By Back in May came word that “Call Me By Your Name” filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s next film, the Daniel Craig-led “Queer,” runs for a full three hours.
An adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ controversial novel, Craig plays Lee – a self-conscious, insecure man living it up in 1940s Mexico City surviving on GI Bill benefits and part-time jobs among expat American college students.
He becomes infatuated with Allerton (Drew Starkey), a recently discharged young U.S. Navy serviceman and drug useer from Florida. Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman and Henry Zaga co-star.
The project, which will be a serious contender on the Fall film festival circuit, boasts a performance that is expected to garner Craig plenty of awards attention.
Now though, it has also been revealed that the movie has undergone significant trims since that first screening. Speaking with Vanity Fair, Venice Film Festival boss Alberto Barbera was asked why the film doesn’t have a U.S. distributor yet. He says:
“It’s not an easy film. It’s very bold. I don’t know if you are familiar with the book or not. It’s a short novel that was published only in 1985, right after the death of William Burroughs. [..] The film is fantastic. I think it’s the best film by Luca Guadagnino so far, and the performance of Danny Craig is absolutely outstanding. I think it’s the performance of his life.
Then he goes on to reveal the existence of three different cuts of the film – a hardcore 185 minute experience, a just over two-and-a-half hour version, and the current final version which comes in at 135 minutes.
Here were three versions of the film. The first one was more than three hours long. The second one was two and one half. The final version is two hours and 15 minutes. I haven’t seen the last one, but the two versions I saw were really, really amazing. “
The film premieres in a few weeks at the Venice Film Festival ahead of a release later this year.
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