Bring Me
The Head Of Alfredo Garcia
Picture: B-
Sound: C+ Extras: B- Film: B
My mouth quickly goes to yawn mode when I see or hear
comments towards Sam Peckinpah because the dialogue becomes a recycled heap of
things like ‘Bloody Sam’, slow-motion action scenes, lots of violence, or other
ways to describe what seems to have followed his directing style to his
death. The point is that you never hear
anyone talk about the story, plot, acting, or other elements of his films, but
rather you get little tidbits about the most trivial things. People act like Peckinpah was the only
director to make violence popular or stylized.
While he may have invented a new language for the medium when it comes
to style in that sense, it does not necessarily make the film entirely revolve
around those particular moments. Has
anyone had a serious discussion on The Wild Bunch that had anything to
do with plot or theme, or to they sit around and chitchat about all the
violence and action?
While I could continue my tangent it’s more important to
go into more detail about MGM’s release of the long-awaited cult favorite Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia,
which remains a love-it-or-hate-it type of film, even amongst Peckinpah
fans. Interestingly enough this is the
only film that he received his final cut of the film, versus what the studio
wanted.
The plot here is incredibly simple, yet executed quite
well with lots of sensible direction and attitude. A wealthy and powerful Mexican rancher finds out that his unwed
daughter is pregnant with a man named Alfredo Garcia, who apparently has some
ties to the family and thus the beginning of the film that understandably angry
father executes his authority and sends out thugs to …bring him the head of
Alfredo Garcia. His two thugs come
across a piano player (Warren Oates), who has some insight of the case through
his girlfriend who may know his whereabouts, thus the adventure begins. Oates’ character is solely interested in
making financial gain from the case, but this is not ‘easy money’ as other
bounty hunters are also on the trail and the end result is not very pretty.
One thing that I quickly noticed about the film is the
relatively uninteresting camera work, which I think could have greatly enhanced
the style and direction of the film. In
fact, if you think about this time period, which was mid-70’s the Godfather I and II, were violent, but
also had incredible camerawork that made literally every scene tight,
distinguished, and help visually narrate the story, whereas with this film its
easy to see how some viewers could become bored in between the climatic
moments.
Even MGM’s relatively solid 1.85 X 1 anamorphically
enhanced transfer of the film still gives a lackluster quality, with the old
Transamerica United Artists logo giving us a hint that the source may not be
the newest copy. Keep in mind that most
of Peckinpah’s work has a neutral color scheme, which makes the film have a
‘realistic’ look that becomes interrupted by slow motion, and perhaps this is
why sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. Take for example the gritty texture to the film that completely
gives away its 1974 origins, which had the film been shot closer to something
like The French Connection, which
still was gritty, but also very intelligent with its camera movement, the film
may have a greater impact today. The
only real problems with the transfer here would be a typical problem of a film
that do not receive a full restoration and that is minor debris and dirt, as
well as a softness and slight unevenness in color management. Notice in certain scenes how colors bleed
and have a flat texture to them, which are certainly not enhanced by the films
drab intentions to begin with.
Unfortunately the film also has a very fat mono sound too,
which even converted here to 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono, it is still bland and
could use a bit of work. Dialogue is
ok, but everything else is very lackluster in dimension, depth, and overall
tonality. Gunshots sound like cap guns,
etc. Would it have been worth trying to
remix this for 5.1? Perhaps, but that
can lead to mixed results, although in the case of The Osterman Weekend (reviewed on this site), the film was remixed
for DTS 6.1 ES sound, which was Sam’s last film. I certainly don’t think that would have been necessary here, but
5.1 would have been welcome if done tastefully.
The only extras on the disc are the theatrical trailer and
a commentary track by the same scholars on Anchor Bay’s DVD edition of The Osterman Weekend, which included
Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons, David Weddle, and Nick Redman, who all provide
interesting things to introduce into the film and give a better context for the
film, as well as Peckinpah than most people might expect. It would be great if Warner releases The
Wild Bunch in a special edition with all the extras available and gets
these four to do a similar commentary for that film. Steven Prince would be another candidate who dissected Straw Dogs on the DVD commentary track
from Criterion. All of these scholars are
well versed in what they say and have interesting things to say, yet the
average person will probably tune out after 20 minutes, and even that is being
favorable.
This is certainly not the place to start if you are not
familiar with the body of work that Peckinpah has left behind. A better starting place might be The Wild
Bunch or Straw Dogs, then migrate towards some of his more ambitious
films like those already mentioned in this review or Cross of Iron, Junior Bonner,
and even the original The Getaway. However, if you are perhaps looking for
something a bit odd and uncommon and just want to take a chance than go for it,
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
is always in need of a few new fans.
- Nate Goss
