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DMark
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21 Jun 2010, 3:27 pm

I wasn't too impressed with the film "Adam"; I saw it when in first came out in the theater. Last week I rented the DVD from the library. It contains five or six deleted scenes.

Had the director left the scenes in the film I may have felt differently. One of them was very important in understanding the meaning of Asperger's. Adam and Beth have a heated discussion right after the party she takes him to, when he asks the lesbian parents about where the bathroom is. Beth is angry with him because of his lact of tact and he flips out because he can't understand how people "read each other's minds". The director said he liked the scene as written, but it didn't work in the finished film.

I am wondering who else has seen this movie and if they agree with me, that if the director didn't think this scene was important then he doesn't really understand Asperger's at all.



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21 Jun 2010, 5:36 pm

I'd have to go back and watch it again to refresh my memory, but I remember being very impressed with the quality of the deleted scenes. I always watch deleted scenes but usually they're a waste of time and it's obvious why they were deleted. All the deleted scenes in "Adam" were very high quality scenes, as I remember.

I can understand what the director means about a really good scene not working in the finished product. I've removed scenes from my writing that I loved so much it was like cutting my flesh. But the writing didn't flow properly with the scene in it and there was no way I could get it to work out, so the scene "hit the cutting room floor." I'm assuming that's what happened to the director of "Adam."

The director's ultimate job is to tell a story. Sometimes the truth that would go into a documentary can get lost from a work of fiction because it doesn't move the story forward well. This is one reason (among many) that it can be dangerous to turn to fiction for educational purposes.


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CockneyRebel
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21 Jun 2010, 6:56 pm

That reminds me of when I bought 'Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery on VHS, many years ago. I've watched it and I've realized that they've deleted and altered many of the scenes, throughout the tape. I wasn't very impressed, to say the least.


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DMark
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21 Jun 2010, 7:51 pm

I work in the film industry, so I understand how and why directors do things. Some of the deleted scenes in this film were not of good quality from a filmmaker's perspective. But of course the subject of this film was Asperger's, and the scene I referred to had cinematic value in and of itself. It dealt with subject matter not touched upon elsewhere in the film, subject matter which approaches one of the most defining traits of autism, what is referred to as "mindblindness."

One of the other deleted scenes, when Harlan shows Adam how to cut keys, and explains to him that he sort of has to BS a little in a job interview, and he doesn't really get it, was important too, but not as make-or-break as the scene with Beth.



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23 Jun 2010, 3:50 pm

Are there any good youtube links.