Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 12, 1995 TAG: 9508140123
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
That's what Sam Peckinpah wanted.
Nothing about "The Wild Bunch" is easy. Controversial even before its release in 1969, the film was recently restored and re-released theatrically, to the accompaniment of even more controversy. Next week that new/old version appears on videotape, and viewers will find that it's one masterpiece that has aged well.
To be fair, some moments do seem dated - much of the macho humor is forced - and the film is still strikingly misogynistic, perhaps because Peckinpah's marriage had just come apart and much of the fault was his. But the film is also brilliant, passionate and as emotionally powerful as it ever was. First though, a little historical background. "The Wild Bunch" cannot be understood outside the times in which it was made.
In his excellent biography of Peckinpah, "If They Move ... Kill 'Em!," David Weddle writes that during the months of 1968 when the director and his crew were actually making the film in Mexico, "Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated, more American cities had been consumed by the flames of riots and the Democratic presidential convention in Chicago turned into a bloodbath." America was also deeply involved in the Vietnam war. Those were indeed interesting, volatile times and Peckinpah reflected them on screen.
The film has become so familiar by now that most people know the story of a gang of outlaws who agree to steal guns for a Mexican general in 1913. It begins with a bank robbery that turns into a massacre more deadly to bystanders than participants, and ends in an extended shoot-out that's been often copied but never surpassed. In the middle is a train robbery that's another brilliantly staged cinematic set-piece.
Actually, the restored footage, about 10 minutes, has been available on tape for some time, but the additional work on the film - made from a seemingly pristine negative, reproduced in the original widescreen ratio and with remixed stereo soundtrack - makes this version the best available. It looks and sounds terrific. The deletions were made during the film's initial release by the order of studio executives. The scenes fill in background about character relationships, and don't really add that much to the story.
Ironically, though, the new executives at Warner Bros. didn't realize that the version they were planning to re-release theatrically had already been rated by the MPAA. The studio resubmitted it to the board last year and was horrified to receive an NC-17 for violence. But before this new controversy went too far, someone realized what had happened and the film was sent out with its original R.
Weddle rightly notes, "Taken at face value, the MPAA's action was absurd. Dozens of other recent `action' movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone and others have been packed with graphic violence that goes far beyond anything in `The Wild Bunch.' Why the double standard? Because it was never the mere explicitness of its violence that made the film disturbing. It was Peckinpah's ability to provoke complex reactions to that violence, to simultaneously arouse excitement and horror in his viewers and cause them to look inward at their own hearts, that gave the film its harrowing power, a power that obviously has not diminished over the last two and a half decades."
"The Wild Bunch" is a masterpiece. Ideally, it should be seen in a theater - a 70mm. print projected onto a big screen with great stereo sound - but most of us don't have 70mm. projectors in our living rooms, so this new tape version will have to do.
Next week: Royal treachery!
\ The Essentials:
The Wild Bunch **** Warner Home Video. 145 min. Rated R for violence, strong language, brief nudity.
by CNB