Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Gregory Sahadachny

Welcome to the official launch of Making the Scene! For my first episode, I’m joined by film critic and fellow podcaster Greg Sahadachy. To get us started, Greg has brought along a relentless chase sequence from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Butch and Sundance are pursued across the countryside by a the best lawmen in the west, brought together specifically to take them down.

Greg’s a mean one, though. Not only did he choose a film I hadn’t seen (so I had to watch the whole film before I could even get into analyzing the scene itself), but he choose a sequence that…well, let’s say it stretches the definition of “scene” a little. It’s a long sequence, a collection of small moments and beats as the posse wear Butch and Sundance down. Yet, though it might not technically qualify as a single scene, it is a distinct piece of the film. It would have been impossible to take any piece of the chase and talk about it alone. And so, I declare: this is a scene.

It’s also a fantastic discussion about economical writing, day for night photography, the end of the American West, and much, much more.

As we go forward, I’ll try to give you clips of the scenes we’re discussing, but unsurprisingly, it’s a bit tough to find 20 minutes of a film on YouTube. What I can give you is the scene’s closing moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IbStIb9XXw.

If you happen to subscribe to Netflix Instant, the film is available in its full glory there. The scene starts at around 38 minutes in, and ends just after the 1 hour mark. I told you it was long.

You can find Greg’s excellent Debatable Podcast at http://debatablepodcast.tumblr.com/.

He’s also started a podcast specific about David Simon’s masterpiece, The Wire, called All the Pieces Matter. Find it at https://www.facebook.com/wirepodcast.

Enjoy the episode, and we’ll be back on September 28th with Kenn Edwards to discuss M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs.