The Wild Bunch, 1969, directed by Sam Peckinpah
Story: After being set up in a bank heist, the dwindling and aging Wild Bunch (a band of outlaws operating in the American frontier of the early 20th century) crosses into Mexico. Pursued by bounty hunters led by one of their former members, the Bunch agree to steal a cache of weapons for a corrupt Mexican warlord – but eventually, they must decide what’s worth more: his gold or their vaguely maintained code of honor.
The Wild Bunch is notorious as a subversive take on the Western genre, with the opening lines of Pike (William Holden) – “If they move, kill ’em!” – supposedly a declaration of independence from the old-fashioned sanctities of the form. And the ensuing massacre would seem to confirm that we’re a long way from the moralistic shades of High Noon (1952) and Shane (1953), what with old ladies of the Temperance Union being killed in the crossfire by careless deputies, cowering bank tellers being taken hostage and used as live bait by the titular antiheroes, and the innocent babes of the town wandering through a town square littered with the corpses of their elders as they imitate the outlaws’ gunfire. Meanwhile, other children light a bonfire over battling scorpions and red ants, piling violence upon violence in a microcosm of the film’s pathology: lethal but somehow poignant old cretins – the bunch – pitted against the ruthless, small-minded hordes – the bounty hunters and Mexican soldiers and railroad men who are just as violent as the outlaws, but somehow more petty.
And there’s a key point, because from today’s vantage point the much-noted violence of The Wild Bunch is hardly as shocking as it was in 1969. Decades of slow-motion death rattles and massacres heavy with civilian casualties have somewhat desensitized us to director Sam Peckinpah’s gore – though the carnage still inspires awe for its aesthetic finesse, its brutality no longer pulls us as sharply out of the old Western myths as it was supposed to once upon a time. Meanwhile, the film’s style – despite the zooms, close-ups, and kinetic editing which were then novelties for the stately genre – now seems positively classical in comparison to the slick fireworks of contemporary blockbusters. What then remains, when the violence has lost some of its bite, and the film no longer appears so shockingly modern?
Perhaps the key takeaway from a 2009 screening of The Wild Bunch is its peculiar romanticism. If we’ve adapted ourselves to the nastiness and cynicism of Peckinpah’s West, we’ve also forgotten some of the sentimentality (yes, sentimentality) that even the most hard-bitten, cruel bandits were capable of. In other words, The Wild Bunch now seems to hold some long-forgotten middle ground, between the clean-cut myths of many early Westerns (though they, too, had their fair share of ambiguity) and the amorality and despair of most modern Westerns – and indeed, most modern films, period. Suddenly it is not the balletic leaps of corpses riddled with bullets that seems so shocking, but instead the swigging of whiskey around the campfire, the affectionate sharing of a girl in a flea-bitten bordello, or the insistence of Pike that a man who betrays his buddies is no better than “an animal.”
What stays with you is the longing in the weary Americans’ faces as they exit a peasant village (portrayed with almost naive sweetness by Peckinpah as Edenic), the existential despair and emerging certitude of the remaining quartet as they decide to rescue their one remaining friend (who has been tortured by the Mexican general they cynically worked for), the wistful yearning of Pike’s former partner Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) who could not be there with the gang when they went down in bloody glory but wishes he could have been (despite the fact that he was hired to kill them all himself). Of course, the gang may be likable but they are not especially sympathetic. Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Pike’s right-hand man and at once the most moralistic and least apologetic of the Bunch, grabs ahold of a panicking, fleeing prostitute in the final shootout and mercilessly uses her as a human shield to catch the bullets aimed at him.
It’s a reminder that the gang, for all their honor and loyalty to one another (which itself is often challenged, if ultimately confirmed, throughout the film) cares little for those outside their immediate circle. Which is why the glowing portrait of the noble revolutionaries, whom even the dogged Bunch seem to admire, comes off as a bit dishonest: why are they worthy of our sympathy when the townspeople of Texas and the desperate Mexican prostitutes are not? (Such vaguely leftist favoritism, rare in the film, betrays something of its sixties counterculture milieu, otherwise sidestepped while balancing old macho values with modern outsider alienation).
Finally, Peckinpah gives us a portrait at once bitter and romantic, savage and tender, cruel and cynical yet also sentimental and honorable. Just as the decade to which The Wild Bunch belonged now seems as poignant for the passing of the old ways as for the birth of the new (and especially the brief coexistence of the two), so the film itself, much like its antiheroes, belongs to the world it is helping to destroy.
[Originally this post provided a link to my piece, which was first posted on the Examiner. As of 1/29/10, it has been moved here in its entirety.]
This really is one of the most sensational reviews I’ve ever read about this film. You’ve obviously doner your homework here my friend. But aside from tyhe critical aspects of the piece I csan also detect your emotional feelings for this film, which I think doesn’t always come across in reviews. THE WILD BUNCH is one of those pictures you either love or hate. However, regardless to how a person likes it, nobody can dispute its importance in those formative years of the late sixties where, along with BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE GRADUATE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY, American movies started getting more realistic and grew up. Thanks so much for this superlative essay MM. Keep em coming! Your Pal, Dennis
Also, MM. I went to the EXAMINER site and read your essays on LAWRENCE OF ARABIS and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY as well. GREAT STUFF!!!!!! Look forward to more!
The bloody, slow-motion death scenes are in large measure what set this stylistically apart, but I found them terribly self-conscious and the film itself convoluted, episodic, and emotionally distancing. I could never understand the reputation the film achieved, and I prefer a number of other Peckinpah’s before this.
I’ll agree this is yet another top-drawer piece by Movie Man.
The movie’s grown on me; I always enjoyed it, but earlier exclusively from a voyeuristic angle – enjoying the slo-mo violent shootouts. This time was the first time I really appreciated the characters and the story – hence the appreciation in the review. I can see why not everyone loves it though.
I always thought when Peckinpah moved away from the excessive vilence to concentrate on character and the romantic undertones, that the film worked.
“Finally, Peckinpah gives us a portrait at once bitter and romantic, savage and tender, cruel and cynical yet also sentimental and honorable.”
I must say that I do agree with that, Mr. Bocko. And it’s true that what was so excessively violent in 1969 is small potatoes today, especially the stylistics. I would have hoped for more cohesion with this film, but it’s still a major work that has been much emulated. This is one of the great reviews I have read at this site.
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Saw the film yesterday. Perhaps the passage of time has, as you point out, waned its function and intention. But I liked the film a lot. We rarely see the killer and the victim in the same shot. Peckinpah seems to frustrate us with his cutting, postponing and denying us the pleasure of a completed murder (Tell me I’m right because I’m not sure why many love the violence in this film. I was frustrated by the fragmented nature of it all along.). But the text of the film, as such, is slightly problematic.
MovieMan, this is a very insightful review here. But I could not see the bunch as one “worthy of our sympathy”. I felt they were being criticized all along. The final shootout is so darn disturbing that the bunch doesn’t seem very far off from the dictator. The film’s ultimate message – those who live by the gun, die by the gun – might be hackneyed, but Peckinpah seems to have made violence as the norm in this film, thereby criticizing the romanticism associated with the West altogether (Butch Cassidy of the same year seems to have resorted to condescension, bu the slomo deaths in that film disturb me much more).
I think The Wild Bunch will remain worthy of debate eternally.
Thanks JAFB. I think to a certain point it’s to do with starting points. I’d seen the film a few times by the time I wrote this review, and had already responded to the bunch with surprise that they were supposed to be sympathetic (seeing them, like you, as not much better than the dictator). On this view, coming to it with the attitude that they weren’t, I was ripe to re-evaluate, and to finally notice the ways in which they are…
As for the violence, I’m not sure. As a kid my friends and I had our morbid, bloodthirsty streak and would watch shootouts in action movies in slo-mo (I remember even pausing the Ben-Hur chariot scene to grock on the stretcher-bearers being run over by the chariot!). When I saw Peckinpah’s film, knowing it’s reputation of being anti-violence, I just couldn’t take it that way: it’s approach, in the 30 years (at the time) since ’69, seemed more glorifying than anything else. But I suppose that’s because we were like those venal little kids in the first shot, ha ha!
At any rate, the film has grown on me; not that I didn’t like it at first, but I couldn’t really see the depth. Now, for me, that depth is not so much in the action sequences and technique, as I was led to believe originally, but in the character and story (so I guess I kind of approach it from the opposite angle of you here), or rather perhaps and the character and story in relation to the violence and techniques. I’d be interested to know what you think after further re-viewings – feel free to return to the post way down the line!
Yes, yes. Even I think my attention will boil down to the dynamics of the characters on subsequent viewings. Three fourths of my way into the film, I’d thought the bunch would go fight for the revolutionary cause, but it seems to me now that it was more for personal redemption.
Coming back to the violence, when the bunch change their minds and walk towards the general, I thought we will be asked to cheer for them all the way from then. But the film thwarts that experience. When the bunch and the army is cleared out, I was happy that the nauseating violence is over rather than cry for the protagonists. But, in the final analysis, I do feel that that there was a (very) tiny bit of video game-esque fetishizing of violence there.
This a fantastic review, not sure how I missed it when it originally appeared.
RE: Violence, I think this film gets so much discussion on these merits partly because it was graphic/realistic for the time, but also because the entire film rests on it. There is more to take away from the film, as MM points out, but I believe it’s all in support of the violence to come. The ‘romanticism’ that is present becomes romantic because all our characters will die in a rather monumental, beautiful way. So I’m happy that the discussion is about violence, not a condemnation of cinema violence, because I think judging this film in any sort of meta-morality is incorrect. It’s almost violence for violence sake, which if sadistic could be off-putting (and if you wanted, amoral), but here it’s not lacking in humanity, but rather like a ballet. It’s so fake (in how it moves, and is scripted) I could never take it seriously, so I view it as I think Peckinpah wanted us to: on craft, and dynamics (in short I’d call this film immoral not amoral, which is subtle, but important). As such it’s pretty fantastic filmmaking.
And I do agree with Sam above, I’ve never loved this film, I like it a bit, but I feel he made quite a few more interesting pictures. One I just saw for the first time less then 6 months ago is the strange BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. I’d love to hear what MovieMan and others think of that one after viewing THE WILD BUNCH, it’s so strange. It almost isn’t a Peckinpah film, and yet no one but him could have made it. Now that one offers romanticism like only celluloid can deliver. I’m tempted to call it my favorite now from him, but STRAW DOGS and PAT GARRETT tempt me otherwise…
opps.
I meant in “(short I’d call this film amoral not immoral, which is subtle, but important)” rather then how it is above, which is the exact opposite of what I wrote. my apologies.
I actually haven’t seen much Peckinpah – just this, Ride the High Country, and Straw Dogs. I’m dying to see Pat Garrett after Dave’s rhapsodic response but I should probably re-view the other films as well (the former struck me as a good Western but not the masterpiece many have acclaimed it as, which suggests I may have missed something, and the latter was certainly memorable but I didn’t come away from it with any fresh insights or aesthetic revelations that I can recall). Since Wild Bunch has shifted somewhat for me with repeat viewings, that’s additional incentive to do so. And yes, Alberto Garcia demands a look-see…
If I could make a suggestion, since you have only seen about three of his, see a few– specifically the western themed ones– maybe 5 or 6 get comfortable with Peckinpah then see BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA. If done like this you’ll understand how strange that film is, and, I believe, how good it is too.
Er, Alfredo…
Good point about the romanticism and the violence. In so many late sixties work, the doom is an integral part of the romantic, charged atmosphere – the zeitgeist in a nutshell (and the there’s the melancholy, anticlimactic aftermath, on my mind I suppose because I just watched The Mother and the Whore last night. Have you seen that, Jamie? If not, see it! I think it’s right up your alley…)
MovieMan. I felt that Eustache’s film was something like a summary to the whole era before, revealing the impasse that it has come to. Sort of like a fictional counterpart of Grin Without A Cat.
JAFB, good connection there. I saw Grin Without a Cat a while back and while I enjoyed it (given the subject matter and some interesting observations & details), it didn’t really cohere as well for me as, say, Sans Soleil (the only other Marker doc/essay I’ve seen). To a certain extent that may have been intentional, but I suspect Marker could have organized his footage and thoughts a little better. Still, I’d see it again in a flash.
Ed Howard reviewed it a month or so ago and I commented over there:
http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2010/06/grin-without-cat.html
Also, re: Maman & Putain I just offered my further thoughts on that under Allan’s review:
I really LOVE Eustache’s THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE, that to me, is about as perfect as cinema gets. I haven’t seen it in a while, and I’ve had a bit of trouble finding a copy with English subs (for some reason). A rental place by my house offers it but I’ve been too busy to get there… and my waking moments for cinema has pretty much been all horror all the time. As soon as that eases up a bit, in a week or so I plan on getting there and revisiting it.
Are you familiar with ‘Regular Lovers’ (France…Philippe Garrel) from the mid-2000’s? That’s not that similar to the Eustache film, but kissing cousins maybe. And ‘Regular Lovers’ I like quite a bit as well.
I thought you’d say that! As for Regular Lovers, that’s one I’ve been dying to see (I thought younger Garrel was by far the most convincing 60s hipster of the Dreamers trio too) – I think it’s on my 21st century list.
I enjoy Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid slightly more. Garrett and Alfredo Garcia are better Peckinpah films IMO (though Bunch is still good). The Wild Bunch signified a new generation of movie goers and a changing of the guard. That is a great thing and should be acknowledged. Great essay Joel…….
While I respect Bonnie & Clyde and Wild Bunch a bit more than I “love” them, Easy Rider’s one of my favorite films. I think it’s a great one as well – though initially I found it dated and somewhat “sloppy” as you say, in time I felt that the propulsive, un-circumspect style was vital to the film’s power. Plus, it’s got some great dialogue from Terry Southern, fantastic photography from Laslo Zovacs, and – as you note – a fantastic soundtrack: more importantly the music and images except in a dynamic symbiosis that I find irresistable (even more than the now-iconic Born to Be Wild montage, the kick-in of The Pusher makes my insides churn with the thrill of it all). The best defense of Easy Rider I’ve read comes in a book called “The Great Movies” by William Bayer, which is unfortunately not in print anymore. In it he transcribes a “not-so-imaginary” conversation with a friend, in which he agrees that Hopper’s vision is extreme, his message rather simplistic, and his style resolutely un-subtle but that the film works as a sort of vital “primitive” art. I agree.
And I think you mean Peter – though I’d love to see the old man on the back of that stars-and-stripes-draped chopper!
Oh and let me be the one that points out the greatness of the Sex Pistols. If you want to dive pretty deep into punk ethos and history you can read G. Marcus’ fantastic ‘Lipstick Traces’ or sections of B. Watson’s ‘Art, Class, and Cleavage’ for an idea about how truly groundbreaking and fantastic the Pistols were, and what a genius Jon Lydon was and is. So it’s not really a question of liking that band because you haven’t looked further, it’s really just a question of how good the Pistols actually were.
And yes the bands you list are good too, but so are the Pistols. If we are trying to out obscure each other can I insert Radio Birdman into aussie punk bands instead of The Saints? Or what about X? Not the LA one, but the one from down under whose records are very hard to come by (their first dic ‘Aspirations’ is really something to behold, track one ‘Suck Suck’ is flat out filler. Seek it out on youtube if anyone isn’t familiar). And Wire is a great post-punk outfit, but Lydon can come full circle back into the discussion with the truly great PiL.
I also think BONNIE AND CLYDE is better then we’re giving it credit for; but I do have a bias for Arthur Penn from that era. He was a true American master before he drifted into obscurity. MICKEY ONE, if given the Criterion treatment would be reevaluated and finally given credit for how fantastic and original it was for it’s time and place.
Jaimie– Radio Birdman is incredible. They are the other great Australian punk band. Hand Of Law is such a great track. I’m going to go listen to them in a minute. The Sex Pistols are a good band but nowhere near the best of that genre. The LP gets rather monotonous during it’s full length running time. It would make a great EP with Holidays In The Sun, Bodies, God Save The Queen, Seventeen, Anarchy In The UK, Pretty Vacant, New York, and EMI. A nice 8 track mini album would do wonders. It has nothing to do with obscurity just that sometimes a pioneering group gets outclassed without the general public ever realizing. With British punk/post punk Buzzcocks, The Clash, Wire, The Damned, The Adverts, The Jam, Trobbing Gristle, Joy Division and Undertones all made better music. Lets not even get into the N.Y.C. scene with Television, Ramones, Heartbreakers, Richard Hell etc or L.A. with X, Germs etc. This does not take into account the SST 80’s stuff, The Wipers, Mission Of Burma…… the list could go on. The Sex Pistols if taken on a larger scope are a second rate punk band in my opinion. It has nothing to do with recognition as I still worship The Clash and Ramones. PIL is also overrated in my mind when compared to latter day post punk. Just my opinion of course but the point was more that sometimes an artist or a piece of their work gets vaulted by something other than the quality of what they create. Sure the Pistols are a good band. But “the” best of the punk era? Not in many people’s opinion or mine. The Wild Bunch holds a similar place for me. Good film but heralded for something other than it’s overall quality. They are deemed important because of some other factor. I think we need to differentiate between important and greatest. The Sex Pistols and Wild Bunch are very important but nowhere near the best in their respected worlds.
Maybe I’m just trying to justify my love for Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid over The Wild Bunch lol. It’s like the idea that Nirvana was the greatest of the 90’s. Important sure but best? People sometimes confuse the two.
Yeah, I agree with much of what you say. But while I’d never use a term like ‘best’ when discussing music (at least without ‘in my opinion’ attached to it), I wouldn’t say the Sex Pistols are ‘the best’ it’s too unfair to them, all the bands you list did not have a debut as good as the Pistols (only the Clash’s compares at all–and I chuckled a bit with your earlier comments about being obscure for obscures sake, then say the Adverts were better then the Pistols. Gaye was spicy sure, and they made a few nice tracks but they aren’t in the Pistols universe in any way shape or form), and the Pistols never got the chance to do more then that. And when one thinks about the lyrics in the first few PiL records Lydon certainly wasn’t short of ideas. The Pistols might not have been the best sure, but I have no problem with saying they were the ‘most important’.
I do give you a few bonus points for listing the jam and the undertones. Two personal favorites of mine… Paul Weller is about as close as this atheist will ever talk about a ‘God’.
Oh and no mention of the Damned?! As if! (they have 3 or 4 masterpieces in a row… rare for that genre and era. ‘The Black Album’ or ‘Strawberries’ are my personal favorites. great headphone music too, another rare feat for the genre. only ‘Sandanista!’ betters them in sonic and production creativity)
Oh and Maurizio since you know your stuff I like the first three Skids records too (specifically the first one). Get me drunk, and I’d argue it’s my favorite guitar record ever made… and I like riff based guitar rock. ‘Down in the Valley’ is how one should play guitar.
oh, and rereading it I see you did mention the Damned. My apologies, OR congrats on the good taste!
Well I would take Marquee Moon, Pink Flag, Blank Generation, Ramones, The Clash, Unknown Pleasures etc over Nevermind The Bullocks. I do think many bands made better debut albums even stuff like Living In Darkness by Agent Orange, The Descendents first album and Signals Calls And Marches by Mission Of Burma. Regardless I did say it’s all opinion and that noone is really right. I just laugh when people who don’t know the music will tell me The Pistols were the “greatest” punk band. More like the most well known and infamous. But if someone like you (who clearly knows the history) defends them then I have no qualms. Yes it’s all opinion and mine is not any better than the next guy. I like The Skids but don’t love them to be honest. I also truly love The Adverts more than the Pistols. Their first album is a total classic. Bored Teenagers and On The Roof rock like few others. With The Damned I love Machine Gun Etiquette the best…..
Well again, we could debate quality as it pertains to taste, but the Pistols are great because most of the albums you cite probably never happen if the Pistols don’t form. Or if those albums do happen they don’t sound the same at all… In these things, that’s quite important (oh and the album is killer IMHO).
A few of the other American ones merit discussion, but as you know American punk and English punk are really two different animals and I treat them as such. For me I would take ‘Blank Generation’ over ‘Never mind…’ but it’s just taste preference at that point. Oh, and I’ve never gotten the Ramones, liked them a little in high school, and will still bop to a track now and then (especially the crazy Spector stuff) but they are to me what the Pistols seem to be to you.
Oh and ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ is the first of the 3-4 masterpieces in a row I spoke of earlier. An absolute classic, I’m not sure if there is a more underrated guitarist then Captain Sensible (much better here that he’s off the bass), and drummer in Rat Scabies.
I can’t believe you don’t like the Skids ‘Scared to Dance’ record. I figured you’d dig it, if the album was one song (‘Charles’) it would be worth discussing let alone the other cuts there.
I think it still would of happened anyway. The Ramones had already started the form and three chord drive. Lets not forget 60’s bands like The Sonics, The Stooges, The Monks, and MC5 who had basically pioneered the punk sound way before 76-77. The Pistols did seem to be the motivating factor though in getting the British punks “off the coach” and inspiring them to go for it as well. I know The Damned always say that New Rose had been written without knowledge of who the Sex Pistols were. Ahh the funny thing about history is that we will never really know how things would of turned out if circumstances were different……
I do like the first Skids album but don’t love it. Germ Free Adolescents by X Ray Spex is another that is okay but not a favorite. I can’t lie and say I love every major punk album. Some of them just don’t do as much for me.
Yeah I meant Peter. I read somewhere that they modeled the two main characters after Roger Mcguinn and David Crosby of the Byrds. I do find Easy Rider to be better than the other 2 films we mentioned. I wonder how much dialogue is actually Southern’s though. I know much of it was improvised on the spot while stoned. The best bit about Venutians/Aliens that Nicholson goes on about was made up as they were filming. There seems to be a huge amount of improvising throughout the picture. Most of my favorite moments seem to be those blink of an eye bits of dialogue that happen when someone is high and spurting out non sequiturs. I like the primitive art suggestion. The Moray Eels Eat The Holy Modal Rounders is a great example. The label ESP put out a bunch of great 60’s rock modeled on that concept. I need to go listen to 2 by The Godz. Maybe the use of Bird Song is a sly indication of Hopper’s intention or aesthetics. Personally I think they were too high/young/naive to bother crafting a more subtle piece of film. The movie reflects the warts of the time in all it’s bad dated ideals and faded societal concepts. I view it as more of a museum piece than something still vital and truly great. Regardless, its appeals for many are not lost on me. I wouldn’t mind going back in time and hanging out at that commune. I would definitely join the Gorilla Theatre……..
I think Hopper and Fonda are a little more self-critical and satirical than they get credit for (or perhaps their collaborators are) – the commune scene plays to some as self-parody, but to me it seems an affectionate but rather skeptical look at bunch of half-baked idealists. Fonda is cool but aloof and not really much of a rebel, and Hopper is the opposite of cool – an uptight, paranoid stoner who’s about as “enlightened” as the Texan police officers we see.
It’s Nicholson, an alcoholic football-playing lawyer square, who has the most radical vision of the trio (I think Pauline Kael made this point about the UFO speech). I love the irony of that. Ultimately, I’m not sure how much of this was intentional and how much was achieved by accident – but in the end I don’t care all that much, I guess.
And yes, despite Southern’s input, a lot of the exchanges were improvised – and the actors were genuinely stoned much of the time. All the more reason for me to wonder at the fact that a coherent, resonant, and if not subtle at least healthily complex picture came out of the whole experience!
Ahh I’m remembering the scene where Peter Fonda gives Nicholson the joint to smoke. His expression is priceless. Also the end with Fonda crying about his father drops the aloof cool factor. That must of been the same LSD that made Lennon throw him out of that party that resulted in the She Said She Said song.