While procrastinating on the mashup I promised ds106, I actually came across a decent quality clip of the opening scene of The WIld Bunch. For me, one of the great opening scenes in cinema, and a shame this version cuts out the earlier credits featuring kids burning an army of ants and several stinging scorpions that have been engaged in an internecine battle to the death (kinda like what we see at the end of this film with the wild bunch).
Enjoy this clip, and if you haven;t seen The Wild Bunch, I would not only recommend it, but also a tour through some great Westerns (maybe I’ll follow up that with a list of a few I have in mind in a post soon). When I was in college, I found the Western film genre to be one of the greatest discoveries of my time in school. So rich in every way, narratively, politically, aesthetically, and cinematically.
Anyway, I’ll shut up now.
Great scene. I’ve been meaning to see this pic for something like 10 years now and just haven’t made it happen. Loved the Wilhelm scream at 8:02! Was the criticism of the violence level in this movie merely directed at the amount of screen time it took up, or was there accounting for the way the violence was enacted? In this scene, for example, (innocent) bystanders are killed and children are witness to the proceedings.