Sam Peckinpah’s western is set in 1913 and concerns a gang of aging outlaws who flee to Mexico after their final score goes horribly wrong.
Classification Issues
- Violence
- Moments of strong violence include bloody gunfights and a scene in which a man is whipped.
- Additional issues
- Other issues include sex references and bad language
Cinema classification
The Wild Bunch was first submitted to the BBFC in 1969.
The film is noted for its multi-angle editing and its use of slow-motion photography – both revolutionary techniques at the time – and for the strength of its violence. The climactic massacre scene in particular makes use of slow-motion to show bullets ripping into the bodies of the outlaws in grimly explicit fashion. The controversy gained particular pace in the United States, where the film was seen to draw parallels with the contemporary realities of the Vietnam War.
Peckinpah said, “The point of the film is to take this façade of movie violence and open it up, get people involved in it so that they are starting to go in the Hollywood television predictable reaction syndrome, and then twist it so that it's not fun anymore, just a wave of sickness in the gut... It's ugly, brutalizing, and bloody awful; it's not fun and games and cowboys and Indians. It's a terrible, ugly thing.”
The BBFC classified The Wild Bunch X (meaning no admissions to persons aged under 16) for UK cinema release in 1969 after seven cuts had been made to the massacre scene. These small cuts were to images of blood spurts after bodies are hit by gunshots and to images where a man is seen to be ‘gloating’ as he fires a machine-gun. The total amount of cut material amounted to just seconds. The subsequent lack of bloody detail and sadism was intended to lessen the impact of what was felt to be a very realistic and visceral scene.
Public reaction
The cuts required by the BBFC did not assuage the concerns of some members of the British public and, in a letter from the time, a correspondent complained that: "I felt unable to continue to watch the film… It appeared to me to be nauseating in its pointless violence…The exploitation of violence for its own sake cannot be tolerated as entertainment in the commercial cinema."
Video Classification
The video of The Wild Bunch was submitted soon after the BBFC was given the authority to classify such works under the Video Recordings Act 1984. It was first examined in May 1984 and great consideration was given to the violence in the massacre scene and to the fact that cuts had been written for the film version.
Of the three Examiners who saw the film on its first viewing, two felt that the violence was still strong enough to warrant two small cuts at 18.
In July 1984, the film was seen by the BBFC’s Director James Ferman, to whom the final classification decision had been referred. He stated that the “context and knowledge of the genre mitigate the violence, which is nevertheless tough.” Ferman considered the two cuts recommended and concluded that “the machine-gunning would not be reduced at 18 today and the blood spurt is not important enough to justify cutting in a great many videos already on release.” The film was therefore passed at 18 without cuts. Due to the backlog of video works created by the introduction of the Video Recordings Act, the final certificate was not issued until April 1988.
Director’s cut
A restored ‘director’s cut’ of The Wild Bunch, lasting some six minutes longer than the original, was submitted for classification on film in June 1995. Examiners stated that the violence was “as shocking as ever” and awarded the film an 18 certificate.
