Peckinpah, Uncensored and Upgraded

On a hot night last month, a small band of scholars, colleagues and die-hard defenders of the faith gathered in a West Los Angeles recording studio to take a stand for filmmaker Sam Peckinpah and one of his most controversial movies, the 1971 thriller “Straw Dogs.”

The occasion: the recording of a pair of commentary tracks for a new, extras-heavy DVD release of the film in Britain, where it has been banned since the passage of the 1984 Video Recordings Act, popularly known as the “Video Nasties” law.

British censors had a field day with “Straw Dogs’ ” disturbing depiction of violence (including a double rape) unleashed by mounting tensions between an American academic (Dustin Hoffman), his English wife (Susan George) and the denizens of a Cornwall village. Despite the pleas of passionate advocates, the film--referred to by one conservative English critic as “a running sewer disgorging human waste”--was consigned to a limbo occupied by such exploitation fare as “Driller Killer” and “S.S. Experiment Camp.”

But thanks to a years-long fight led by English Peckinpah fan and anti-censorship activist Peter Woods, the ban on “Straw Dogs” was finally lifted July 1. Within days, the film’s British distributor, Fremantle Media, had contacted Nick Redman, a Los Angeles-based film music producer who had produced “The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage,” an Oscar-nominated documentary about what many consider Peckinpah’s greatest film. Would he organize the recording of commentary tracks for the new DVD, being rushed into release in Britain in October?

Would he ever. Greeting the evening’s participants in a tiny recording booth crammed with chairs, microphones and a flat-screen monitor on which they’ll view the film, the wiry, intense Redman says emphatically, “I will always be involved when asked in a Peckinpah project, because Peckinpah’s work means more to me than anyone else’s.”

He is seconded by Paul Seydor, his director-collaborator on the “Wild Bunch” documentary and author of the seminal book, “Peckinpah: The Western Films” (University of Illinois Press, 1997). Seydor, one of Hollywood’s most respected film editors, is elegantly professorial in appearance and expression but swiftly punctures any hint of pretension.

“Making this commentary affords a chance to provide context for ‘Straw Dogs’--political, cultural, yak, yak, all that stuff,” he says before the recording session begins. “But audiences will never become reconciled to Peckinpah’s work. He’ll never become a popular artist like Stanley Kubrick. We’ll have to change as human beings before that happens.”

Garner Simmons, a screenwriter and author of a highly personal film-by-film career study, “Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage” (Limelight Editions, 1998), concurs. “ ‘Straw Dogs’ is not easy to watch,” he says, “and it shouldn’t be.”

“Controversy is an acknowledgment of a work’s seriousness,” adds Seydor.

“It’s a testament to the power of Peckinpah’s work,” chimes in biographer-screenwriter David Weddle, author of “If They Move, Kill ‘Em!”: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah” (Grove Press, 1994). “It’s the unsettling insights into human nature that give Sam’s films their emotional charge and upset censor boards.”

A sense of vindication charges discussion of the prospective British release. “The ban never should have been put in place,” says Simmons, “but at least now they’ll get this special edition. And maybe an American distributor will pick it up.”

His colleagues are excited by the possibilities. “Straw Dogs” is available in the U.S. only in a no-frills version from Anchor Bay; instantly a wish list takes shape. Maybe there could be a making-of documentary, additional commentaries, a new transfer....

“Let’s not leave it in the lobby,” says engineer Jim Allan, settling the quartet of Peckinpah mavens in their seats, giving them mikes the visual reference for the commentary’s starting point: the Cinerama Releasing Corp. logo.

They’ll be joined later in the evening by Katy Haber, the director’s longtime friend and associate, who met Peckinpah when she started work as his production secretary on “Straw Dogs”; her separate commentary track will detail the day-to-day struggles--and there were many--on making the film.

But now what Redman calls “the authors’ forum” is up, and the authors are looking excited but nervous.

A few last reassuring words from engineer Allan (“corrections are possible”), the logo pops up and they’re off. Seydor plunges in, elaborating on the opening shot, a queasily out-of-focus fog that resolves into the disquieting image of children playing in a cemetery: “The first thing Peckinpah does is disorient you. You don’t know what you’re looking at, then gradually you realize that you’re looking down at a graveyard, and there’s a sense of foreboding.”

All jump in, expressing their admiration for the swift, clear strokes with which the film introduces characters, setting, mood. “That’s deft screenwriting,” says Simmons (the screenplay is credited to Peckinpah and David Z. Goodman).

As the film’s increasingly disturbing images unwind, the comments come fast and furious, ranging from the minutely specific--”Here it comes! This is it! The solo violin!” Seydor cries excitedly about one of composer Jerry Fielding’s apt musical cues--to the broadly general.

Performances are admired: “There’s an anger in Dustin [Hoffman] that’s extraordinary,” says Simmons. Weddle agrees: “He went to such a dark place for a movie star to go to.” Snorts Redman, “Stars these days have to be sympathetic.”

Awareness of the film’s troubled history in Britain haunts the discussion. “The British couldn’t buy these demented locals,” Simmons says, “but we know these people, all over the world. [Their violence] isn’t British; it isn’t American. It’s human.”

Haber, now the managing director of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts-Los Angeles, will later reflect that if the film, which she calls “a western set in Cornwall,” had been set in America, it might have escaped the ban. “After all,” she says, “ ‘The Wild Bunch’ wasn’t banned.”

Nor, she points out, was Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange,” another notorious milestone of cinematic violence, also set in England, also directed by an American. Released within weeks of “Straw Dogs,” “A Clockwork Orange” was pulled from circulation by Kubrick himself after the film was linked with several real-life crimes that took place in England in 1972-73. But there was never any official sanction against the film, and the Peckinpah posse thinks it knows why.

“ ‘A Clockwork Orange’ keeps you at arm’s length,” says Simmons. “Its violence is stylized, so it’s safe. You can tell yourself, ‘This isn’t real.’ ”

From the Kubrick film, Seydor adds, “You can take out a neatly paraphraseable message: violence is bad. But ‘Straw Dogs’ stirs up incredibly powerful feelings and will not resolve them for you in any way. It unsettles you, disturbs you, makes you angry, and there are no buffers.

“You come away thinking, ‘Why am I feeling this? There must be something wrong with this movie, because God forbid there’s something wrong with me!’ ” All agree that there are things here that make for tough viewing. As the infamous rape scene comes up, the room goes quiet.

Simmons shakes his head. “As many times as I’ve seen it, it’s still hard to sit through.”

Weddle recalls the words of Peckinpah’s son-in-law, screenwriter Gill Dennis: “Sam was making movies about things that people wouldn’t acknowledge were there. It was like he was saying, ‘See that? What do you think of that? How does that fit into your scheme of things?’ ”

As the film ends, the commentators emerge, more enthusiastic than ever.

“Every image ignites a memory or thought,” Simmons marvels.

“By the time it’s over,” says Seydor, “you’re just getting warmed up and you want to keep going.”