Director's cut vs. American cut
Here is a rambling of notes and impressions on the differences between the two.
When establishing scenes Tavernier favors wide shots while the producer tends toward medium takes. The producer used many dissolve cuts where Tavernier used none. The producer trimmed a lot of ancillary movement from the actors. Tavernier used more landscape inserts.
The colors are different. The colors in the producer's cut are brighter, red-heavy, and more "vivid." Tavernier used more neutral, realistic colors.
The sound mixes are different. Tavernier's is ambient heavy; flies buzz on a corpse, a train howls over dialogue, more audible police radios, etc. There is little background noise in the studio cut.
Different takes were used at points. Dave's truck is alone on a road in the producer's cut. In Tavernier's, there is other traffic. There are countless other examples.
Nuances in the editing. When Sykes opens the door after being pulled over, the producer uses a close-up of the exotic door with Dave's sneering face. It strikes a xenophobic, "city man versus country boy" note. Tavernier covers all this in medium.
Now I use the scene of Dave driving Sykes to jail to illustrate different editing philosophies. Producer's cut: Sykes says the body he found was bound by chains. Close-up of Dave. Flashback of the man running in the swamp and being shot. The music is forelorn. Director's cut: Sykes says the body was bound by chains. Close-up of Dave. The main theme music kicks in, letting us know that the film revolves around this information. No flashback. Other dialogue in this scene: Producer's cut: "I expect you back in my office at 9:00 in the morning and sober." Director's cut: "I expect you back in my office at 9:00 in the morning." Director's cut: A train whistle howls over the conversation, absent in the producer's cut.
The above demonstrates the explicit vs. implicit approaches. The producer spells out the importance of the information with a flashback, then spells out the mood with the mornful music, then spells out the alcohol with the "and sober" dub. Ambient noise was probably added in the director's cut to ground the actors in the space. The flashback in the producer's cut is posted with soft diffusion filters, to spell out that it happened in the past - when we finally see this flashback in the director's cut, the shot is comparetively unaltered.
The director mirrors the above music in a scene that was cut from the producer's. Dave is driving Sykes to the man's corpse. Sykes is making excuses about why he didn't show at Dave's office. Dave interjects that yesterday a girl was raped and murdered. Sykes goes silent and watches the shotgun houses in the poor neighborhood. He breaks silence by asking if Dave has seen Confederate soldiers in the mist. Dave says no, but by recalling the aforementioned "theme" music, Tavernier suggests otherwise.
The above example illustrates an internal structure absent from the producer's. It also illustrates how much more carefully Tavernier establishes the Confederate subplot.
I'm going to wrap it up now because I'm getting carried away. I have not even touched on the story differences. I will say every character is more fleshed out in the Tavernier cut. I have not read the novel so I won't touch that either.
Bottom line: In the Electric Mist as Tavernier intended it to be seen is the vastly superior film. I am very disappointed that it has no official release state side, especially as it was shot in my hometown.