a great new edition, 31 Jan 2006

I have waited a long time for this classic movie, one of my favourites, to appear on dvd. I saw the original theatrical version in Bristol when it first came out, and then later the Turner preview version (which is the second disc here). Now comes this one. I don't have access to Sam Peckinpah's thoughts on the new version, so I have no opinion on whether this was the version he would have chosen, but it is certainly my favourite (so far - maybe there's another version hanging around??). The commentary on both versions - the 1988 Turner preview and the 2005 version - is well worth listening to.

The only omission I regretted from the new version was the line from Chill Wills about what his "woe-man" was prepared to do with cowboy boots. The editors admitted they didn't understand it - they confuse it with some joke once made by Earl Butz which got him the sack from the Ford cabinet back in 1975, but it's much filthier than that joke. I think this is a commendable commentary on the editors' minds, as it is is one of the filthiest lines I have heard in cinema, but missing it out from the new version detracts from the obscenely humorous passage. On second thoughts, maybe it's best to keep your mind as clean as the 2005 editors by not thinking about the meaning of that line, and for me to pretend I don't understand it...

You can also argue about whether the Dylan vocals of Knocking on Heaven's Door should have been added. Perhaps this is personal taste, but I was really glad the 2005 editors did. Dylan is central to the film, and his inclusion as Alias is needed - he is the silent witness, the writer of what he sees.

Generally, the new version is tighter in focus. The main changes were very good. The scene in which the cowardly sadist Poe knocks out a couple of old men is deleted because it detracts from the focus on garrett and Billy. A scene about Garrett's wife was added, showing how artificial and dead was Garrett's new life of respectability. He prefers to have his sex with several whores at once. There is the added scene with the whore Ruthie Lee, which is abusive and violent - a needed counterpoint to Billy's more sensual sexuality, and crucial to the story line too. Importantly, the raft scene - where Garrett and a family man on a raft decide not to kill each other, a striking few minutes - is rightly brought forward in the movie to integrate it with the character study which is the essence of this film. Now it adds to the lyrical quality of the film's development.

Pat Garrett is the centre of the film, not Billy. If The Wild Bunch is about men getting old and being pushed to the margins of an advancing civilisation before being destroyed, this film is about a man who surrenders to civilisation. He is not going to get destroyed, so he sides with the money-powers which he hates but knows are too powerful to defeat. The slow degradation of character which results from his decision to kill his own youth makes this movie genuinely mesmerising - truly great art. The fact that Garrett is going to be killed by those powers anyway heightens the sense of tragedy, and this role must be one of Coburn's greatest feats of acting.

And what a great decision to end the movie not with Garrett's death, but with the boy throwing stones at him as he rides out - the look in Garrett's whole body indicating that he agrees with the boy. What a movie...the editors cannot be thanked enough.

 Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)