The Wild Bunch remains one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. The Wild Bunch takes John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, (Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good the Bad and The Ugly), and Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai marries them to the best of the Ford/Hawks Westerns and adds some of the most graphically violent yet visually poetic scenes ever seen in 1969. It's use of sound and imagery, is still beyond impressive: The heartbeat which blends into the snare drum and cymbals marching beat which punctuates the incredible opening sequence; The sounds of the various rifles, pistols and gattling guns; The sound inside the steam baths, riding the deserts of Texas, crossing the Rio Grande and into Mexico is as full of distinction as the characters we meet.
And what characters we meet. The good guys employ dangerous felons and bottom feeders and are willing to kill innocent civilians to defeat the bad guys who have honorable traits and a solid sense of ethics.
It's just past the end of an era. The old ways are rapidly changing in 1913. The West was changing rapidly and there was no longer any room for bands of outlaws. The Times were a changin', just as they were when Peckinpah filmed his masterpiece in ‘68. Ah, but some things never change. Greed even when legal is capable of destroying many innocent lives. Just as their is good in all men, there is also bad. When lines are drawn too rigidly, when compromise is not recognized as means to a sollution the good, and the innocent are as likely to be in the crossfire
as the bad.
The film opens with children laughing, poking at a pair of Scorpions who are being stung slowly to death by hordes of red ants. The Scorpions aren't permitted to even attempt an escape since the Children will foil any escapes with pokes from a stick. Later on as what's left of the Wild Bunch rides out of town, the kids will be laughing and lighting the Scorpions and ants on fire with straw. A child will also fire a lethal shot in an unforgettable scene later on in the film.
The scene was inspired by something Peckinpah saw and immediately improvised and added into the film. It was a stroke of genius to recognize how perfect its inclusion would be to the film. It sets a tone, and it even sets up the ending of the film, in a way preparing us for what will later occur.
There are so many layers to this film, several viewings are necessary to appreciate and catch all of them. I won't attempt to embrace everything that I admire and enjoy in the film because I would be doing so for possible 50,000 or more words. I will never be satisfied with anything I will write about this film, for I know I'll be leaving something out or not perfectly communicating how this brilliant film has sparked not just a stream of ocassionally brilliant critical writing and film-making but also
a wealth of creative sparks within myself.
Cruelty and Sadism does not belong merely to the old and hardened, but to the young and naive as well. Mis-directed, or managed poorly, our blind allegiance to doing what is right will get us killed. Whether it is trying to rid the world of criminals, or trying to rid the world or its vices, –if you move at the wrong time, you can still be killed.
Remember: If They Move. . . Kill 'em
The film is authentic in its period details, and it's dusty, grimy sun baked locations are so vividly captured the audience feels all the textures captured by Lucian Ballard's exquisite cinematography, Peckinpah's flawless direction and Peckinpah's and Waylon Green's at times surprisingly literate screenplay. Listen closely and you'll hear memorable lines of (almost) minimalist poetry. The film is also blessed with a wonderful Jerry Fielding score that mixes period influences in with the requisite orchestral themes. It may be a ground-breaking film but it doesn't completely de-construct the Western Film itself. Instead it uses images the audience knows and turns them into something most had never seen or experienced before. Pekinpah's vision was a unique one and it's
realized best in this, his finest film.
William Holden, and Ernest Borgnine were well-known to audiences in 1969. No one was prepared to see Holden, Borgnine, Edmund O'Brien, or Robert Ryan in anything like this.
This was a full realization of the NEW breed of Hollywood film-makers. Rule breakers who defied the censors and broke out of the restrictions of how films were made under the aegis of Hollywood's moguls and the Hayes Code.
In fact when the restored director's cut was re-released in 1995, the ratings board wanted to slap an NC17 rating on it. It delayed the re-release for nearly a year. The film which influenced film-makers
throughout the world from John Woo to Scorsese to Tarantino.
The Wild Bunch at first is a Hollywood Western. A group of middle aged men, dressed in cavalry uniforms ride into town. We soon discover they are criminals who are going to rob a railroad office in a small Texas border town. The gang is led by Pike Bishop (William Holden), a cold, calculating veteran who's eluded capture for decades. His trusted partner is Dutch, (Ernest Borgnine giving the quietest and best performance of his career). This ‘Wild Bunch' know their roles and have done this type of robbery many times before. This one however is for a big score. Perhaps big enough that Pike can turn his back on the life he's led for most of his life. Later, Dutch will ask him what he would possibly do if he wasn't robbing trains, or banks. Pike has no answer because he has no idea how to live a quiet, normal life.
What the gang hasn't expected however is that they are walking into an ambush. A former member of the gang, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) has struck a bargain with the head of the Railroad for his freedom– He'll lead a crew of bounty hunter ‘gutter trash' to capture Pike Bishop and the gang as a condition of his parole from a particularly rough Yuma prison.
However, the ambush is a disaster. Just as the gang robs the rail road office a temperance rally and march is being held in the center of town. Thornton's team of bounty hunters wind up creating a blood bath in which only a few ancillary members of the Wild Bunch gang are killed but
several innocent townspeople are gunned down in cold blood. Most of the bloodshed is the fault of the railroad who will stop at nothing to end Pike's gang. Thornton is furious with what he's had to do. He's told he has thirty days to get Pike and his gang or he's going back to prison. He's also told he has to do it with the same team of bounty hunters who are picking over the corpses belonging like vultures would like to pick at their flesh. Bounty Hunters who are played by Peckinpah faves like Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones
This blood bath is shown to us as a horrific gory ballet by Peckinpah, and Ballard. Cameras cranked at varying film speeds create a series of shots that forever changed and stylized cinema violence. It isn't merely slow-motion we are watching, but various speeds of motions intercut with each other to prolong a violent act, to make it have more meaning for a moment, then it ever really has. To make an act of violence play like a ballet dancers leap and give it a beauty and power it otherwise would not possess. Used sparingly it magnifies a moment in time. Imagine how powerful it must have been to an audience who had never seen such a thing in 1969. While it may not shock, amaze and disgust as it once did, the scene remains a powerful brutal scene. It has far more meaning than the bloodbath scene where supposedly innocent civilians are slaughtered in the recent Rules of Engagement and on my own recent viewing immediately made me recall the first scene of Saving Private Ryan (which has far more bloodshed than this film does)in which Speilberg used the more advanced technology at his disposal to the same type of effect Peckinpah did 30 years earlier.
Just as the gang assembles to split up the booty there is squabbling. The Gorch brothers (Ben Johnson and Warren Oates) don't believe newest member, (the Mexican) Angel (Jamie Sanchez) is entitled to a full share. Pike sets them straight. Then they discover the bloodshed was all for nothing. Their supposed bootie of silver and gold turns out to be nearly worthless washers. This of course means that the deaths of innocent townspeople
was also utterly wasteful.
Old-timer Freddie Sykes starts laughing at what a fine bunch of screw-ups the gang truly is. Sykes is played by an almost unrecognizable Edmond O'Brien who sports a tobacco stained beard, rotting teeth and a chest rattling whiskey fueled belly laugh.
In fact the only flaw of the film for me is how forced some of the laughter from the characters are. During this particular scene the laughter works. You either lose your temper, cry or laugh. They
begin to laugh pitifully at themselves.
However this is repeated later on in the film to mixed results, and there's a bit of pathos near the end of the film where we have a montage of the characters laughing. Over-kill. It's the only part of the film that feels forced, phony and wrong. A truly minor quibble to be sure. I only mention it because as brilliant as the film is, it is not without its flaws or Hollywood movie phoniness. It is not a completely timeless work of art either. Acting styles have changed, and a bit of corniness or
over-ripe dialogue should not be utterly unexpected in a 31 year old film.
The Bunch has been pursued relentlessly to the border by Thornton and his men. They don't cross over into Mexico however, because Thornton knows, in the near future, Pike and his men will be back in the states. They are what they are and Mexico is too poor a country to support them.
What Pike and his gang decide to do next is among the most daring exploits of their career. They intend on robbing a cache of guns for a fascist Mexican General. A General, who has taken Angel's girlfriend from his home-town and made her into his woman. In fact, Angel winds up shooting his ex- girlfriend while she sits on the General's lap, which leads to the gang agreeing to get the General's guns for $10,000 in gold. Angel agrees to compromise his principles if he can get a box of guns and ammo to his village to help them defend themselves.
This sets in motion the next incredible set piece of the film which is the robbery of the train. It requires expert timing and precision to pull off and Pike's men are actually capable of working together as a well oiled team to complete the first part of the mission.
Complications ensue and they nearly get caught. The set piece of blowing up the bridge is another unforgettable moment from the film.
The last part of the film moves toward the most famous bloodbath in film history. It's a long powerful scene of carnage. And it doesn't end with a victory the audience can somehow justify. It has more to say than that.
A lot of you will notice a lot of similarities to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It was filmed at almost the same time and released the same year as The Wild Bunch. Never have two films been more different. Butch Cassidy is an almost sacharine sweet, bit of audience pleasing revisionistic Western cotton candy (especially today). It established forever the cliche of the buddy-buddy pictures that are the core of so many action movies. However, it was creating a instant phony mythology. It's an entertaining, even romantic, comedy western adventure. The way in which Butch has influenced other films has been in mostly negative ways. Butch's better brethren have included good films such as Midnight Run and Rush Hour but Bunch can be linked to The Killer, Unforgiven, Reservoir Dogs and Goodfellas.
The Wild Bunch however is a film with much more on it's mind that merely entertaining its audience with charming pretty boy actors and B.J. Thomas pop songs. It doesn't end in a freeze-frame that allows the audience to continue to feel somewhat upbeat after a tragic ending, it ends with the most violent and bloodiest scenes movie audiences of its day had ever experienced.
TheWild Bunch is a work of art which has become even more than what it's makers intended and has stood the test of time better than most films -- even after it's techniques and once ground-breaking violent action scenes have been used, stolen and updated by dozens of film-makers.
The Wild Bunch is an unforgettable, one of a kind, masterpiece. Repeated viewings of the film will reveal additional layers, subtexts, and ideas.
Revisit it soon.
Chris Jarmick, Author (The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder Available end of December 2000)
As a counterpoint to the heroic horde of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN the aging gunmen of Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece break the very laws of honor which bind...More at Family Video
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