A Few Words About A few words about... The Wild Bunch (1 Viewer)

[CraigF]

I watched it a couple of days ago. This is the type of transfer that makes me love DVD. I can't comment on such intricacies as the color-timing, but man I loved this. What a change from the bunch () of lousy DVD transfers I've seen for recent films in the last few weeks...this actually looks like film, good film!

 

[Richard--W]

I realize that I'm in the minority here, but I prefer the 1994 restoration on the 1997 DVD. I saw that projected so many times I could draw up a shot list. At least the flipper disc looks like film. This new one looks ... odd, more like a dubbed videotape. The color is metallic instead of earthy. Normally I wouldn't nitpick, but this is The Wild Bunch.

In fact I'm disappointed in the box-set because all the transfers just don't look right to me.

 

[Cassy_w]

The old DVD is non-anamorphic and completely lacking in detail. Not to mention the compression job is horrendous. Ugh. :frowning:

 

[Robert Harris]

Interesting the way that some elements of time coincide...

In the case, the release of the new Wild Bunch and the announced closing of Winchester.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/17/win...section=cnn_us

RAH

 

[John Hodson]

"We've got to start thinking beyond our guns. Those days are closin' fast."

 

[Richard--W]

I don't care if the old DVD is non-anamorphic. All this squeezing and unsqeezing adds up to one big distortion after awhile. Besides, I'm a spherical lensman myself.

The compression job is okay. It simply isn't true that the old DVD is completely lacking in detail. It has the right detail. It has the optical photochemical detail it's supposed to have. It looks better than either the laser-disc or the vhs, that's for certain. It doesn't look as good as the theatrical projection, but neither does this new DVD. In fact, no digital medium has the quality of good old-fashioned optical, photochemical film.

Not all of that digitized detail is intended to be there. And just because it's there is no justification for spraying shellac over a Rembrandt.

 

[Cassy_w]

Uh, yeah, sure. OKeedokee then.

 

[Richard--W]

I was being facetious, Cassy__W.

But I still think The Wild Bunch SE looks more like linoleum than the film I'm used to.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Well, what do you think replaced the open plains when the Old West died? Linoleum!

 

[Richard--W]

Okay, the cycle is complete now.

The Wild Bunch has been turned into a veneer of an authentic masterpiece.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

The Washington Post had a very respectful obituary of the end of manufacture of the model 1894 Winchester. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...011903278.html

I'll have to hunt up this new disc.

 

[Steve.P]

The intermission came at 1 hour, 12 mins (exactly halfway through the picture). On the new DVD this would appear between scenes 20 and 21. The Bunch are on the trail. Pike Bishop says, "This is our last go-round, Dutch, this time we do it right." The scene then dissolves into the following sequence i.e. the train robbery. In the original European release, the scene faded to black, and then faded back in after you'd purchased your choc-ice, or whatever.

It should be noted, however, that the fade-to-black was added at the insistence of the European distributor, and is the only such example in the picture. Peckinpah's intention was always for the picture to be shown in one continuous sitting, with the dissolve in place.

(Presumably, the limitations of the technology in 1997 prevented the original DVD flipper release from 'breaking' at this point in order for the Album in Montage documentary to be included.)

 

[Jim*Tod]

Thanks Steve--

While I was watching it last week I kept looking for a place where it would be. I had thought it might be at the point after the train robbery when they are fleeing following blowing up the bridge. Glad to know now just exactly where it was. Wish I could have seen it in a 70mm/six track version, but oh well.

Jim Cobb

 

[Steve.P]

You're welcome, Jim.



Me too! While my European pedigree is all present and correct, I wasn't actually born when The Wild Bunch came out. I'm just another sad Peckinpah fan with too much time on his hands

Steve

 

[ChristianLiemke]

A comparison between the old British DVD and the new RC1 with bigger screenshots over at DVD-Heaven.

 

[willyTass]

That seen when the mexican cathches his ex-wife kissing the Mexican general

He calls her "Puta" (slut) and sinks one in to her

before the killing he confronts her and peckinpah zooms in on her

There was something the director was trying to say with the expression in her eyes

I can't figure it out

At 36 do I have to review it at a later age like I had to to figure Lawrence Of Arabia out?