Cinema Scope 

Vincent Gallo: You have seen the film, an unfinished version. Yes, if you listen to the mixes of "Sargent Pepper's" three weeks before George Martin did the final tweaks, did you hear the record? 

Scope: The rumor is that you're saying the Cannes cut was the unfinished version. 

Gallo: I don't make any excuse for what happened at Cannes. The only thing that I'm letting them know is that this is the same film, it's just finished. It's not that the experience at Cannes made me rethink the film. The film there was a VHS output off my Avid blown up to 35mm. In the blowup I made some contrast and color corrections to make it look as good as possible, but don't you remember the film looking slightly digital looking? Well, now it's a movie. 

Scope: I hear the ending is different. 

Gallo: Yes, the ending is the part of the film that was different from the script in the Cannes version. I had some problems shooting the ending, so I never liked it. It was the only part of the film that I hated at Cannes. I felt that I couldn't have got to the point of understanding what I liked or didn't like about the end unless I had screened it once, even for children. 

Scope: You also cut the scene where you change your sweater ... 

Gallo: Ten road shots are gone. I'll tell you how I made my cuts in detail. The road shot where I took off my sweater was my favorite shot in the whole film. It's still my favorite thing that I've ever filmed in its banal extremity. That was an eight-and-a-half minute sequence beginning after the motel, driving through Colorado and arriving into the night in Utah. In the original concept, the geography wasn't paced in real time, but it felt more linear. The part that separated the film from working conceptually, as a loop, was that segment. It separated what felt like the beginning and the end in a long winded way. If you watch just that sequence, I adored the way that it played. When I saw it in Cannes, it felt like a million pins were poking me. I was going to cut that whole sequence out. But the part that I felt was significant to the story was the transition from him waking up, going out for this isolated drive, then having an emotional breakdown. From that point on, I bring the song in, and the film peters out, dissolves into the night. It never goes into this next sequence of geography. To keep in that sweater scene, it seemed to detract from the integrity of what I was doing in that scene. 

Scope: You cut the bicycle flashback too. 

Gallo: The ending and the bicycle sequence were never going to be in the movie. In the long version, the rough cut with no ending, I did repeated flashbacks to Chloe because I was building towards this sort of plot. In this much more compact version, the film only gets two flashbacks, one at the house, where he remembers her, and one at the end of the driving sequence. I filmed six flashback sequences, to have some to play with. The best one was the two of us in the car kissing… the bicycle shot, in a way, is better photography, but the mood was very downbeat, because of the way she's grabbing his genitals. It seemed to be a signal that their relationship was compulsively sexual. So I thought the more passionate, romantic act of kissing made his turn towards detached sexuality stronger. They were not a couple that were in a six-month relationship of f***ing and sucking, they were in a real long-term relationship. 

Scope: Can you explain what's different about the end? 

Gallo: Can I tell you the end? If you give people the end of the film is it bad? It's sort of a surprise ending. 

Scope: The other one was pretty damned surprising. 

Gallo: This one is equally surprising. There's a freeze frame of his profile. In the original script my character dies at a motorcycle race, he goes around and around and he's winning, then he drives off the track and smashes into a wall. There was too much time at the track already, and to shoot this scene would make the film 12 minutes longer. Then I had him tumble in the van at Cannes. But the place that I always, always wanted him to be at the end was in a freeze frame. I didn't see how effective it would be until I got to the point where I had the courage to end the film that way. Because the film doesn't have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It's a portrait, and in a portrait there's no finality. He's a destroyed soul, he will continue to act out until he peters out and dies. There's no epiphany, no catharsis, no awakening. 

Scope: Why a freeze frame? 

Gallo: I'll tell you where I got it from. Almost like a serial killer who hasn't been caught. He's still the same person he was at the beginning. He's driving, it's after a very emotional scene, he looks to the side, it just freezes, and the sound of the road continues as the image fades out. You see him in the beginning, and in the end, and now you understand the photo that you saw, and you look at it again. And it's a whole different face. That's all I wanted to do; it's a minimalist film. It's a beautiful film. I also cut a lot of his crying after he realizes she's dead. That was six minutes: that's the part I cut the most. It seemed like it went on for a week, now it's way more emotional, I'm way more willing to sit with him through that moment.