| The one to watch |
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| written by ESullivan |
February 6, 2006 - 5:19 PM PST |
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5 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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Here's a fascinating Peckinpah film that I guess was considered DOA when released. Having seen this cut, I'm sure I know what they were talking about: it's messy, there's little dramatic tension to speak of, and it's very violent in that anarchic way that Peckinpah had total cinematic monopoly on. It's also thick with Peckinpah fetishes, such as his obession with turning a scene on it's ear through punchy editing style. How about using Bob Dylan as the soundtrack to a gunfight? How well does that diffuse the tension? Almost completely. Which, to tell you the truth, I enjoyed. "PG&BtK" is meditative, elegiac and surprising lacking in cynicism. It really is a gentle film at heart. As for the ending... if there is one thing I do like better about the '05 edition, it the deletion of a superfluous epilogue intended, I suppose, to satisfy those who found the film anticlimactic.
It is. That's the point.
That said, a note about the "special edition" DVD. There are two cuts of the film, the 1988 cut shown on Turner television that replaces raw deleted scenes directly into the film, and the 2005 cut that replaces these scenes while deleting others, changing music cues, and screwing around with Peckinpah's editing. Supposedly their reasoning for doing this was to correct the "pacing", which Peckinpah never had a chance to do. The result is an even bigger mess. Thematic focus goes totally out the window in favor of smoother "flow" for the ADD-addled audience member. And the video transfer has had far too much digital grain removal to make it appear sharp and smooth while, I can guarantee you, no Peckinpah film was ever intended to look that way - much less with the color saturation punched up the way it is. The Turner '88 cut looks far more natural and "filmlike", besides being the superior version.
If you want to experience this film for the first time, better to go for the sloppy '88 version on Disc Two than the over-compensated '05 masturbation edition on Disc One. |
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