06 LEGENDARY
"If They Move...Kill ‘em"
T DIRECTORS
Sam Peckinpah
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GRiP
By Neil Blain
he year was 1969 and the Western genre was experiencing a temporary resurgence. Cinemagoers, sitting down to watch The Wild Bunch, a tale of ageing cowboys, were probably expecting a sentimental story that pleasantly and quietly lamented the ways of the Old West. They couldn’t have been more wrong. After William Holden’s famous line, "If they move. . . Kill ‘em", kicked off a ten minute balletic display of absolute blood streaked carnage, the unexpecting audience realised their mistake. Many of them would have probably left the auditorium, and in the space of a few weeks a director became infamous. It would surprise many that the man who would come to be known as ‘Bloody Sam’ was a quiet and gawky teenager, who at a young age was more interested in poetry than pistols. The son of a lawyer, Sam was born David Samuel Peckinpah on February 21st 1925 in Fresno, California. It was perhaps to conform to the macho expectations of his generation that he enrolled as
Pike Bishop makes his ethics clear in The Wild Bunch a Marine in 1945 and was stationed in the South Pacific but never saw action. After the war, Peckinpah was introduced to the film industry through the medium of television, rising through the ranks of stage hand, assistant to Don Siegel, writing and directing critically acclaimed TV westerns such as Gunsmoke and Broken Arrow and eventually directing his first feature, The Deadly Companions in 1961; a western that was distinctively average, mainly due to the fact that Peckinpah had no control over it’s content. From here, his output could only improve, and improve it did. The main reason so many people are put off by Sam Peckinpah’s films is because they regard them, superficially, as machoistic, nasty and brainless action movies. This could not be further from the truth. The tone of Peckinpah’s best films is most effectively appreciated when his character is studied because his experience has clearly influenced the content of his movies. Peckinpah led just as wild an existence as most of his on
who must help each other to survive the changing times and are heavy with themes of loyalty, betrayal, camaraderie and redemption. Despite the violence and immorality of Peckinpah’s characters, there is always an underlying optimism, hope, loyalty, trust, friendship and commitment to personal ethics. Peckinpah’s style has also become legendary. He has often been heralded as the father of modern action films and directors such as Scorsese, Tarantino, John Woo, Oliver Stone and Robert Rodriguez all owe him a tip of the hat. Peckinpah used fast cutting and slow motion to turn his action sequences into balletic displays of bloodletting, a technique so disappointingly imitated by John Woo, and was also the first director to introduce the realistic portrayal of the journey a bullet takes as it passes through the human body. Although Peckinpah’s films are commonly criticised for such violence, his work, as he intended, should convince any intelligent adult that a gun is the last thing they would ever want to use.
screen, gun-toting alter egos. Although he lived an extreme and unbalanced life he was a man who always valued and depended on friendship. Throughout most of his career he worked with a close knit group of writers, actors and filmmakers, all who shared in his ‘cowboy’ tastes for drink, drugs and prostitutes. On the flip side, Peckinpah had an extreme dislike for those who were uncommitted to him and those that he did not trust. His violent clashes with Hollywood producers, who had a habit of daring to cut and taint much of his greatest work, are legendary. Peckinpah’s characteristics reflect in his masterpieces. Most contain groups of men
Six of the Best
Straw Dogs (1971)
The Wild Bunch (1969) Influential, iconic, and the greatest Western, if not greatest film, ever made, The Wild Bunch uses more bullets than the entire Mexican Revolution, to put an end to a gang of ageing outlaws misadventures. Do not die until you have seen this film.
An extremely controversial double rape scene overshadows the fact that Straw Dogs is a chilling but excellent investigation of modern masculinity, the morality of self defence, and the effect of violence upon the home. Now available to buy on DVD.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) In this emotive study of self discovery, Warren Oates apes Peckinpah’s character as he plays Bennie, a lonely, misguided and dysfunctional mercenary
The Getaway (1972) Freshly released from jail, Doc Mcoy quickly robs a bank and sets off for Mexico with his wife. An exciting genre movie, not to be confused with the horrific Alec Baldwin remake.
Cross of Iron (1977)
Junior Bonner (1972) Steve McQueen plays Junior Bonner, a rodeo rider attempting to maintain his way of life in the face of modernisation.
End of Days
Towards the end of his career, Peckinpah’s work became more commercial as he gave in to drink and drugs, making appalling films such as Convoy and The Osterman Weekend. However, his legacy and everlasting influence lives on.
After a turbulent life Sam Peckinpah suffered a fatal heart attack in 1984 and like many of his characters he died a man out of time where the blockbuster had replaced the Western. One of America’s last cowboy anti-heroes was gone but not forgotten.
If you thought that Spielberg’s battle scenes in Saving Private Ryan were the first of its type then think again. James Coburn plays the German Sergeant Steiner, a man leading his men against the Russians on the Eastern Front, who has more to fear from the Nazi aristocracy from whom he receives his orders, in this WWII epic which Orson Welles declared to be the best war film ever made.