Sam Peckinpah-let's get talking

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

I feel that recent years have not been too kind to Peckinpah's image - let's rescue him from the morass of endless tough-guy anecdotes and consider him anew with at least a bit of objectivity.

I'm actually on the fence about The Wild Bunch, but Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia and The Getaway are among my all-time favourites. Past the hard-as-steel protagonists and the "balletic" action there really is an incredible economy of storytelling, visually these films are excellent. There is always a degree of tension wrung from every scene, and it's never over or underplayed, just on the surface. I actually find that a lot of directors/films that owe something to Peckinpah (Christopher McQuarries Way Of The Gun, Tarantino) skip over a lot of the qualities I have just mentioned.

NB: I really wanted to use the word "poetry", but I forced myself to exclude it.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 10:49 (twenty-two years ago)

I read part of a Peckinpah book (I forget the name) where the author proposed that he was the one figure most ahead of the curve re. the increase in cutting rates in Hollywood films in the 1970s and 1980s. But his cutting is rarely "associative" or Eisenstein-esque, but rather an amped-up version of traditional Hollywood cutting. In this sense he anticipates Hollywood of the 90s and 00s.

I really like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. I haven't seen Straw Dogs--my friend says it's great, but not the sort of movie I'd like, whatever that means.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 14:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I always forget about Straw Dogs. It's an interesting enough film, but a bit of an anomaly among Peckinpah's other work.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 14:29 (twenty-two years ago)

i will have to see alfredo garcia. i've only seen straw dogs and it was perhaps the most visceral, distrubing fictional film i've ever seen.

― j fail (cenotaph), Wednesday, 21 May 2003 15:46 (twenty-two years ago)

i got shit to say about the hows and whyfors but i absolutely love the wild bunch, straw dogs, ...alfredo garcia, and the getaway. i bought a toy shotgun last year and wrapped it in brown paper so i could emulate steve mcqueen while i watched the latter flick.

err...i mean nothing.

― brian badword (badwords), Thursday, 22 May 2003 05:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think Straw Dogs is atypical of Peckinpah. At least thematically it has a lot in common with Alfredo Garcia and The Getaway. You know, the whole 'what does it take to be a man' thing.

― PVC (peeveecee), Friday, 23 May 2003 02:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is one of the goddamn greatest films of the seventies. Absolute goddamn genius.

Warren Oates is goddamn great. Especially when he shoots the goddamn dirty biker scum played by Kris Kristofferson.

― Goddamn! Th3m 3y3s!, Friday, 23 May 2003 04:42 (twenty-two years ago)

don't think Straw Dogs is atypical of Peckinpah. At least thematically it has a lot in common with Alfredo Garcia and The Getaway. You know, the whole 'what does it take to be a man' thing

Very true, it's just such a different milieu for him that I often forget it's a "Peckinpah" film.

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 23 May 2003 07:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Warren Oates is especially good in Two-Lane Blacktop. He's perfectly cast in Badlands too.

Has anyone seen Cross of Iron?

― amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, 24 May 2003 03:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Cross Of Iron was okay... but I found it a little dry.

― PVC (peeveecee), Saturday, 24 May 2003 22:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm so glad Peckinph and Steve McQueen got to work together. It's too bad he never made a movie with Lee Marvin... they would have been a marriage made in heaven... at least cinematically.

I just saw Anthoy Mann's The Naked Spur again. It's very Peckinpah like for it's time.

― PVC (peeveecee), Saturday, 24 May 2003 22:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Never managed to see Bring me The Head, the Getaway or Major Dundee, but The Wild Bunch, Pat Garret and Cross are all stunning (apparently there's a really lame TV Movie ripoff of Pat G with almost identical scenes - the preacher getting gutshot with coins, for one), though eclipsed by Straw Dogs, one of my favourite movies of all time. The banning business was ridiculous, particularly given it's one of the most honest depictions of rape and its messy aftermath I've seen. But then, I suspect that was part of the problem.

Ride the High Country is strong, too.

Cable Hogue, Convoy and the Ludlum one, though. Bleeerugh!

― Jamie Conway (Jamie Conway), Friday, 30 May 2003 18:22 (twenty-two years ago)

eleven months pass...

Reviving because of the major Peckinpah retrospective going on at the Egyptian Theatre beginning next week.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 30 April 2004 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm definitely going to see Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia and Cross Of Iron which I just love, but how is The Killer Elite (which I haven't seen)

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 30 April 2004 23:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Killer Elite is a strange film, obviously compromised in the editing. Some of it barely makes sense. Its full of cliches but interesting for Peckinpah's treatment of them - Caan as the agent recovering from injury is reminiscent of Coburn shellshocked and recovering in Cross of Iron. The martial arts scenes are pretty bad. But if you're a fan, its a must-see and better than Convoy or The Osterman Weekend.

I love just about all of his Westerns - Wild Bunch seems like one of the great (un)heroic myths to me, and grows more powerful every time I watch it. Ride The High Country is beautiful and moving and sad and in love with teh genre itself. Pat Garrett... equally so. And Major Dundee, that mess and dry-run for Wild Bunch has some amazing scenes and is admirably ambitious..

― David Nolan (David N.), Saturday, 1 May 2004 00:32 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

a new boxed set is on the way in january, with the wild bunch, pat garrett and billy the kid (my fave?), ballad of cable hogue, and ride the high country.

can anyone recommend a good book on peckinpah? it seems there are a number of them, and i'm wondering if any are better with analysis of his films (separate from myth-making about his coke-fueled genius).

― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Monday, 17 October 2005 20:48 (twenty years ago)

omg omg omg

― gear (gear), Monday, 17 October 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

where did you hear this? link!

― gear (gear), Monday, 17 October 2005 21:21 (twenty years ago)

Sounds like the Warner's 80th birthday box hinted about last spring, minus "The Getaway" which was since come out in the McQueen box (and even then wasn't exactly what had been promised)

― Marxism Goes Better With Coke (Charles McCain), Monday, 17 October 2005 21:24 (twenty years ago)

link!

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=58825

― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:52 (twenty years ago)

Fantastic. Now if MGM would only hurry up with those Leone re-issues the Brits already have.

― Marxism Goes Better With Coke (Charles McCain), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 17:43 (twenty years ago)

Theres a biography called "If They Move..Kill Em." which is great. But I can't remember the author's name....

― David N (David N.), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 22:53 (twenty years ago)

...David Weddle!

― David N (David N.), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 22:55 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.