Paul Seydor is the author of the acclaimed Peckinpah: The Western Films. Originally published in 1980 and revised and reprinted in 1997, the book is an outstanding analysis of Peckinpah's works and is considered among the best film study books ever published. Mr. Seydor also played an instrumental role in the 1995 theatrical restoration and re-release of The Wild Bunch, first by convincing the studio of the viability of the re-release and then by acting as a consultant throughout the restoration process.

In 1997 Mr. Seydor produced the outstanding documentary film The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage. The project started with 72 minutes of silent black-and-white footage which had been shot over 3 days on the set of The Wild Bunch (The footage was discovered while cleaning a film vault at Warner Brothers and exactly who shot the film is still unknown.) From this narrow starting point the documentary was fashioned through the tactful insertion of actor and crew interview voice-overs, production stills, scenes from the final cut, and actor Ed Harrris narrating as Sam Peckinpah. Described by film critic Michael Sragow as "a new entry in the Peckinpah legacy," the film would go on to garner an Academy Award nomination for best documentary.

Mr. Seydor is also an accomplished film editor. Among his credits are Under Fire, White Men Can't Jump, Cobb, Major League 2, and Tin Cup.

Why do you think that the 1995 re-release of The Wild Bunch received the widespread critical acclaim during that had eluded the film during it's initial release?

P.S.: There are many answers to this question, but, basically, I think it just has to do with the inevitable sifting-down process of time in the arts. The Wild Bunch is a great work of art, but like many controversial great works of art, it takes time for it to be fully appreciated. I think, too, that the sheer amount and sheer mindlessness of the violent movies that The Wild Bunch in part helped spawn has done much to reveal the profundity of Peckinpah's achievement. But I also think it's worth pointing out that even from the beginning, the film has had strong and serious appreciation. In fact, it is for me one of the litmus tests of seriousness for critics, and critics as diverse as Stanley Kauffmann and Roger Ebert both passed the tests. The passing years have also demonstrated the influence of Peckinpah's achievement. I was not speaking lightly in my documentary when I said that it changed the face of cinema. Stylistically speaking there has been no more influential film of the past thirty years, none as influential. In it Peckinpah expanded basic filmmaking vocabulary with his narrative use slow motion and both his psychological and narrative use of editing (nobody puts you inside his movies as effectively as Peckinpah). There has also been, as with all great stylistic innovations, a baneful aspect to its influence: movies are more violent in part because Peckinpah showed us how to make them more violent. Unfortunately most who have imitated him have imitated the externals, not the moral passion, the psychological depth, the probity, the seriousness, and the true subversiveness of his achievements. But that is often the case too. And one thing more: although we're surfeited with action movies, we no longer have action movies that are character driven, that are about anything beyond mindless shooting and explosions. The Wild Bunch is, among other things, the last truly great action-film; it's the end of the line and we see that all too clearly now.

Why do you think the MPAA would rate The Wild Bunch "R" in 1969 yet initially impose an "NC-17" when it was submitted for the re-release?

P.S.: I dealt with this question at length in the new edition of my critical study of Peckinpah and in the essay I wrote for the booklet that accompanies the deluxe laserdisc set of the restored Wild Bunch. The resubmission, to begin with, was a mistake because nobody at Warners would listen to David Weddle and me when we tried to tell them that the restored footage was not footage that had been added after its initial (rated) release, but footage that was removed after the release and was only being restored. Second, I have a feeling that the ratings people have been so sensitized to violence at the movies that they gave the Wild Bunch an NC-17 precisely because it affected them so powerfully. I personally suspect that most of them were probably aware of the movie's reputation and more than likely feel that it's a great film, but that it should be limited to an audience above 17. I don't agree, but I believe that even Sam felt it should have been rated R.

Please explain how you created "The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage" from a starting point of 72 minutes of silent black-and-white footage.

P.S.: Without going into the entire creative process, which I can't do, I did this: I watched the footage over and over. Everyone who looked at it felt there was nothing there (the Warners legal department declared it worthless). I managed to cut together five separate sequences: the beginning (the going into town that became the arrival into Mexico); the walk; the throat-cutting; the bridge; and the day's wrap (which became the film's wrap). I knew all the quotations I would use from my research on the critical study: the sources included all the major interviews (Farber's in FQ, Harmetz's in NYT, Garner's and David's material for their books, a long letter Sam wrote to me and some of our conversations). Once I got this structure down, there was other material I wanted to use, and this helped shaped the wonderful middle section with the quotation from Sharon Peckinpah and that marvellous sentence from Sam's letter to me about the exit from Angel's village setting up the humanity of the Bunch. In some respects this is the most personally moving part of the documentary to me. Once I had the whole thing done--keep in mind I was editing Tin Cup this whole time (great thanks are due Ron Shelton, a great admirer of Sam and The Wild Bunch, for letting me do it in the interseses of his movie)--I was riding to work one day and got the idea to do the end titles the way I did, bringing back lines from the movie and ending with the voice of Sam himself about directing his schoolmates in stagings of Tennyson's "Charge of Light Brigade." I felt really pumped about this for a few days, and then realized it was only a variant of what Sam himself did in The Wild Bunch when he decided, against the wishes of many of his colleagues, to bring back the laughing faces of the Bunch and the reprise from Angel's village. When I was structuring the thing, I quickly realized that I did not have enough live-action black-and-white footage to tell the story I wanted to tell. So I went to Warners and said I needed to look into their archives. I went through all the production stills they had--hundreds of them--selected the ones I thought I needed, and then went to Pacific Title where Rob Yamamoto let me use the motion-camera to "film" the stills, i.e., create zooms, pull outs, pans, etc. I took far more stills than I needed, and that is what helped give me the idea to do the closing titles the way I did: in effect, to give a literal album at the end of the movie. I would like to say that although I made this film for the most part entirely myself, Nick Redman, my producing partner, set the whole thing up at Warners, and was invaluable throughout the entire process: as friend, as colleague, as producer, as critic. (Nick has since gone on to make his own documentary about The Searchers, called "A Turning of the Earth.") It should also be known that without the efforts of Brian Jamieson and Mike Finnegan at Warners, this documentary could never have been made. Brian, especially, was our godfather at the studio. Barry Reardon was a great supporter, and Leith Adams, Warners archivist, tirelessly provided all the stills I needed. Bill Rush discovered and rescued this footage from oblivion. To this day nobody knows who shot it.

How did Ed Harris come to play the voice of Sam Peckinpah?

P.S.: Once it became clear the quality of the film we had, I knew we needed someone special to play the voice of Peckinpah. Although I had some tape recordings of him, not everything I used was on tape, some of it was written down, and several people couldn't locate the recordings they did have. It seemed to me very important that we have a consistent, identifiable voice for Sam. Ed's first major role in a movie, Under Fire, directed by Roger Spottiswoode, written by Ron Shelton, was also my first movie in the editing room. Then Ed did another film for Roger, an HBO film, on which I was coeditor. I thought Ed would be a good choice to read Sam: he's a wonderful actor and I knew he would approach the part as a role, not attempt to "do" Sam (as many actors who knew Sam might have done). I was right, he was great, and very, very cooperative. The last thing he did before going on location to do the Eastwood movie was give me a number where he could be reached in case we needed anything more. Roger contacted Ed for me, and so did Kristen Peckinpah and Gil Dennis, who are close friend's of Ed's.

Please tell briefly of the conversations you had with Sam Peckinpah.

P.S.: Describing my conversations with Sam would probably be disappointing to many of you. For one thing, there weren't that many of them; for another, he really didn't like to talk about his work. I could get him to do it for the material I needed for the book, but that was pretty much it. He once told me, as regards editing (and he was the greatest directorial editor who ever lived), "Cut where you feel." We spent one Thanksgiving at his sister Fern Lea's where he met my then wife Ann Gilmor for the first time. Ann is rather tall; Sam propositioned her saying, "I really dig tall women." Ann declined but said, "You should meet my sister. She's even taller than I am." "Great," Sam replied, "I've always wanted to go up on a woman." The last time we spoke, after a screening of the studio's cut of Osterman Weekend, was at D.B. Cooper's bar on Overland in West Los Angeles. It was the first, and obviously the last, time he ever said anything to me directly about my book: "You should be proud. It's a very good book." This meant, as you might imagine, a great deal to me.

To what do you credit not only the renewed appreciation of not only The Wild Bunch, but the much more positive re-appraisals of many of Sam Peckinpah's other films as well?

P.S.: Essentially this gets the same answer as the first. And it's not a question that can be answered briefly, in any case. Why did it take fifty years before Moby Dick was fully appreciated? Well, because it does. Great works of art provoke us, they offend us, they shake us up, they disturb us, they also thrill us, move us, make us, I believe, better. Whatever, we're always, always trying to catch up to them. I've had many people tell me my critical study of Peckinpah's Western films, especially The Wild Bunch, is "definitive." Wrong. I mean, I know these people are intending a compliment , and I do appreciate it. But I wouldn't have spent ten minutes, let alone ten years, studying an artist on whom I believed a definitive work could be written. It's never happened, not with the Illiad, not with Lear, not with the Op. 131 quartet, not with Moby Dick, not with Tristan, and not with The Wild Bunch. And it'll never happen.

How did your career as an editor begin?

P.S.: It depends on how you measure these things. People who've read my Peckinpah book say they can see a film editor all over the book, and they're probably right. While researching the book Roger Spottiswoode, one of Sam's editors (Straw Dogs, Pat Garrett, The Getaway) and I become good friends. We both wanted new careers, Roger directing instead of editing, me editing instead of academia. One thing lead to another and when he started Under Fire I joined the editing crew as John Bloome's assistant, but they let me start cutting in the first three months, so I had a rather quick rise and an unusual route to the job.

Which of the films you've edited have you taken the most satisfaction in, and why?

P.S.: This is like picking among one's favorite children. All of my collaborations with Ron Shelton (White Men Can't Jump, Cobb, Tin Cup, not to mention Best of Times) have been very special occasions, and represent both my best work and my favorite films that I've done. The two I did for David Ward, especially The Program, were also rewarding. And of course my documentary on The Wild Bunch is probably my proudest achievement as a film editor. If you ever see the original 72 minutes of black and white footage, you'll see that it's the editorial feat of making something out of nothing.

I've noticed that a good number of the films you've edited have had sports as a central theme. Is this just a coincidence?

P.S.: It's coincidence only insofar as I've worked with Shelton, and other sports films were spinoffs from that. That's what it's like in this town--you do something successful then they want you for all of them. If the truth be known, I'm not much of a sports fan, I never watch basketball (you could stage a pick in frontof me and I wouldn't know what you'd done), yet Shelton changed, I think, maybe two takes on me throughout all of White Men, and I cut the film mostly on my own. You tell the story, that's the principal talent you need, and have a sensitivity toward performance.

Do you think that the Academy's nomination for The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage could be considered a step towards a lifetime acievement award being granted to Sam Peckinpah?

P.S.: I wish it were so, but I don't think so. In some sense I fear Sam may always be a slightly marginal figure, and the totality of his achievement is not what comes to mind when we think of life-time achievement awards. He's a great artist because he made one absolutely towering great work of a art and several others that are pretty damn good. Eventually he will be embraced by the mainstream, but I don't necessarily think that will translate into Academy recognition.