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Paul Seydor's PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID (1 Viewer)

Richard--W

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Am I the only one disappointed in the restoration of this classic and influential Peckinpah western? I'm disappointed that more footage from the director's Workprint (disc 2 in the set) did not make it into Seydor's version (disc 1). In fact, I wish Seydor had tightened up the Workprint and finished the audio instead of creating a new version out of the Theatrical Release with inserts from the Workprint.

I wish Seydor had assembled a documentary that compares the Theatrical Release to Peckinpah's Workprint, like WB did for THE BIG SLEEP, and then show us how he, Seydor, finished the Workprint. Show us the differences instead of talking about them in the commentaries. Further, I wish he had stuck with Peckinpah's freeze-frame titles in the Workprint instead of the still-life title sequence from the Theatrical Release. The freeze-frame titles in the Workprint have a way of making us remember who these characters are; by the end of the film, Garrett will have killed all of them. I'm not too stupid to understand the difference between credits and intertitles that identify time and place, and neither is the audience, but this is the reason Seydor gives for replacing the freeze-frame titles with the still-life titles. The still-life titles from the Theatrical Release are really nice but Peckinpah never intended it to be there. So put it in the documentary Seydor should have made.

At first glance I appreciated how Seydor re-instates the opening of Garrett being assassinated (in the present) intercut with the Kid and his men at target practice shooting the heads off chickens (in the past). When the Kid fires at a chicken, Peckinpah cuts to Garrett being shot; when an assassin fires at Garrett, Peckinpah cuts to the head of a chicken being blasted away. The effect of showing the impact of the past on the present is restored, and made more effective by some pointed editing. But the scene doesn't feel quite right. The shots are there but the emotional impact is gone. Seydor cuts the footage too tightly. He doesn't know when to linger on the moment, as Peckinpah did.

Two different scenes in the Workprint appear to be unfinished because Peckinpah didn't shoot them to play on their own. John Poe's harassment of some old miners should intercut with Garrett's harassment of young prostitutes. Neither scene works well without intercutting the other. Instead, Seydor drops Poe's harassment of the old miners entirely, and then organizes all the footage of Garrett with the prostitutes into chronological order for his new version. Organizing the footage into chronological order is merely the first step toward intercutting the two scenes, and perhaps trimming the edges, but Seydor doesn't seem to realize that Peckinpah shot these sequences as two halves of a whole. To leave it the way it is, as an uninterrupted soft-core sex scene, is inappropriate and way over-the-top.

Seydor re-instates the vocal in "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" during Slim Pickens death scene, which is good, but the mix of vocal and chorus and music is all wrong. This is inexcusable when there is a Theatrical Release print and a soundtrack album to serve as reference. Much of the music in the Workprint comes from rehearsals and rough takes that were never intended to be the final score. But Seydor uses it instead of the final score, which is in the Theatrical Release and on the soundtrack album.

Seydor also re-instates the crucial scene in which Pat Garrett visits his wife and argues with her. Seydor explains that this scene was in the Workprint when Peckinpah screened it for students and at lectures, as well as on TV prints, but it was inexplicably missing from the Workprint when Turner/MGM issued that on laser disc. So why doesn't Seydor simply re-instate the scene back into the Workprint? Instead he inserts it into his new version. I'm glad we get to see it finally, but I miss it not being in the Workprint.

I could go on and on about scene after scene. I question many of Paul Seydor's editorial decisions, which seem to me arbitrary and personal rather than objective and professional. I also question the need for a new, third version. Terrible thing for me to say about someone I respect, but there you have it.

As if that's not mean enough, the "extras" are amateurishly shot and should have been replaced by professionally shot supplements. The person who videotaped the extras doesn't even try to balance tungsten with daylight so you get that weird look.

I would also appreciate a commentary by the cast and crew. Damnit, I want to hear Kristofferson and crew members talk about their experience making this film, and hear whatever memories come to the surface while watching it. Sometimes commentators need to know when to shut up and listen, or at least share the microphone.

Why couldn't Seydor have just finished the Workprint, added a documentary that compares the Workprint to the Theatrical Release, and then included the Theatrical Release on disc 2? That makes a lot more sense to me than burying the Theatrical Release, which after all is a part of our collective memory. Instead Seydor creates a new, third version. His tries to explain the reasoning behind his various editorial decisions in audio commentaries, but only succeeds in creating more confusion and, I'm sorry to say, a lot of disgruntled viewers.

Let it be understood that for all his good intentions, Paul Seydor's version of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID is neither definitive nor accurate nor in accord with Peckinpah's wishes.

There's a big gaping hole in the history of westerns that could be filled with a finished and restored Workprint of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID.

Opinions?

Disagreements?

Feedback is invited.
 

John Hodson

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Richard; I think you said it all and heartiest congratulations for highlighting this.

I tried, God knows I tried, to understand what Paul Seydor was trying to do but in the end, exaperated, I have just given up. To give it precedence over Peckinpah's Workprint, to leave that less than pristine, with wonky audio, missing dialogue, to leave it - apparently - second best, is not only an act of sheer vandalism, but a shocking, shocking disgrace.

The more I watched Seydor's cut, endured his frustrating editorial decisions, the cutting of scenes and important dialogue, the damn censorship of dialogue, the angrier I became, to the point where I can no longer watch it. Meanwhile, the more I watch Peckinpah's Workprint, the more it underlines my long standing conviction that it's a sheer bloody masterpiece.

I completely agree with you when you say 'I also question the need for a new, third version. Terrible thing for me to say about someone I respect, but there you have it.' I'm completely baffled by this, by the fact that Seydor even wanted to do this in the first place, and by the fact that Warners let him do it. BTW, I'm given to understand that Warners were reluctant even to include the Workprint in the release - whether that's just a rumour, I couldn't actually say.

Let it be understood that for all his good intentions, Paul Seydor's version of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID is neither definitive nor accurate nor in accord with Peckinpah's wishes.
 

Robert Harris

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There are a number of projects, which while interesting candidates for reconstruction, do not have enough extant material -- either because it was never shot, junked or lost -- to make a cohesive final product.
Sherlock Holmes appears to be one of these, as the material necessary to make it work has not been located.
Pat Garrett may be another. If that is the case, then anyone attempting the work will have little room to maneuver. Some of these may best be left as postscripts to cinema history.
RAH
 

John Hodson

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Robert Harris said:
There are a number of projects, which while interesting candidates for reconstruction, do not have enough extant material -- either because it was never shot, junked or lost -- to make a cohesive final product.
That's not the case here Robert surely. Putting to one side, if we can, Seydor's clumsy editorial decisions, in his near pristine cut, for example, we hear half a line of dialogue that is simply excised from the Workprint (we do hear the last half of the line bizarrely in the Workprint), and the distorted soundtrack at the end of the Workprint is perfect in Seydor's cut. These issues, and more, could have been fixed in the Workprint; Warners chose not to.
I rarely clamber on board a high horse, but honestly, giving pride of place to Seydor's cut over and above Peckinpah's Workprint, which was damn near his vision for the film, is, to say the very least, disrespectful.
 

OliverK

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I only peeked into the new cut and while I like Sedor's book on Peckinpah I did NOT like how this plays, the intercuts at the beginning felt so wrong.

I think I watched about 5 minutes and then gave up - Seydor is a writer not a director and he seems to not have the instinct to know what feels and looks right on screen.

I feel sorry for those who endured the whole new cut and at the same time lucky I did not watch any more of it.

Let's hope that Warner will give us a more polished version of the workprint as an HD release at some point in the future.
 

Eric Ten

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I completely agree with all of you, the edits seem for censorship, and tightening of the film when it runs better at a slower pace, if PGABTK was a song, it would be a ballad, some of my favorite dialog was ommited and they cleaned up the new cut?

lets face it ,they remastered the wrong version.
 

AlexCosmo

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I remember being a little confused when watching the extras. Do we know exactly what Peckinpah's involvement in the theatrical version was? I thought they claimed it actually WAS his version, only missing the bookends and Pat's wife, which they simply restored? But then, it was mentioned that the final freeze frame was chosen by the new editors, which confused me more. Why do that at all? (Is there anyplace to read a breakdown of the who-did-what-and-why of each difference between disc 1 and 2?)
 

Richard--W

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Robert Harris said:
There are a number of projects, which while interesting candidates for reconstruction, do not have enough extant material -- either because it was never shot, junked or lost -- to make a cohesive final product.
Sherlock Holmes appears to be one of these, as the material necessary to make it work has not been located.
Pat Garrett may be another. If that is the case, then anyone attempting the work will have little room to maneuver. Some of these may best be left as postscripts to cinema history.
RAH
Which projects? I'd like to know.
That's not the case here. Nothing was lost or destroyed. All the footage and all the elements survive in excellent condition and were used by Seydor to assemble his new version of the film.
Peckinpah had everything he needed to assemble his Workprint. The editing was never completed because James Aubry had different plans for the film. As you know, Aubry was the notorious head of MGM whose willful sabotage of several important films is now a matter of record. The Theatrical Release print was a compromise that favored Aubrey over Peckinpah, and how it came to be that way is fully documented in the books about Peckinpah written by Seydor, Simmons, Weddle and others.
Peckinpah left a Workprint that expresses his intentions quite clearly. It's a preliminary; shots begin to soon and trail off at the end. Score and sound effects are missing. It never completed the editing stage. It hasn't been color timed. This is on disc 2 of the WHV set. When Aubry saw the Workprint which Peckinpah was fine-tuning into a final cut, he forced Peckinpah to bargain for the inclusion of some things at the expense of other things. Some of the cuts and alterations imposed by Aubry were substantial, but most were tiny little bits and pieces scattered here and there. That bargaining became the Theatrical Release. Between the two versions, and all the raw footage in the vaults, everything needed to restore and finish the Workprint survives in fine condition.
The Theatrical Release is particularly useful for scoring and color timing the Workprint; Peckinpah's autumnal aesthetic was breathtaking to see in cinemas in 1973, and Dylan's music contributed mightily to the atmosphere.
The issue here is Paul Seydor's editorial decisions in assembling a third version. Actually, some of his editorial decisions are very astute and I agree with them. The film is strengthened by placing the raft sequence earlier in the story, for example. The Kid's ride away from jail seems less like wandering and more like he's headed to a specific place, Fort Sumner. And the scene with Barry Sullivan as John Chisum now occupies its rightful place in the narrative. This fine-tuning should have been done to the Workprint.
But overall Seydor's new version does as much injury to the film as Aubry's Theatrical Release version. For example, Seydor scraps the ending from the Workprint. The ending is supposed to bring us back to the beginning. Garrett is being assassinated, and the whole film is his memory, or guilty conscience, his life flashing before his eyes. The lethargic pace, Garrett's weariness, the sad dirge-like music, and autumnal color make sense in a dying man's last moments. When Garrett hits the ground at the end, his life -- the film -- is over. But Seydor stops the film prematurely, with Garrett riding away and a boy throwing stones at him. That's Garrett's last memory, a boy throwing stones at him as he rides away from killing Billy the Kid, and then he hits the ground in the present under a barrage of bullets. But Garrett doesn't hit the ground at the end of Seydor's version. It's a brutal thing to do, eliminating the larger context in which the story unfolds. In the commentaries Seydor explains why he cuts this ending -- he thinks that Garrett riding away is one ending and that hitting the ground in death is another ending which conflict with each other -- but it sounds like wishful thinking to me. Everybody disagrees with Seydor on the ending, and I mean everybody, but he remains defiant. Seydor is going to end Peckinpah's story Seydor's way.
How the film opens and closes draws into question Seydor's competence as an editor. Garrett is being assassinated, and he falls off the wagon toward the ground in slow motion. Peckinpah freezes the frame of Garrett in mid-air. Obviously Peckinpah intends to prolong the moment of death right up to the very last moment of the film. Seydor's mistake comes when he shows Garrett hitting the ground dead at the beginning. That shot of Garrett hitting the ground dead belongs at the end. It makes no sense to restore the opening without also restoring the ending. There are too many errors of judgment in Seydor's version.
Is this how Warner Home Video plans to leave it? Can't there be a 1.5 or a 2.0 ? Is there no justice for PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID?
 

John Hodson

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AlexCosmo said:
I remember being a little confused when watching the extras. Do we know exactly what Peckinpah's involvement in the theatrical version was?
In his book If They Move...Kill 'Em David Weddle recounts how Peckinpah screened a preview print for the MGM brass; they thought it was a first cut, hated the pacing, the vignettes, the 'strange characters', while Sam considered it virtually completed.
James Aubrey then ordered the film to be butchered (the 'Theatrical version') without Sam's knowledge, while this was taking place, Peckinpah found out and stole the Workprint from right under their noses, kept it, showed it to a few blessed friends up until it was 'rediscovered' after his death. Vindictively Aubrey ordered the removal of more scenes to the theatrical version, according the Weddle, 'for no other reason than Sam didn't want them cut.'
EDIT - Richard explains it more coherently than I.
 

Robert Harris

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Mr. Gross is entirely correct.
I should also note that I'm totally unqualified to make any judgments regarding the film, as although a Peckinpah fan, know it only tangentially.
RAH
 

DaveRU

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Nice to see support for the 1988 Turner Cut. Around the time of the DVD release, I was amazed at all the praise for the 2005 abomination.
As a side note I created my own edit for personal viewing, using the 1988 version and adding the two new extra scenes from the 2005 version and a couple of beautiful establishing shots. I didn't move the raft scene or mess with the soundtrack either :D
 

walter o

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OK, I am confused here, you mean the widescreen VHS that came out around 1988, that also was released on LD (in a gatefold, had Kristofferson's face, with his hand near his chin dominating the sleeve), of the (around) 123 minute cut (one that begins with Pat garrett getting killed) is NOT on the current DVD , nor is the more widely available in the vhs days, the 106 minute cut?
 

AlexCosmo

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It's a 2 disc set with two versions. The one you mention that was on laserdisc etc. IS included, plus this newly created version. No theatrical cut.
 

Richard--W

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walter o said:
OK, I am confused here, you mean the widescreen VHS that came out around 1988, that also was released on LD (in a gatefold, had Kristofferson's face, with his hand near his chin dominating the sleeve), of the (around) 123 minute cut (one that begins with Pat garrett getting killed) is NOT on the current DVD , nor is the more widely available in the vhs days, the 106 minute cut?
AlexCosmo is correct.
Let's review all the versions of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID.
1. Theatrical Release 1973:
James Aubrey, the rapacious head of MGM, wanted a quickie western to make some fast money for the ailing studio. He forced Sam Peckinpah and his editing team to rush the post-production process, preventing Peckinpah from completing his version. Aubrey also forced Peckinpah to cut key dramatic scenes and do extensive trimming throughout. Important and substantial footage was cut, including an opening and close in which Pat Garrett is assassinated, and Pat Garrett's visit to his wife. Alternative master shots were used instead of coverage (which would have taken more time to edit).
Although badly compromised, the timing and pacing is Peckinpah's. The resulting l06 minutes favored action over character and ambiance, but it looked, sounded and felt spectacular when it was released to cinemas 23 May 1973. The aesthetics of the film blew audiences and critics away. People who saw this version in the cinemas have never been able to forget it.
The popularity of the soundtrack album -- a first for a Peckinpah
film -- and the hit single "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" -- another first for a Peckinpah film -- boosted the film's box-office immensely.
The Theatrical Release also circulated to libraries, movie clubs and museums on 16mm in full-screen, although I understand these prints have been withdrawn from circulation now.
MGM put the Theatrical Release on a pan-and-scan full-screen VHS in 1984 in an over-sized cardboard box with a gatefold cover that faithfully reproduced the poster art. It's now out of print. No Peckinpah fan should be without it.
2. Peckinpah's Workprint 1972-1973:
The director made a rough assembly that never completed the editing or post-production phases. Many sound effects are missing, dialog is out of balance, and there is a temporary score to indicate where music would goes when sound editing and scoring are completed. Some scenes are incomplete, other scenes are nearly complete, and other scenes are just raw footage. Beginnings and endings aren't trimmed, where to put certain shots isn't decided, and the duration of individual shots and sequences isn't fully worked out. But all the footage Peckinpah intended to include in the movie is organized in this Workprint.
According to the Peckinpah Posse, more than one dupe or copy of this Workprint exists. The copy which Peckinpah screened at lectures and for students has the scene in which Pat Garrett visits his wife and a written legend to conclude the story at the end titles. The other copy, which got aired on the Z channel and released on home video, inexplicably omitted both pieces.
Peckinpah's Workprint has also been known as the Z Channel Version, the Preview Cut, The Turner Preview Version, the Director's Cut, and the 1988 Turner Version. All these terms refer to Peckinpah's Workprint.
MGM/Turner released Peckinpah's Workprint on a VHS in full screen and on a laser-disc in widescreen in 1988. Both are out-of-print but still obtainable from used sources like ebay etc. In 2005, Warner Home Video re-released this same Workprint as a supplement in a Special Edition two-disc DVD set.
It is important to note here that Peckinpah's Workprint was inaccurately identified as a Director's Cut on the laser disc. This has created a misunderstanding. It is not a Director's Cut. But it would have become the Director's Cut if the director had finished it.
Repeated viewings of Peckinpah's Workprint on home video have caused fans to re-evaluate the Theatrical Release as well as #4, below.
3. Various Television Versions 1979:
The violence, aggression, and sexuality of the Theatrical Release had to be toned down for network and cable airings in the late 1970s and 1980s. The networks cut so much time from the Theatrical Release that they had to take substitute footage from a copy of the Workprint. Before the Workprint was actually released, Peckinpah fans got a hint of what it contained by videotaping television broadcasts which combined both versions in various
ways at various times. So far as I've been able to ascertain, if you have #1 Theatrical Release and #2 Peckinpah's Workprint, you have everything that was in the Various Television Versions.
4. Seydor's Version 2005:
Film editor and Peckinpah biographer/collector Paul Seydor enjoyed the full co-operation of Warner Brothers and MGM in creating his new version of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID for DVD. He had access to all the footage, all the elements, all the different versions. He also had the added advantages of both a personal acquaintance with Sam Peckinpah before the director died and a lifetime's study of Peckinpah's films.
The WHV / MGM special edition DVD release of PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID is indispensable. It contains Seydor's new version of the film as well as a slightly deteriorated Peckinpah's Workprint on disc 2. Many viewers, after getting to know Peckinpah's Workprint, express dissatisfaction with the Seydor Version.
Seydor's Version has also replaced the Theatrical Release and Peckinpah's Workprint for repertory screenings and festivals. In fact it screens tonight at the Albuquerque Museum.
 

AlexCosmo

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Just curious, is the 2005 version basically just the theatrical version, plus the prologue, Pat's wife, and a different final freeze frame? Maybe the 05 cut is mostly inspired by cost/convenience? The theatrical version is already in the best shape, and the "preview" version would be more generations away from the original negative. (Is it even possible to visually match up all the little bits from the preview version with the higher quality theatrical version, or would the quality drop every time a piece of the preview was dropped in? )
 

Richard--W

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AlexCosmo said:
Just curious, is the 2005 version basically just the theatrical version, plus the prologue, Pat's wife, and a different final freeze frame? Maybe the 05 cut is mostly inspired by cost/convenience? The theatrical version is already in the best shape, and the "preview" version would be more generations away from the original negative. (Is it even possible to visually match up all the little bits from the preview version with the higher quality theatrical version, or would the quality drop every time a piece of the preview was dropped in? )
The first question is not easily answered. Listen to the commentary on Seydor's Version (disc 1 in the set). Seydor explains that his version is mainly the Theatrical Release because that was the final version edited by Peckinpah and his staff. But elsewhere, he says the Theatrical Release wasn't edited by Peckinpah. How to sort out these contradictions is the problem. At the bottom line, there is always Peckinpah's Workprint (disc 2 in the set) to serve as a control; that makes his intentions very clear. The commentary on the Workprint is fascinating for all sorts of reasons, but it's full of contradictions, too.
These commentaries are another reason why a documentary that compares, visually, the different footage in the Workprint from the Theatrical Release is absolutely necessary. A simple comparative documentary helped to elucidate the differences between the preview version of THE BIG SLEEP (1944) and the final release version (1946) with its retakes and added scenes on a WHV DVD. A similar feature helped to elucidate MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) on a Fox DVD. To assemble such a documentary is routine table-top work. Seydor doesn't even have to get out of his chair to do it, and it doesn't take very long for an experienced editor.
There is no freeze-frame at the end of the Seydor Version (it fades out as Garrett rides away while a boy throws stones at him) nor at the end of Peckinpah's Workprint (it fades out as Garrett is assassinated and falls to the ground). However, there was a freeze-frame at the end of the Theatrical Release, and it was one of Aubrey's more grievous errors.
With regard to quality ... all the different versions can be matched to archival elements, so there's no loss in quality, and the original camera negatives are evidently in pristine shape.
Seydor's Version is pristine quality. It doesn't look quite the same as the photo-chemical Theatrical Release, or the Workprint for that matter, but it's pristine, and will no doubt impress everyone who is accustomed to the digital look.
 

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