Director's box set collections: best way to view them
 

I just got the Sam Peckinpah set today and have started with Ride the High Country. I think I will wind up watching the movies in the order in which they were made, though I think the order in which they occurred (since they were all westerns, one could make them a chronological series) might be another possible method.

I was wondering what kind of approach you guys take, if there truly is one to take if you want to watch a set straight. I have the Kubrick box set and think that the order in which they were made is the best one for it. Some would argue that it's best to watch a director's works in the order in which they were made because it enables to see them grow as a filmmaker. However, there are some filmmakers whom one could argue deteriorated with time (Arthur Penn, John Schlesinger, Alan J. Pakula, maybe Oliver Stone).

EDIT: just checked IMDB. Apparently Peckinpah's next to last major film was a film version of the country tune "Convoy". Guess he could be added to the list of auteurs that deteriorated with time. Of course I wish I could see the actual movie to judge that, but alas it ain't on DVD. :(

I definitely agree with the chronological approach, and it might be that seeing everything in the order it was made could give some new insights that lead you to re-evaulate later works.

Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (Reconstruction) was the best film I saw all year. Brace yourself for that one. Amazing.

I usually watch them in order of interest. Though watching the John Cassavetes collection in chronological order is quite an experience.

Really? That film is, by all critical accounts, an embarrassment.

I got the set last week myself and started with RTHC myself, but I was all over the place from there. I was concerned about having enough time to view the films in one sitting, so depending on my schedule, I watched what I could fit into the time I had.

So then I watched PG&BTK because I thought it was way waaaaay long. The time on the back of the case is listed as 237 minutes! WTF! That is like the time of both cuts combined, and just about 4 hours. I didn't know how they could get 4 hours on one side of a disc, but put it in anyway to see what was up. Turns out both cuts are under 120 minutes, and I watched the SE. For once in a long time, I think warner made a mistake, and they threw me off.

So, seeing that I was surprised that PG&BTK was only roughly 120 minutes, and I still had two hours left in my schedule, I put in Cable Hogue. Loved that movie. Never saw it before, but I liked it alot. What a great character Cable is.

Lastly I watched TWB because I've seen it before, I already owned the flipper disc.

So, apparently I have no pattern at all ;)

I agree with marty888. Sometimes filmmakers grow and sometimes they just grow old, but they always change, and that change is always interesting to watch. Two of my favorite films, Breathless and The 400 Blows, were both first features, but that only makes the careers of their respective directors more interesting to me.

An embarrassment? I haven't heard that. Maybe a good ol' studio chop job. Peckinpah was never allowed to cut together the version he envisioned. From what I hear, the theatrical release was a bit jumbled and incoherent. That's why this new Restoration is so incredible. The power of DVD, baby.

That could explain what I've read. Pauline Kael in particular wrote that the film was "peculiarly unrealized" and that "probably nobody involved was very happy about the results." I'm looking forward to getting the set and checking it out :up:

So...Convoy ever hitting DVD soon? ;)

I wouldn't classify the film as an embarrassment either - Pauline's assesment is right on the money. It's a good film with great things in it. It would have been a masterpiece if Peckinpah was on his game. However, watching the films chronlogically is a good way to go, I think.