@zinfamous from wikipedia, it seems that an original version of The Passion Of Joan d'Arc exists, but there is no indication if it's available anywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_Joan_of_Arc#Rediscovery_of_original_version
Also the wiki description of the (not one but two) fires that reeeeeally wanted to destroy this film gives to understand that the later cuts were assembled from unused takes; so, it's still the same set of scenes, just not the first-choice cuts.
.. to be honest, i've been forced out of my snobbery for "director's cut OR DEATH" due to too many films being impossible to, well, determine which one is the intended version.
And then also when directors go crazy *coughbladerunner* *coughcoughstarwars*, but mostly when, you know, you are 18 and you want to watch the definitive version of Metropolis so you can brag about how much of a culture snob you are, but there's six different versions and they are all 4 hours long.
i'll be watching The Passion later.
I did watch something in between though:
Gods And Generals -
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279111/ [extended director's cut]
Starring Robert Duvall in the role of General Lee, and .. well, the only other immediately recognizable is Jeff Daniels as a miscast Col. Chamberlain, who gives an excessively long and completely out-of-place reading of a ancient-Rome speech. But every major player in the American Civil War has an actor assigned to the role:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_Generals_(film)#Cast
The film is a Period drama, focusing with some intent on the Lost Cause of states rights, and while the story is seen on both sides, it's mostly centered around the South's efforts during the initial parts of the war. The film ends in 1863 with the death of Stonewall Jackson. interesting footnote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_Jackson#cite_note-39
Now, i'm a sucker for these things. I believe that the slow, careful speech of that era, the complex articulation of phrases, makes for some great dialogue, and the southern "gentleman" accent helps it, and G&G is no exception. Out of a primary cast of 30 there is obviously a few that botch it but overall i found the dialogue to be entertaining. The recreation is average - good costumes but a bit too much reliance on 'splosions, the direction is ok, the photography is average, the score is unremarkable.
It's four and a half hours long.
It took me several days to watch the whole thing, as i put it on after work and infallably fell asleep every time (which is not bad), and had to restart or go back to the last point remembered several times. Think of it as one of those long, well crafted TV production miniseries we had in the 70s.
This is a 2003 film, but it don't look it. It absolutely could be something out of that era where with a horse and a blue uniform, you could crank out film after film after film. And i liked it for that.
It's not a film i'd recommend, but for a guy who's getting ready to hit 50, it's got a lot of nostalgia factor in a modern packaging, without the trappings of modern film. The IMDb rating is 6.4/10, i would give the film a "over 7" rating, something, say, in the region of
7.4/10, assuming one is keen on that kind of film nostalgia i described earlier - NOT a film to watch all in one sitting.
On the topic of the Lost Cause, G&G isn't blatantly racist, but it does very much tell a story from the point of view of a Confederacy who believed that they were going to war over the ideology of freedom from being told what to do, regardless of what that "what" was.
The wiki "reception" section is wildly misleading. For example "
historian Steven Woodworth .. criticized the portrayal of slaves as being "generally happy" with their condition" ignoring the fact that this film doesn't show "plantation" slaves, but rather only the slaves that were the house servants of the plantation owners.
There's more, just like that... the takeaway is that, those who set out to criticize this film, are unhappy that the film depicts the ideals that the characters had, regardless of whether or not those ideals were founded on truth. Kinda like criticizing Wolf Of Wall Street for making Jordan Belfort a scammer.