In Deleted Scene From Oscar-Contender ‘Billie Eilish,’ Young Pop Star Sings From The Rafters Of Radio City Music Hall

By Matthew Carrey
Deadline
January 31, 2022

The Oscar-shortlisted documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry follows the young singer-songwriter’s rise from unknown to worldwide fame. But in a deleted scene from the R.J. Cutler film, Eilish rises to even greater heights – about five stories up inside Radio City Music Hall.

The scene finds the then-teenager (she turned 20 in December) ascending a narrow staircase inside the iconic New York City venue to perform “Ocean Eyes,” the song written by her brother Finneas O’Connell that launched Eilish’s career. She reaches a narrow ledge along a wall, without the safety of a railing or harness. Right behind her, recording it all, is the film’s intrepid cinematographer, Jenna Rosher.

The “free solo” ascent is remarkable for its daring, but more importantly for what it reveals about the artist’s connection with her audience. When Eilish begins to sway an arm over her head as she sings from that ledge, the massive crowd adopts the gesture. Rosher captures it from their vertiginous vantage point.

Cutler and Rosher traveled not just to Radio City Music Hall but around the world to document Eilish in concert, as well as at home. The cinematographer kept in close proximity to her subject on stage, while somehow remaining inconspicuous.

“It was really incredible. We talked a lot about where she wanted me to be, what felt right so I wasn’t distracting, but she wanted me there,” Rosher said at a panel discussion in Los Angeles last October. “The last shot of the film was orchestrated by Billie. Much to some of her management’s dismay, we walked up the stairway alongside Radio City kind of spontaneously, really. We worked it out in the soundcheck, but ultimately went up this side stairway, which really isn’t much of a real stairway, that has a floating wall. So, it’s not really what I would call safe.”

Editors Greg Finton and Lindsay Utz benefited from a mountain of material, much of it shot by Rosher, with other footage recorded on cell phone by Eilish herself or her parents.

“It really was an embarrassment of riches,” Finton commented. “Our first cut really was 24 hours long on this. That first 24-hour cut took us an entire week to screen. And then we added six more hours after that. Then we finally started trying to make the more difficult [editing] decisions.”

Utz added at that Q&A, “I like how R.J. always describes it as like a simmering pot of tomato sauce.”

“It is like sauce, it is like cooking, in a reduction,” Cutler affirmed. “You’re reducing, reducing, reducing.”

One of the scenes that was trimmed is the deleted one here. Watch it above.

Billie Eilish, from Apple Original Films, has earned numerous distinctions, including a Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards nomination as Best Music Documentary, an audience award nomination from the Cinema Eye Honors, and four Emmy nominations last year. As Deadline reported last March, the documentary became a huge success on the Apple TV+ streaming service, “the biggest hit title for young adult audiences that Apple has had so far across its slate of films and TV series.”