David Lowery Recuts ‘Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,’ With Help from Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Scissorhands. That’s a description that the movie mogul will never live down. But he earned the moniker over decades by often demanding that his filmmakers, from homegrown to acquired, get back in the editing room and make their movies better.

Most recently, he offered indie filmmaker David Lowery notes on Sundance prize-winner “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.” And Lowery happily took them. TWC has no final-cut control over the film, as it only has foreign release rights, which is why Weinstein included the film in his show-and-tell at Cannes. IFC Films is releasing the new edit of the film stateside on August 16. (My interview with Lowery is here.)

Well, according to producer Parts and Labor Films, Lowery rushed to deliver the film to Sundance, and was planning to do some tweaking anyway. And while he didn’t incorporate all of Harvey’s suggestions in his new edit of the film, which isn’t missing anything significant, he used some of them to help get in and out of scenes faster and build dramatic tension and emotion in some key sequences. 

Word is, Harvey’s boasting like a proud Daddy that the new cut is his. According to his producers, while Lowery was happy to get the notes, and there are no hard feelings, the final movie shown in Cannes and at the Los Angeles Film Festival (though not Seattle) was edited by David Lowery.

Given how much I adored this movie, I’ll have no problem watching it again.