The Wild Bunch – Pagina 2 – FRAGMENTEN UIT HET SCHEMERLAND

(2004, USA)

Director: Xan Cassavetes
Features: Robert Altman, Penelope Sheeris, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, ao.

Running Time: 120 mins.

Documentary about the legendary Z Channel in Los Angeles, a pay TV channel where great cinema was shown between 1974 and 1988. Aspiring filmmaker Jerry Harvey became chief programmer of the channel and created a Walhalla for cinema lovers in that time in L.A.

Unfortunately, Harvey was mentally very unstable and in 1988 he committed suicide after killing his wife. After his death, Z Channel was finished as well when it turned into a sports channel. In this ‘legacy’ of Harvey, former friends, teachers and colleagues as well as filmmakers explain why Z Channel was such a successful and important platform for cinema at that time.

It was before VHS made its way into the living room, and people were dependent on television, besides cinema, to view movies. Harvey combined art films and commercial films in his programming which turned out to be a fantastic formula. Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch explain how much they loved Z Channel when they were growing up, and how it formed an important part of their education. Director Xan Cassavetes, the daughter of actor-director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, got hooked to Z Channel after being grounded as a child. It was the beginning of her obsession with cinema.

The channel was so popular that even market leaders HBO and Showtime couldn’t muscle it out of L.A. Z Channel had a zero turnrate which means that no subscriber ever cancelled the channel.

Programmer Harvey wrote the screenplay for the western China 9, Liberty 37

Another one of Harvey’s triumphs was to show uncut versions of films such as The Wild Bunch, Heaven’s Gate, Once Upon a Time in America and 1900. Films that were initially trashed by critics now became very successful features. Z Channel also became a platform for European directors, like Paul Verhoeven, that found work in America thanks to the screening of their European work on the channel. Harvey and his team also organised regular film festivals with retrospectives of Kurosawa and the likes. It must have been truly magnificent.

Cassavetes shows a great collection of film fragments that give a good sense of how brilliant and revolutionary the Z Channel programming must have been. Cinema lovers will be thrilled at the idea of seeing something like Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz uncut on television. It was not made to last. Like one of the interviewees says; ‘you just never know when you are living in a glorious time’. The downfall of Z Channel came together with the downfall of Harvey. An obvious loss that Cassavetes makes manifestly clear.

Boxoffice hit The Empire Strikes Back had its television premiere on Z Channel

Review originally written for International Film Festival Rotterdam, where this documentary was screened in 2005.

Director: Tonino Valerii
Written by: Fulvio Morsella, Ernesto Gastaldi
Cast: Henry Fonda, Terence Hill, Jean Martin, R.G. Armstrong

Year / Country: 1973, Italy, France, West Germany
Running Time: 111 mins.

New Mexico, 1898. The Legendary gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) wants to leave the Wild West behind him and retire to Europe. But the strange loner Nobody (Terence Hill) wants his personal hero to go out in style. He sets everything in motion, so Jack can take on the infamous Wild Bunch.

During the seventies, the Italian comedy-western became a way more popular genre than the more serious spaghetti’s. Master of the spaghetti western Sergio Leone and his team then decided to make the ultimate ‘joke’ western themselves. The casting of comedy man Hill and old westerner Ford, makes clear the contrast between the old dying West and the new West.

Although some of the slapstick comedy feels forced and somewhat copied from the ‘Trinity’ films, producer Leone and director Tonino Valerii still managed to create a successful homage to the genre. This is largely due to the excellent chemistry between the two leads and the classic musical score by Ennio Morricone. The brilliant composer parodies everything in his score, from Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries to his own Harmonica theme. It became one of his most popular scores.

There are also plenty of inside jokes; the bad guys are named ‘The Wild Bunch’; Sam Peckinpah’s name is on a tombstone; the excessive use of duster coats; etc. Leone also directed the opening scene himself, which is a direct homage to the famous opening scene of his classic Once Upon a Time in the West.

Altogether, My Name is Nobody is a fine testament to the glory of the spaghetti western as well as the Hill / Spencer comedy days of the Italian Wild West.

Rating:

Biography: Tonino Valerii (1934, Teramo, Italy) was born as Antonio Valerii. In 1964, he worked as an uncredited assistant director for Sergio Leone on A Fistful of Dollars. In 1966 he made his directorial debut with spaghetti western Taste For Killing. He would direct about fifteen films in his career, but will be most remembered for his westerns, including My Name is Nobody and A Reason To Live, A Reason To Die!.

Filmography (a selection): Taste for Killing (1966), Days of Wrath (1967), The Price of Power (1969), A Girl Called Jules (1970), My Dear Killer (1972), A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die! (1972), My Name is Nobody (1973), The Hired Gun (1976), Sahara Cross (1977), T.I.R. (1984, TV-episodes), Savage Attack (1986), Unscrupulous (1986), Sicilian Connection (1987), Vacation in Hell (1997)

FRAGMENTEN UIT HET SCHEMERLAND

Tagarchief: The Wild Bunch

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

My Name is Nobody