by Joel Bocko
Movies are motifs and moments as well as stories – individual, isolated campfires flickering in the desert dusk and not just landscapes strung together by a stretch of lonesome road. Perhaps Westerns more than most other narrative films rely on this identification with details rather than plot development. Indeed, often the plots exist as clotheslines over which to string the details: the kids playing in the dirt staring up in awe at the outlaws riding nonchalantly through town, the bedroom sequence in which a lonely drifter becomes loquacious with a local whole, the banter over whisky at the bar (nobody drinks beer in saloons, it seems). Audiences go to Westerns – or went to Westerns when they were more popular – less to experience surprise twists and turns in a novelistic story than to gaze with affection and curiosity at a portrait of a time and place both familiar and foreign.
“Revisionist” directors like Sam Peckinpah may have upset and upturned conventions, but they also honored and expanded upon those conventions in the first place. Watching films like The Wild Bunch today, their once-groundbreaking violence no longer shocks; one is struck instead by the ways in which they feel nostalgic or old-fashioned. They exude a sense of affectionate camaraderie which one seldom finds outside of buddy comedies (albeit sans stoicism) in 2013. Perhaps no Western more acutely captures the passage from warm if rough camaraderie into brooding, suspicious isolation than Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973). Even stylistically, the film – particularly when comparing its various incarnations (three have been released over the years) – is torn between a sense of long, lingering (perhaps excessive) attention to detail and a relentless march toward an inevitable outcome.
That inevitable outcome is not just outlaw Billy the Kid’s (Kris Kristofferson’s) demise at the end of his old friend Sheriff Pat Garret’s (James Coburn’s) pistol (described in the opening scene before we even flash back to meet Billy); it’s also Garrett’s own death, shown in that same opening (and bookending the movie in the mostly widely-acclaimed cut of the film). Indeed, the film is essentially a grim march of death scenes; it isn’t as bloody as The Wild Bunch, and I doubt its body count is as high; however, the shootouts are spread out across the entire length of the film rather than clustered into certain intense sequences, and virtually all the characters killed are personally introduced to us before they die. The result reads less as grisly-but-gorgeous slo-mo carnage and more as morbid emotionally-charged fatalism: to put it another way, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is less about violence than death. Not only the death of individuals, but of the lifestyle and sensibility they represent – a land of the mind and not just physical space, in which men (and the occasional woman who isn’t a meek hanger-on, like Sheriff Baker’s (Slim Pickens’) wife Mama) write the rules by instinct and mutual understanding rather than codified power hypocritically masked as “law” and “justice.”
All versions of the film follow the same general storyline: after paying a friendly yet threatening visit to his old chums, Pat Garrett follows through on his early warning by arresting Billy when he refuses to leave the county that Garrett (a former member of Billy’s gang) was elected to protect. Billy then escapes captivity and avoids a hanging by killing Garret’s deputies (one of whom was once a member of his gang; the other is a fanatical Christian whose most famous line, “I’ll take you for a walk across Hell on a spiderweb!” was cut in the most recent revision). The rest of the movie cuts between Garrett’s quest to fulfill his duty and Billy’s half-hearted evasion. In fact, rather than pursuing and fleeing, the men are engaged in a kind of dance of death – Garrett seems ambivalent about actually tracking down his old pal, while Billy’s wounded sense of loyalty demands an ultimate confrontation rather than a safe escape. Along the way, both men see how the West around them is changing, how it’s being “fenced in” as Billy the Kid puts it resentfully, by the very people whom Garrett essentially works for – personified by the ruthless Chisholm, the offscreen wealthy landowner. Increasingly it seems that whoever wins this long-distance duel, both men will be losers as the frontier fades (a sentiment confirmed by the latter-day assassination framing the film).
The role of “the law” in all this is ambiguous. Not that the legitimacy of law itself is treated ambivalently; clearly Peckinpah and his characters, except for those explicitly painted as contemptuous, have no respect for official authority, viewing it as a flimsy facade concealing the power of certain men to squeeze others. This of course romanticizes frontier justice, which was often just another, more rugged form of exploitation and brutality, but then Pat Garrett is nothing if not romantic. Yet the ambiguity exists because regardless of Peckinpah’s (and screenwriter Rudolph Wurlitzer’s) hatred of law enforcement hypocrisy, the central question isn’t “the letter of the law” but a deeper-cutting existential question: how long can a man exist on the edge, how far along it can he go? And when he’s chosen a different path, for whatever reason, how far must he go in rejecting his former life? The same question exists for Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) in The Wild Bunch, who accepts that as a professional duty he must hunt down and destroy former comrades but resists internalizing the conception that sees them as outlaws and his own course as any more justified (or even equally justified) than theirs.
Garrett doesn’t get off as easily as Thornton, and so the film is his tragedy, not Billy’s – since Billy is lucky to be a martyr for a myth, a myth which Peckinpah seems to embrace. (Indeed, there’s something a bit merciless in how purely and unashamedly Billy plows down everyone less cocksure than himself; take Jack Elam’s Alamosa Bill Kermit, placed against his will in an untenable situation and still made to feel ignoble when Billy shoots him down). By the end of the film, Pat Garrett must not only do his duty, he must lose his dignity in the process; this makes him both more sympathetic than the charismatic but almost inhumanly unfettered Billy, and sometimes more contemptible. Take the scene in which Garrett ruthlessly baits and then kills one of Billy’s crew: this may be the moment in which he quits dithering between being a half-hearted agent of authority and the brutalizing arrogant enforcer – finally he accepts that he must be the bad guy (at least in a world where the lawman rather than the outlaw is seen as such).
Every Garrett scene pushes toward this point, including the one in which his wife castigates him for selling his soul and warns that she may not be there anymore when he returns home after killing Billy. We begin to get the sense that Garrett made a miscalculation from which he can’t withdraw; offered a trade-off between the freedom of his youth and the security of middle age, he was in fact trading honest camaraderie for lonely power. Not for nothing does Peckinpah show Garrett swinging alone on a porch bench in the climactic scene, while Billy gets to frolic with a lover inside. The movie is filled with card-playing and Garrett only slowly realizes the cards he has put down and picked up were not worth what he thought. His final line, barking at a government toady, is “What you want and what you get are two different things!”; tellingly this is both an assertion of his power and a lament for his futility.
That line, along with the wife scene and many other notable moments, is not in all available versions of the movie. In 1973, MGM hacked up Peckinpah’s film so mercilessly that the result (almost universally panned, and disowned by the filmmaker himself) has been rarely shown since (I haven’t seen it). The 1988 “preview cut” of Pat Garret & Billy the Kid (more or less the version Sam Peckinpah himself screened for friends before his death) honors that first conception and is decisively “termitic” to use critic Manny Farber’s coinage: it is a film that focuses on sustaining & developing moments over momentum. Meanwhile, the 2005 “definitive edition” is accepted as definitive by few; editor and Peckinpah devotee Paul Seydor emphasizes the drive of the story, cutting down and repositioning scenes to streamline the storytelling. There are numerous differences, large and small, between the two later versions which I won’t describe here (this Listology post does a good job detailing them) but there are some very notable and telling contrasts.
The first and most remarked upon is Seydor’s strange decision to remove Peckinpah’s favored approach to the opening credits with Wild Bunch-esque freeze frames crosscutting between Garrett getting mowed down in 1908 and Billy and his pals shooting the heads off chickens in 1881. Peckinpah’s opening is arresting, grisly, and woundingly poetic, perfectly setting the tone for the rest of the film with its heightened sense of doom and destruction. On the other hand, many approve of Seydor’s decision to include the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, excluded in favor of a quieter instrumental version in the “preview cut” (Dylan also appears in the film itself as the oddball, enigmatic observer Alias, a mostly irrelevant if occasionally amusing supporting character).
At the moment, I have to say I’m one of those who prefers Seydor’s aesthetic choice. As Slim Pickens’ character, shot in the belly, stumbles off into the sunset and his wife weeps by his side, the words of Dylan hit us like bullets to our own gut and the effect is overwhelming. This may not be as subtle as the earlier incarnation, but damnit, I don’t think it’s the time to be subtle. I suppose I’m partial because I saw the 2005 version first, and was absolutely blown away by the frisson between Dylan’s parched vocals and Pickens’ absolutely heartbreaking expression, a mixture of pride, pain, and perplexity – since I didn’t see the “preview cut” until tonight, it was the lyric-accompanied scene I had in mind when I named this one of my favorite scenes of all time in a recent poll. On the other hand, Seydor cut the “Paris, France” line (one of Billy’s sidekicks sarcastically explaining where Billy has gone), and it’s missed.
Elsewhere, Seydor cuts out what he sees as the fat of various scenes, and truthfully his cut flows much better than the “preview” version that Peckinpah clung to. That edition, with its longueurs, has a shaggy dog feel at times. I don’t think too many sequences were rearranged and yet the shape of the film feels quite different, more immediately satisfying – one is reminded of Dede Allen’s advice that cutting what comes before a given moment can change that given moment more than cutting anything within it. Watching the “preview cut” tonight for the first time, after falling in love with the ’05 version several years ago (not even realizing how controversial it was until later) I began to suspect that some of the complaints against Seydor resulted from fans’ overattachment to the version they’d seen first. And yet…
What is lost, left on the cutting room floor by Seydor’s overactive scissors, includes many moments of jagged insight or poetic emphasis. There’s that strange “spiderweb” line already mentioned, but also the almost naively “tough” way a surrounded gang of bandits tries to play cards while one of them is dying, the goofy yet singular scene in which Garrett’s humorless accomplice Poe (John Beck) extracts a confession from some fey old men (turn your head sideways and you’ll note that’s Elisha Cook, Jr. lying on the bed, in a brief cameo), and especially the brief, gruff, almost startling sneak appearance by Peckinpah himself near the end – partially included in the ’05 recut but without his stinging send-off: “When are you gonna learn, Garrett? You can’t trust anyone…not even yourself, you chickenshit badge-wearing son of a bitch.” The director appears to be counseling not just the character onscreen, but himself in light of the upcoming battles with studio authorities.
While I’m glad the Seydor version exists for points of contrast – and also perhaps as a point of introduction (it worked as such for me) – ultimately it’s hard not to see a certain sad coincidence with the theme of the film. Just as Garrett tries to fit in, only to find that in doing so he loses his soul, so by cleaning up the movie much of its ragged yet deep-cutting power is diluted (as Neil Fulwood notes, “the ideal cut of ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’ would be a mixture of the 1988 and 2005 incarnations” but again we turn to Garrett’s closing line in response). Granted, the dilemma is not nearly so pronounced here – the ’05 edition is still strong, in some sense even superior, and it’s the only version I knew when ranking the film in my personal top 50. And yet the ways in which it falls short are worth noting, bringing to mind the doubtlessly far more ravaged studio cut of ’73. One imagines that version as something like Billy’s and Garrett’s nightmare of the West to come: all that open space, with its roughness and tedium but also its soul-piercing clarity and emotional freedom, settled and “civilized” and neutered of what made it so special. Peckinpah didn’t live to share his vision of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid with the wider world but between the two versions available now, at least what he wanted and what we get can come a little bit closer together.
The basic theme is that the West is morphing, and there is no room anymore for the wild, carefree violence and the gunslinging cattle wars. Law and order have finally won out. Joel, you do a splendid job assessing the original film (the one that made this countdown) and the various incarnations of it that have surfaced over the years. I am not hogwild over this film as some are (but then I was never a huge fan of THE WILD BUNCH either) but I can at least appreciated the unique stylistics.
You came up with a marvelous opening:
Movies are motifs and moments as well as stories – individual, isolated campfires flickering in the desert dusk and not just landscapes strung together by a stretch of lonesome road. Perhaps Westerns more than most other narrative films rely on this identification with details rather than plot development.
So great to have your singular skills on these pages again!
…….Not only the death of individuals, but of the lifestyle and sensibility they represent……
I completely agree, and this is the central concern of this film. I’m a fan. And I salute you on a terrific review on it’s multiple revisions.
Joel this is a tremendously written essay and you get at the heart of this film and I applaud your analysis. I don’t care for the film all that much and part of it may have to do with the casting (Kristofferson never did much for me) as well as the fact that I just don’t like Peckinpah at all after Major Dundee. Bottom line. Don’t like the films nor his ethos. I understand what people do see in them, I just can’t get into them much. I like the first 3 films tremendously, just not after that. They all suffer from a bloat that I find rather unaffecting. I don’t think anyone could have written as piece on this film as well as you have though. Great stuff.
Joel, it’s a strong commentary on a film I’ve never liked much. I do like The Wild Bunch and some later Peckinpahs, but Garrett seems self-indulgent and the movie stardom of Kristofferson remains a mystery to me, though he did eventually become a welcome character actor. For Peckinpah the film itself seemed to reflect that ideal version of the West as free,open space, with male camaraderie as an end unto itself. He may never have finished it, given his druthers. Still, it has some great moments, with Coburn and Pickens having the best of them.
Thanks for the kind words, guys. As it turns out this was my first review in over 6 months so I’m glad you enjoyed reading it! Interesting though that majority of commentators so far are not big fans of the film itself. Wondering which version you guys saw, out of curiosity – they really are different experiences.
2005 Seydor cut, Joel. Can’t imagine not hearing Dylan’s voice over Pickens’s death.
Me neither. That’s one point where I DEFINITELY depart from the criticism of Seydor. I think the ’88 version mixes the song lower too; just in general, it feels more subdued. For the impression that scene made alone on a first viewing, I’m very glad I saw the ’05 version before the ’88.
Yeah I saw the 2005 version too.
Couldn’t disagree more. The Seydor cut is haphazard and kind of atrocious, and I’ll take Pickens death without Dylan’s voice any day. There’s been some great articles written on the liberites Seydor took, I can’t find one at the moment but it’s a problematic edit, to put it mildly.
The listology link I embedded in the review is a pretty good guideline. After watching both, I definitely think the ’88 is the richer experience. Right now I’m humorong the idea of a video essay on the differences between the two cuts, unless there’s already one out there that covers it (I wouldn’t be surprised). Haven’t watched the special features on the double disc yet.
Another artist has a film wrested from his hands and butchered into nonsense by the Hollywood moguls. Never cared for this one, but then who knows what the official Peckinpah version looks like? Great review.
My understanding is the “preview version” (1988) is closest, as it’s the one he actually screened for people before his death.
Well, I first saw this in 1973, as released, and I loved it. More recently I’ve seen the 1988 version on DVD and I still love it. I really couldn’t tell you what the differences were as the earlier version remains as a distant memory. I suppose, at the time, I didn’t worry too much about the cuts, I was just happy it existed, Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan in a movie by the guy that made The Wild Bunch. I had been a fan of Kristofferson since I saw him win the song of the year award at the CMAs in 1970 standing up before that conservative body with his long hair and leather pants. And, at the time, Bob Dylan was the most important man on the planet for me and probably still is.
So, anyway, this one has always been one of my favorite films and has a place on my personal 100 list. For me, it’s mostly about a feeling, an attitude that says there’s got to be another way to exist in this world than the one that’s being forced on me, even though, most of the time, there isn’t.
Beautifully put.
Interestingly, I think you’re the first person (I’ve heard) to say they liked the original cut. Yet I’d imagine, even in its brutalized form, this has got to be a powerful film. Greatness will out.
Mr. Bocko:
The story behind the genesis, making, and editing of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is so complex and multi-faceted that I wound up writing a book about it, despite the substantial chapters already in my Peckinpah: The Western Films and Peckinpah: The Western Films: A Reconsideration. The new book will be published by Northwestern University Press in February of 2015 and is titled The Authentic Death and Contentious Afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: The Untold Story of Peckinpah’s Last Western Film (http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/titles/authentic-death-and-contentious-afterlife-pat-garrett-and-billy-kid). I hope it serves to clear up all the misinformation and the misunderstanding about this flawed but powerful masterpiece and its several versions.
I am grateful that, unlike some of the criticism leveled on websites such as this one, you manage to criticize the special edition without indulging in speculation as to my motives. The only exception I would take is to your reference to my “overactive scissors.” In fact, as I explain at great length in the new book, I framed the project in such a way as to free myself of having to make any more decisions than I actually had to, and I did this by using the theatrical version of the film as the base version to which missing scenes were added where they should go. Thus, for example, I cannot take credit for adding back the vocals to “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” as they were already in the theatrical. I didn’t cut the “spiderweb” line (which I too like, and indeed, wish I had put back in), as it was never in the theatrical. I didn’t cut the Dub Taylor/Elisha Cook, Jr. scene as it was never in the theatrical either (though I applaud its being cut—one of Peckinpah’s worst scenes, it has no business being in the film).
As I explain at considerable length in the new book, the theatrical version was most emphatically not prepared by MGM or James Aubrey (MGM’s Head of Production at the time), and it is insult to refer to it, as many do, as MGM’s, Aubrey’s, or “butchered.” This is because it was prepared by Peckinpah’s most trusted editors at the time—Roger Spottiswoode (Straw Dogs, The Getaway) and Robert L. Wolfe (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, Junior Bonner, The Getaway). Peckinpah refused to do any further work and they interceded to protect the film from Aubrey, who cared only that he have a shorter cut for release. Their work was so sympathetic, sensitive, and exacting that we do well to remember that long before the Turner version was ever released, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was widely hailed as one of Peckinpah’s great films, particularly in the little magazines where some of the more serious film criticism is written. All of this and more is covered in great detail in the new book.
By the way, I think your essay excellent.
Thank you,
Paul Seydor
Wow, I am so sorry I missed this comment a year ago! I will look for that book, particularly as I plan on reviewing Pat Garrett again in the upcoming year (a much shorter review, as part of a series on “favorites”). Perhaps I will pursue the video essay I mentioned in the above comments as well, with this new context in mind. Thanks again for sharing your experience with the film.