Audience

The initial three-hour assembly was previewed by selected audiences during the autumn of 2003. Both Director and Studio knew that the meaning of any particular image or sequence is always negotiated by audiences through 'intrapersonal' or 'negated' readings, due to the range of different experiences and emotions that each individual brings to a film. Minghella tested his work on audiences at Edgewater, New Jersey, in October 2003, recognising, 'The movie alters dramatically depending on who is in front of it. There is a value to this process: whether you're telling the story clearly, whether your film is speaking the way you want it to. You can learn. It's a very pungent and visceral experience when you're watching your movie with the audience!'

As audience responses were noted, the Studio sought to determine the work's commercial value and the level of financial investment that would be needed to promote it in the market place. 'A bruising aspect of finishing a film!' observes Minghella, for the experience is always a critical test both of the studio's relationship to the film and of the director's relationship with the studio (and of the director's nerve!)

Though 'Cold Mountain' worked well during previews, its 180 minutes were identified as being still too much. 'How do we address that without being reductive?' asked the Studio. 'Is part of the reason that it's testing as well as it is because it's as rich as it is and will some of that richness be diluted if we shorten it?' Sydney Pollack reflected. 'I feel ambivalence here, because the part of me that's producer wants to say "Press! Anthony, Press!" It's asking people a lot to sit through it for three hours. We're getting tremendously high scores but then we get the little complaints about length. If you ask, "Is this movie just right or almost perfect but a little slow?" 90% are going to say "Just almost perfect but a little slow". That's just the way people are.'

With a final running time of 155 minutes, Minghella's 'Cold Mountain' premiered at the European Royale Charity Premiere in Los Angeles on 7th December 2003 and in London on 14th December. Miramax Films (LA) issued the movie – as a Mirage Enterprises production in association with Bona Fide Productions – for general release at Christmas 2003 (rated: MPAA R).