just plain gross. These pictures of burned babies don't further his simplistic thesis that War is Bad, they just exploit the suffering people depicted in them. Oh, and did I mention that the movie is really horrible and boring?" The IFC blog also gives a double-thumbs down by saying "To take on such a topic and then fumble it so badly reveals in De Palma either profound arrogance or a general contempt for the American people he's apparently looking to inform."
