Questions:
How do the people who do them feel about them? I would imagine directors would be generally happy about them so they have the chance to go on about their artistic choices and what-not. What about actors? Are commentaries thought to be a good thing? How do the Hollywood muckety-mucks decide who gets to do them? Do the participants get paid extra? Does doing the commentary get written in as part of the contract for doing the movie?
Anyone?
Dunno about much of what you’ve asked, but I have noticed a pretty standard disclaimer that
A) "these are the opinions of <individual/s> and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of <name of studio and/or parent company of said studio, as well as a bunch of other corporations>, and
B) the commentaries are usually listed as part of the “unrated” special features.
So I guess, if some director decided that <parent company> screwed him over on his ‘artistic vision’ and he went off on a verbal rampage during the commentary, throwing in a few choice words that would change the rating of the flick, the distribution company’s collective butt would be covered in a lawsuit.
Jes’ my two cents.
BTW, I usually enjoy listening to the commentariesafter I’ve watched the movie all the way through, at least when they are somewhat coherent. I like finding out how special effects were done, how difficult life on the set was, how many takes it took to get the scene just right, stuff like that. When it dwindles into a back-slapping, ‘you were wonderful, no YOU were wonderfuller!’, smoochy-faced huggy-fest, then, I turn it off.
I don’t know how they feel about doing them per se, but I do know that actors in particular get paid a lot of money to do them. The re-release of Jerry MacGuire had Tom, Rene, and Cuba doing commentary and I heard they all made out pretty good on the deal.
Seems like an easy way to make extra cash: watch one of your own movies for two hours and comment through the whole thing.
Sometimes, though I think this is generally more true of younger directors. There are older directors who have interesting things to say (Scorsese, Carpenter), but you can also tell that some haven’t prepared or given much thought in how they are going to make the commentary interesting. And then there are some (Spielberg, Lynch) who hate them and are on record that they won’t do them for their own films
Again, it varies. The fact that it’s becoming more common to pay actors for their time means that, on some level, it’s seen as a bit of an imposition. Still, you can hear how some actors are really enthused while others are bored, some perceptive in their comments and others tedious, pedantic, or incoherent.
Most of it is a matter of cost. Will sales likely increase if a famous actor is involved? Is that person’s contribution worth the extra money and time spent in the logistics of recording them? I suspect that if a director’s involved in the commentary, s/he might have some suggestions on who to involve as well
Unlikely. If it is, it’s probably from the studio’s side, where the director is obliged to provide a commentary (at no extra cost). Some more powerful directors will have some say in the DVD content (from retiming the film to providing deleted scenes), so the expectation that they have commentary rights might be there, but this would still be the exception, I suspect.