The Wild Bunch (Special Edition) (1969) On DVD
Actor: Alfonso Arau, Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Cárdenas, Albert Dekker, Emilio Fernández
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Genre: Westerns
Year: 1969
Studio: Warner Brothers
Length: 145
Released: January 10, 2006
Rating: Unrated (Video)
Format: DVD
Misc: NTSC, Color
Language: English
Subtitles : English, Spanish, French
DESCRIPTION:
The three documentaries in this two-disc set seek to illuminate the enigmatic Sam Peckinpah and the power of his film achievements without denying his own ornery, self-destructive failings. The feature-length Starz special Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade features testimony from Peckinpah intimates (including his beloved sister), colleagues (Kris Kristofferson, L.Q. Jones, editor Garth Craven) and critics (notably David Thomson and Paul Schrader). Covering all the Westerns up through the modern-day Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the doc includes extended looks at the underappreciated The Ballad of Cable Hogue and the first of the director's mutilated films, Major Dundee. Oddly, it doesn't note that Ride the High Country, which "overnight" established Peckinpah as a filmmaker, also marked his first run-in with Hollywood: a new regime at MGM threw the film away on the bottom half of a double bill.
Peckinpah chroniclers David Weddle, Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, and Garner Simmons--all heard on the commentary track--also got together for a 2004 pilgrimage to Parras, Mexico, the village that supplied the location for General Mapache's stronghold in The Wild Bunch and, of course, the film's apocalyptic finale. This is recorded in Redman's A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and The Wild Bunch, which intercuts the latterday, not-so-wild bunch's moseying through sleepy Parras with the 1969 action scenes that invested the place with mythic resonance. Weddle: "...you walk around a corner and here's a part of your imaginative life--there!"
Seydor's Oscar-nominated 1996 short The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage assembles black-and-white "making of" footage from the Wild Bunch shoot and, rather than filming new talking-head footage, uses oral-history recollections of cast and crew members mingled on the soundtrack with Peckinpah's own words, voiced by Ed Harris. High point: Peckinpah/Harris's whispery murmur, "I want to do a walk thing..." as the director spontaneously begins to orchestrate the most powerful action climax in modern cinema. Album-jacket promises of "additional scenes" and "previously unseen outtakes" are apparently references to the same material: just outtakes and alternate camera angles, none notably revelatory. Technically, the disc improves on the 1997 release, which split the film over two sides of the disc and was not enhanced for widescreen televisions.
Special Features:
- Commentary by Peckinpah biographers/documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
- Peckinpah Trailer Gallery
- Never-before-seen outtakes
- Additional scenes
- 3 documentaries:
- Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade A feature-length biography of the legendary director
- 1996 Oscar Nominee The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage
- An excerpt from A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and the Wild Bunch
Actor: Alfonso Arau, Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Cárdenas, Albert Dekker, Emilio Fernández
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Genre: Westerns
Year: 1969
Studio: Warner Brothers
Length: 145
Released: January 10, 2006
Rating: Unrated (Video)
Format: DVD
Misc: NTSC, Color
Language: English
Subtitles : English, Spanish, French
DESCRIPTION:
The three documentaries in this two-disc set seek to illuminate the enigmatic Sam Peckinpah and the power of his film achievements without denying his own ornery, self-destructive failings. The feature-length Starz special Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade features testimony from Peckinpah intimates (including his beloved sister), colleagues (Kris Kristofferson, L.Q. Jones, editor Garth Craven) and critics (notably David Thomson and Paul Schrader). Covering all the Westerns up through the modern-day Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the doc includes extended looks at the underappreciated The Ballad of Cable Hogue and the first of the director's mutilated films, Major Dundee. Oddly, it doesn't note that Ride the High Country, which "overnight" established Peckinpah as a filmmaker, also marked his first run-in with Hollywood: a new regime at MGM threw the film away on the bottom half of a double bill.
Peckinpah chroniclers David Weddle, Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, and Garner Simmons--all heard on the commentary track--also got together for a 2004 pilgrimage to Parras, Mexico, the village that supplied the location for General Mapache's stronghold in The Wild Bunch and, of course, the film's apocalyptic finale. This is recorded in Redman's A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and The Wild Bunch, which intercuts the latterday, not-so-wild bunch's moseying through sleepy Parras with the 1969 action scenes that invested the place with mythic resonance. Weddle: "...you walk around a corner and here's a part of your imaginative life--there!"
Seydor's Oscar-nominated 1996 short The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage assembles black-and-white "making of" footage from the Wild Bunch shoot and, rather than filming new talking-head footage, uses oral-history recollections of cast and crew members mingled on the soundtrack with Peckinpah's own words, voiced by Ed Harris. High point: Peckinpah/Harris's whispery murmur, "I want to do a walk thing..." as the director spontaneously begins to orchestrate the most powerful action climax in modern cinema. Album-jacket promises of "additional scenes" and "previously unseen outtakes" are apparently references to the same material: just outtakes and alternate camera angles, none notably revelatory. Technically, the disc improves on the 1997 release, which split the film over two sides of the disc and was not enhanced for widescreen televisions.
Special Features:
- Commentary by Peckinpah biographers/documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
- Peckinpah Trailer Gallery
- Never-before-seen outtakes
- Additional scenes
- 3 documentaries:
- Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade A feature-length biography of the legendary director
- 1996 Oscar Nominee The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage
- An excerpt from A Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and the Wild Bunch
| Product Name | The Wild Bunch (Special Edition) (1969) On DVD |
|---|---|
| This item is returnable | No |
