Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut

Richard Kelly's director's cut of Donnie Darko attempts to explain more about what this movie means, but tonight I caught myself wondering...is that necessary?

I sort of understood the first time.  I liked that Kelly's theatrical cut left enough unsaid and allowed the audience to fill in gaps and interpret what we want.  I typically like when writers and directors do that.  I don't need all the answers.

Then again, I've never seen the director's cut before tonight, despite owning a copy of both versions on DVD for more than a year.  Looking at the IMDB guide to the changes between the theatrical and director's cuts, we mostly get extended scenes and minor cuts that add up to quite a different film altogether. 

Regardless of version, there's really no reason (on paper, anyway) for this film to work.  Consider this futile and feeble attempt at a logline: A troubled teenager is awakened in the middle of the night, and he walks out of the house (grabbing a felt-tipped marker on the way?).  Once outside, he is met by a demonic rabbit who tells the teen that in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds, the world ends.  Uh...what?

Still, I love the sequence when Donnie arrives at school.  His feet hit the pavement as he jumps out the back exit of the bus, we get a nice lens flare, and Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heels" leads us to this great, long take, introducing characters in the hall: the bully, the uptight but clueless teacher, the love interest, the bully again.  (I love this song.  Not the only Tears for Fears song in the film, either: "Mad World" is covered under the closing montage, and one easily can draw connections between the themes of Jim Cunningham's hack self-help videos and the name of that band, as well as several of their songs not featured in the film, but all over the airwaves in the '80s: "Sowing the Seeds of Love," "Shout," "Everybody Wants To Rule the World," and so on.  I love this cast, too.  God, I forgot Patrick Swayze was in this, and I forgot he was dead.  Noah Wyle and Drew Barrymore: The man my wife would ditch me for in a second, and the woman with whom I'd return the favor.  I digress.  Let's get to the meaty contemplation here.)

Consider the theme of the Graham Greene short story, "The Destructors," which is discussed in Donnie's English class.  Donnie theorizes that the reason why the children burn the money is that "destruction is a form of creation, so the fact that they burn the money is ironic.  They just want to see what happens when they tear the world apart.  They want to change things."  Later, Donnie confesses to Gretchen that he was once in jail for burning down an abandoned house. 

Compare that to this exchange between Bruce Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth when discussing The Joker in The Dark Knight:

Alfred: A long time ago, I was in Burma, my friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never found anyone who traded with him. One day I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.

Bruce Wayne: Then why steal them?

Alfred: Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Then, if you want, compare The Joker's handwriting to that of Donnie's graffiti painted on the sidewalk under the bronze dog.  (Oh, come on.  The school compares everybody else's handwriting to the graffiti.  I'm just taking another step.)  Not a perfect match, and I'm sure readers with more experience with typography can see glaring differences, but consider the scrawling, unaware of boundaries or lines, and how that might convey a loss of balance or structure in the writer.

The supposed nihilism continues.  Donnie calls self-help guru and closeted pederast Jim Cunningham "The Antichrist" to his face in front of the school.  Eventually, Frank the demonic rabbit tells Donnie to "burn it to the ground," so Donnie destroys Cunningham's house by fire.

Does Donnie's nihilism come from "just being a teenager" or from his association with Frank the rabbit?  Well, now, let's not forget that his parents aren't exactly shining examples of caring.  He comes from a conservative household more concerned with indoctrinating their children than teaching them about right and wrong.  His father stifles laughter when he hears what Donnie said to his gym teacher, and his mom is repeatedly confronted with questions of her fitness as a mother.  Donnie's father advises him to use the f-bomb on people.  Donnie's gym teacher questions his mother's "commitment to Sparkle Motion."

About what, exactly, do Donnie's parents care?

Hollywood seems to associate nihilism with madness, when really, what is seen as nihilism might be an arrested state of existential crisis instead, or just the influence of bad parenting.  While lamenting the existence of Smurfs while shooting bottles and drinking with friends, Donnie ponders the point of living.  Is this nihilism after all?  "The search for God is absurd if everyone dies alone," he says at one point in the film.

Donnie tells his English teacher about Frank, a 6-foot-tall bunny rabbit, which makes his classmates giggle.  Let's not forget: This isn't the first time we've met a protagonist who can see a rabbit.  In Harvey, the protagonist sees a mostly harmless rabbit.  In Donnie Darko, the rabbit is the harbinger of the end of the world.  Oh, and then, because rabbits don't play enough of a role, what is the Graham Greene book replaced with on the school curriculum?  Watership Down — a book about a rabbit who can foresee the destruction of his warren and convinces his friends to get away from imminent danger.

[Forced Inclusion: I also have a pet rabbit, adopted from the Indiana House Rabbit Society (see link at right).  Rabbits, rabbits everywhere, like in that episode of "Father Ted."]

Perhaps the great irony of Donnie Darko is that despite all the evidence to the contrary, Donnie really isn't a nihilist and he doesn't want to watch the world burn; in the end, he wants to put things right and save everyone except himself.  He's a savior figure, not a madman.  He brings balance by sacrificing himself.  A nihilist wouldn't do that.

The tough part about this film is that there are so many interpretations.  This is just one, given a smattering of references and what they mean.  Maybe I'm hung up on this bizarre combination of trivia and semiotics.  Maybe my interpretation doesn't hold water.  Like a lot of stories set to film or written in books, upon revisitation I see a bit more, understand a bit more, question a bit more, and find the whole experience rewarding for different reasons each time.  Also, just so we're clear, there's no way in hell I could ever write a film like this.  Richard Kelly's stuff is beyond me.  I don't walk away with the desire to write my own story.  I just walk away with a tweaked perspective, and I enjoy that almost as much.

Ultimately, I'm glad both versions of Donnie Darko exist.  They work as companion pieces; the original cut is the definitive, while the director's cut is a kind of "alternate universe" version, which makes total sense for a film set mostly on an alternate timeline.