'Let's go.' 'Why not?' (Wild Bunch ' The Director's Cut (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Wild Bunch ' The Director's Cut (DVD)
Date:	10.09.05 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A really great film with cowboys and violence

Disadvantages: The DVD could be better

The Wild Bunch is a Western from 1969. Although the violence is fairly tame by today’s standards (I doubt it would get an 18 certificate if it was submitted now), it still carries a faint whiff of the controversy it provoked on its original release. People had never seen anything this visceral in a Western before, and since it appeared in the same year as Bonnie and Clyde, it’s often been hailed as the start of the new, more adult approach to cinema that became prevalent in the 70s.

Set in 1913, it tells the story of a gang (or bunch) of outlaws roaming the West. At the start of the film they’re lured into a trap by a railroad company they keep robbing, and most of them are killed. The survivors flee to Mexico, where there’s a civil war raging, and they end up working for a brutal generalissimo. They’re also being pursued by bounty hunters, led by one of their former comrades. The ending is one of the best in film history; it’s pretty famous, but I guess I shouldn’t spoil it.

The cast is made up of reliable, craggy-faced old-style Hollywood character actors, most of whom aren’t really that well known these days. William Holden, the Bunch’s leader, is familiar from Sunset Blvd and Bridge on the River Kwai. Everyone loves Ernest Borgnine, of course. But names like Edmund O’Brien, Robert Ryan and Ben Johnson aren’t terribly familiar nowadays. Warren Oates, who gives possibly the most entertaining performance in the film, has a sizeable cult following, though. They’re all convincing as ageing cowboys and, although they’re really playing macho archetypes, they all have enough human touches to make you care about them.

It was directed by Sam Peckinpah, and it’s the film on which his reputation rests. He was never allowed as much artistic control over another film, and a lot of his later work is too over-the-top in its celebration of stupid machismo (Cross of Iron is very good, though). There’s a *lot* of testosterone in this film – the characters indulge in an awful lot of macho bonding, macho joking around and macho yearning for the past in a way that I usually find pretty tiresome. It works here for the most part, though, and things that in a lesser film I’d find irritating, I quite enjoy here. The main characters are portrayed as real men, giants in a world of midgets (not literally, sadly); the famous bit at the beginning where children make a few scorpions fight hundreds of ants tells you pretty much everything.

Peckinpah’s treatment of women is famously dodgy, and the female characters are mostly prostitutes who exist solely to please the male characters. Some people might have a problem with this, but again, here it doesn’t matter too much. The men’s attitude to the women is (probably unintentionally) quite funny, so it’s possible to write it off as a relic of a bygone age (the film is, after all, about the passing of the old world). It’s a far cry from the extremely dubious Straw Dogs, which Peckinpah made a few years later.

The film’s beautifully shot, and looks far more traditional than the spaghetti Westerns that were popular at the time. A lot of the incidental music – both the music itself and the way it’s used – is also very old-fashioned compared to other films around the same time (Bonnie and Clyde or 2001, for instance). But the slightly out-of-date feel to it works well in the context, and may even have been intentional.

The battle scenes are done brilliantly. Bodies fly through the air in slow motion, blood spurting from their wounds (this was the controversial bit back in the day). Better than the famous blood-letting, it’s the editing that makes the fight scenes so good. There’s a huge number of individual shots in each major fight scene, most lasting no longer than a few seconds. This makes it pretty difficult to tell what’s going on a lot of the time, and generally makes the fights as disorientating to watch as they would be to actually take part in. There are some more traditional action bits, too – there’s a lovely heist sequence in the middle of the film, and a great exploding bridge, but the main battles are the ones that really stand out. I don’t think anything’s ever done gun battles better than The Wild Bunch.

In spite of the great action scenes, it’s really rather a sad film. There’s lots of almost-cheesy stuff about honour and loyalty, which I can take or leave, but the sense that the characters have run out of time and know it is very well done. On the eve of the First World War, there’s no place for cowboys (as the hand grenades and Gatling gun that appear towards the end testify). There’s a really nice bit where the Bunch get their first sight of a car. They carry on being outlaws because it’s all they know how to do – as the world becomes more lawful and less chaotic they don’t fit in anymore. They’re fully aware of what’s likely to happen to them if they don’t quit, and they carry on regardless. It almost brings a manly tear to the eye. It’s much the same theme you get in other Westerns of the era, especially the superb Once Upon A Time in the West and the godawful Butch Cassidy.

The DVD could be better, which is why I’ve knocked a star off my rating. It must be pretty old, as you have to flip the disc over about two-thirds of the way through the film. There’s a short documentary on side two, which consists of footage from the film, black and white footage of the film shoot, and still photographs. There’s a bit of narration, and some reminiscences from cast and crew (some voiced by actors) – this is quite a nice way to do a documentary, and must have been pretty cheap to make. It isn’t as comprehensive as it could be, not mentioning the various post-production troubles Peckinpah had, or the film’s reception, but I don’t think it was made for the DVD, and it’s enjoyable enough.

The DVD is the director’s cut (the only version available these days). Peckinpah’s films were always being cut to ribbons by studios which didn’t understand them, and this one seems to have been no exception - this version restores footage that was cut from the cinema release, I guess. The picture quality on a couple of the scenes wasn’t quite as good as in others, which may be because of that. It’s quite long (over two hours), but it never drags. And if rubbish like Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now can have director’s cuts, The Wild Bunch certainly can.

So there you have it. One of the few Westerns I really love. I’d imagine someone will release a more impressive DVD at some point, if they haven’t already, but until then this is nice and cheap (I got it for £7).

Summary: If the DVD was a bit better this would be an essential purchase