I do not like the Blood Simple director's cut. Here is why.

Just an opinion no one else that I've seen has voiced: the Coens' should release the theatrical cut of Blood Simple on blu, because their director's cut is the inferior version. 

I think yesterday at the VIFF Centre was only the second time that I have made it all the way through the director's cut; I just do not care for the experience as much as I did the original version of the film. Maybe if I keep trying it this way, I'll come to accept it, but this is a film I saw and loved so many times (mostly on VHS) back in the day that I have the rhythms of the original cut engrained in my soul. Somehow the omission of certain details changes the pacing, makes the director's cut seem more dour, adds irritation more than quality to the experience, and mostly serves to call attention to the choices of the filmmakers (but not in a good way), detracting from engaging with the story. I used to love the theatrical cut, but the director's cut just doesn't invite the same feeling. 

There is a detailed blow-by-blow of the changes here, but no discussion of the impact of those changes. Many of them I probably could get used to, but the irritating ones - the ones that I think actually screw up the film a bit - are as follows:

In the theatrical cut, when Maurice and the man at the jukebox have a conversation about "Laker's night," at the 9 minute mark, prior to Maurice playing his "theme song," the scene lightens the tone a little from all the grimness and tension happening elsewise. If we describe Maurice, and this scene in particular, as "comic relief," that comic relief, I think, actually makes the grimness and tension stand out more, not less. The absence of this lighter moment makes the tone more uniform, more unpleasant, and a little more dull, by comparison; not that the director's cut is a slog, but it is MORE of a slog than it would be if more of Maurice's playfulness had been left in. 

Also, this scene sets up a later moment, when Maurice comes into the bar and puts on the jukebox while Ray is cleaning up Marty's blood in the office. We hear the same line of dialogue as in the earlier moment (in the theatrical cut, at least): "what night is it;" and have a better sense of the character's habits and rituals from it. We understand that this is not just a song Maurice likes and plays frequently, but part of a whole ritual around the character that the theatrical cut briefly included us in. And again, by removing this material, there is less of a contrast between the rather joyful world Maurice lives in and the rather grim one that Marty and Ray are experiencing - which one could argue is even thematically relevant ("character is destiny"). 

And of course, the final shot of the movie is accompanied by Maurice's song playing again, again made less meaningful because the setup for that song playing has been bowdlerized. The chopping of this apparently trivial scene affects not just the tone of the film, but the way two subsequent notes are struck. 

Another missing bit of light from the director's cut: as Abby finishes up hurriedly grabbing some belongings from her home, Ray, on hand to support her, sticks the cigarette that's been dangling from his lips in the lips of what the site I linked calls a "feral pig statue" but which I always took to be a taxidermized peccary. Another light moment that I used to enjoy, which itself only lasts a second -  my buddy David and I were proud, as I recall, to even NOTICE that this is done, watching it on VHS, as the actual gesture is obscured by Ray's back; you have to have a fairly sharp eye, infer what he has done. Spotting it at all is like a wink from the directors, "good for you for paying attention." Except they've removed it! Not only does this, again, make the film a bit less fun, but the absence of this moment, I think, makes it harder to like Ray. Ray doesn't have much going for him: He is cuckolding his boss, but still is inclined to take Marty's advice about Abby, whom you never sense that he really trusts; and even when he's - can we say, "flirting" with her? - he's very self-protective (he ain't no marriage counsellor!) and inclined to cover his ass. And he's a little bit stupid, really, for example when he mops up blood with his jacket, carries the jacket across the room to wash it in the sink, then mops up the blood he dripped on the way before repeating the procedure. Surely there's a bucket somewhere in the room? And given that there are towels in the bar, why not just use those - why does he need to use a piece of his clothing, tainting it with evidence? Also, he has a line of dialogue, later ("where's my windbreaker?"), that seems to suggest he has forgotten that he's done this. Add it all up and there is really not ever much to LIKE about Ray, to lock in some degree of identification with him, make him seem less like a loser losing and more like a guy you might actually want to see succeed. It's nice that he pets Marty's dog, but for me, the most likeable moment with him, the most fun gesture, the thing that allows that he's at least got a sense of playfulness to him, is the cigarettte in the pig/ peccary's mouth. 

Now absent.

There is also more violence done to Marty's finger during the attack on Abby, a bit later. You see Abby bite the finger. Now it just looks like she bends it a little, so it is a bit surprising to see it in a cast. 

There are a bunch of tiny tinkers - a bit more dirt gets thrown on the grave in the director's cut, say - that I barely notice, that may or may not be an issue, but the next big scene to get trimmed involves Maurice, again. It's like the Coens were annoyed with Samm-Art Williams, or something; it's mostly his scenes that get cut! Abby goes to Maurice's house to discuss where Marty is, but you don't actually get to hear most of their conversation. A little bit of the absent dialogue gets re-inserted in a voiceover a minute later, hovering over a long-shot of the house, but the rhythms of the scene now feel choppy and the voiceover itself stands out as an oddly unmotivated directorial choice: the use of the voiceover demonstrates that the information in it is essential, but if it is essential, why the hell cut the scene in the first place? Like other cuts to the film, you end up not thinking about the story at such moments - at least if you're like me - and wondering about why the hell the Coens seem hell-bent on damaging their own best film (or what they have against Maurice). 

Bear in mind, the only time you see these sorts of voiceovers, I have generally figured, is when something has not gotten shot that needed to be. It's come time for post-production, all the shooting is done, the crew has gone home, and you're no longer on location, but - here we are in the editing room, and the editor and director and maybe the producer are fretting: shit, this scene is missing a vital bit of explanation, people won't understand what's going on unless Character X says something like "so that's where the margarine went," or what-have-you. But you can't afford to get the whole crew back to the location to shoot this line of dialogue you now figure you need, so - assuming you can't just lift a similar line from elsewhere - you just get the actor into a sound studio and you slap the line into the audio track and hope that no one notices that no one's lips are moving when you hear it (or you stick it over a shot of the back of someone's head -- or a shot of a house, which is what the Coens do here). In short, when you see these sorts of free-floating voiceovers, it is generally a suggestion that SOMEONE FUCKED UP and failed to shoot-it-right-the-first-time (or at best is second guessing themselves, not trusting that the scene will play as shot). It is a post-production gesture at rescuing a scene that doesn't play properly. BUT THE SCENE PLAYED FINE in the original, so... whyyyy?

There's not much else I can put my finger on as lessening my enjoyment of Blood Simple in the director's cut (the Coens' cutesy film-scholar intro notwithstanding; that is not part of the VIFF experience, happily). But the film does not play like it once did, for me. And there may be an overriding additional reason for my enjoying it less: the sense that at least some of these changes were done simply for the perverse pleasure of producing a director's cut that is shorter than the original. At least with other films that are less wonderful in the director's cut than the theatrical (The Warriors, Bad Santa, and Donnie Darko, for example), the original cuts are out there on digital media, if that's how you'd prefer to consume them, but that movie called Blood Simple that I loved so much back in the 1980s? This isn't it. It's close, but... no. It just does not feel the same. Had it been ever thus, I don't think I would have watched it again and again and again like I did. I wonder if I were given a chance to view the theatrical cut anew, would I feel an "aha, now THIS is the film I loved" reaction?

There are three more screenings of Blood Simple, all the director's cut, all in the studio theatre. If you know the original and still go, and find yourself irritated by any of the same things I am, let me know, eh? Because I don't see anyone else grousing about this and feel a bit isolated.