In 1979, Anger resurrected and condensed Rabbit's Moon as a surprise birthday present for Stan Brakhage's seven-year-old son Roark. This was achieved by skip-printing every other frame and substituting A Raincoat's demented pop ditty, "It Came in the Night," for the earlier doo-wop. (Actually, Anger uses it twice, which somewhat negates the effect; an extended remix would not be out of place here.) This "kiddie version" runs seven minutes and obviously omits much of the original--including, most distressingly, Pierrot's fate--well and truly transforming the film into a slapstick, quasi-music video. There are additional moody shots of clouds obscuring the moon that are not present in the original and are perhaps outtakes.
For years the only domestic video version of Rabbit's Moon has been the Raincoat cut, though BFI offered the original edition in Volume 2 of its Anger trilogy. Fantoma's sparkling upgrade of the '79 condensation stands, and capers, on its own.
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