Doing it right, Best criticism on Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch; book review. (original) (raw)

Books
Michael Bliss, ed., (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994)
Illustrated.
224 pages.
Paperback.
ISBN: 978-0809318636Review by Dr. Kirk Bane,
Central Texas Historical Association

February 3, 2024

Skillfully directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring a brilliant cast, which includes William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, Edmond O'Brien, and Robert Ryan, THE WILD BUNCH ranks as one of cinema's greatest Westerns. Released in 1969, the film was exceptionally realistic, full of grime and gore. "It's a very uncompromising film," asserted Peckinpah at the time, "the language, the action, the details, the lives of these people are as I imagine they were. We tried to recreate an environment, an era, and I think we were reasonably successful with it. It's a disturbing film; people who've seen it call it a shattering film. The strange thing is that you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." Indeed, those who've seen THE WILD BUNCH will never forget the film, particularly its brutal conclusion, The Battle of Bloody Porch, in which the aging desperadoes meet their violent demise.

Comprised of eleven pieces written by both journalists and academics, this book offers, as the subtitle states, "the best criticism" on Peckinpah's masterwork. The essays date from 1969 to 1994 and initially appeared in such publications as FILM QUARTERLY, CINEMA, FILM HERITAGE, WESTERN HUMANITIES REVIEW, and THE NEW YORK TIMES. Excerpts from several important books, such as HORIZONS WEST (1969) by Jim Kitses, Paul Seydor's PECKINPAH: THE WESTERN FILMS (1980) and JUSTIFIED LIVES: MORALITY AND NARRATIVE IN THE FILMS OF SAM PECKINPAH (1993) by Michael Bliss, are also included.

"Both praised and condemned, THE WILD BUNCH incites agreement on at least one point: it is one of the most influential motion pictures ever made," contends Bliss. "Directed and cowritten by Sam Peckinpah�the film is the director's masterpiece. Nowhere else in Peckinpah's work does there exist such a powerful and effective meeting of form and content, stylistics and theme, casting and character. When he finished editing the film, Peckinpah pronounced himself 94 to 96 percent satisfied with the results; for those of us who have been studying and admiring the film ever since, the degree of satisfaction is even higher." Well stated.

Note One: Several superb books have been written about THE WILD BUNCH, its making, reception, and legacy. These include Stephen Prince's SAM PECKINPAH'S THE WILD BUNCH (1999), W. K. Stratton's THE WILD BUNCH: SAM PECKINPAH, A REVOLUTION IN HOLLYWOOD, AND THE MAKING OF A LEGENDARY FILM (2019), and THE WILD BUNCH: THE AMERICAN CLASSIC THAT CHANGED WESTERNS FOREVER (2019) by Bill Mesce, Jr. Moreover, Professor Bliss has edited a new collection of trenchant essays about the picture, A UNIQUELY AMERICAN EPIC: INTIMACY AND ACTION, TENDERNESS AND VIOLENCE IN SAM PECKINPAH'S THE WILD BUNCH (2019).

Note Two: In addition to his work on Peckinpah, Dr. Bliss, who teaches at Virginia Tech University, has authored such studies as MARTIN SCORSESE AND MICHAEL CIMINO (1986), WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND: THE FILMS OF JONATHAN DEMME (1996), and DREAMS WITHIN A DREAM: THE FILMS OF PETER WEIR (2000).