TSPDT placing: #58
Directed by: Sam Peckinpah
Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Jaime Sánchez, Ben Johnson, Emilio Fernández, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Albert Dekker, Bo Hopkins
The Wild Bunch (1969) is about the end of the Western era, a theme director Sam Peckinpah also explored in his first success, Ride the High Country (1962). The year is 1913, and the aging gunslingers of yesteryear now find themselves strangers in a modern, civilised world: the once indispensable horse is being replaced by the automobile, and traditional firearm duels now play out with M1917 Browning machine guns, which belt out bullets at 450 rounds/minute. So advanced, in fact, has the American West become that its cowboys must seek out action over the national border in "primitive" Mexico, where oppressed civilians fight valiantly, with minimal resources, to overthrow the resident dictatorship of General Mapache (Emilio Fernández); it is only in these revolutionists that the heroic spirit of the Old West survives. Aside from Angel (Jaime Sánchez), who is fighting for an ideal, there is not a single noble character in the film, not even the law-enforcer (Albert Dekker), who arrogantly and cowardly bullies criminal bounty-hunters into doing his work.
The surviving outlaws of the Old West – William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien – cling to the tattered vestiges of their former ways, embracing an outdated code of "honour" that feels woefully inadequate in the modern world: they are "unchanged men in a changing land. Out of step, out of place, and desperately out of time." But unlike 'Ride the High Country,' which featured genre stalwarts Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as washed-up Western heroes, none of the "Wild Bunch" ever were heroes. Having always lived on the dark side of the law, as wanted outlaws, how can these men possibly recover any sense of nobility? They do, indeed, march wordlessly across General Mapache's headquarters to reclaim their captive member, but only after passively watching him endure hours of torture. Is it guilt that prompts Pike Bishop to come to the aid of his companion? With the old Western heroes long dead, must it fall to its villains to display some sort of decency? Is that what our society has come to?
The stylisation of Sergio Leone (particularly Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)) was clearly an influence on The Wild Bunch, but Peckinpah also makes the style his own. Unlike Leone, whose greatest mastery is in the prolonged build-up rather than the climax, Peckinpah simply prolongs the climax itself. The tempo of Lou Lombardo's editing seems to resemble, if anything, the spatter of machine gun fire, cutting ferociously from one shot to another – often utilising almost balletic slow-motion – and consciously mimicking the feverish confusion of a shootout. Though one might describe Peckinpah's use of violence as gratuitous (and many did in 1969, with the film almost landing an X-rating, and garnering plenty of controversy), there is a clear streak of disapproval running through the film's two major bloodbaths, in which the participants are seemingly depicted as immature children gunning each other with toy weapons; it is as though the anachronistic outlaws are merely grasping for their younger years, when their actions were considered significant, and their environment well within their control.
The surviving outlaws of the Old West – William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien – cling to the tattered vestiges of their former ways, embracing an outdated code of "honour" that feels woefully inadequate in the modern world: they are "unchanged men in a changing land. Out of step, out of place, and desperately out of time." But unlike 'Ride the High Country,' which featured genre stalwarts Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as washed-up Western heroes, none of the "Wild Bunch" ever were heroes. Having always lived on the dark side of the law, as wanted outlaws, how can these men possibly recover any sense of nobility? They do, indeed, march wordlessly across General Mapache's headquarters to reclaim their captive member, but only after passively watching him endure hours of torture. Is it guilt that prompts Pike Bishop to come to the aid of his companion? With the old Western heroes long dead, must it fall to its villains to display some sort of decency? Is that what our society has come to?The stylisation of Sergio Leone (particularly Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)) was clearly an influence on The Wild Bunch, but Peckinpah also makes the style his own. Unlike Leone, whose greatest mastery is in the prolonged build-up rather than the climax, Peckinpah simply prolongs the climax itself. The tempo of Lou Lombardo's editing seems to resemble, if anything, the spatter of machine gun fire, cutting ferociously from one shot to another – often utilising almost balletic slow-motion – and consciously mimicking the feverish confusion of a shootout. Though one might describe Peckinpah's use of violence as gratuitous (and many did in 1969, with the film almost landing an X-rating, and garnering plenty of controversy), there is a clear streak of disapproval running through the film's two major bloodbaths, in which the participants are seemingly depicted as immature children gunning each other with toy weapons; it is as though the anachronistic outlaws are merely grasping for their younger years, when their actions were considered significant, and their environment well within their control.8/10
Currently my #3 film of 1969:
Currently my #3 film of 1969:
1) Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger)
2) Andrey Rublyov {Andrei Rublev} (Andrei Tarkovsky)
3) The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)
4) Take the Money and Run (Woody Allen)
2) Andrey Rublyov {Andrei Rublev} (Andrei Tarkovsky)
3) The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)
4) Take the Money and Run (Woody Allen)
A perfect example of the film's style of satire can be found early on, after veteran news anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) learns that he is to be fired in two weeks' time, on account of poor ratings. The following evening, Beale calmly announces to millions of Americans his intentions to commit suicide on the air in a week's time. The show's technicians idly go about their duties, oblivious to what their star has just proclaimed, before one employee tentatively ventures, "uh, did you hear what Howard just said?" The network, in their ongoing quest for high ratings, was so blindly obsessed with perfecting all their technical aspects that the mental-derangement of their leading anchorman went almost completely unnoticed. At first, there is an attempt to yank Beale from the air, but one forward-thinking producer, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway), proposes that the network could double their current ratings by keeping him in the spotlight. 
Peter Finch, who was awarded a posthumous Best Actor Oscar for his performance, is simply explosive as the unhinged anchorman whose volatile outbursts of derangement are celebrated by a society which, in a better world, should be trying to help him. Beale's memorable catch-cry – "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" – symbolises his revulsion towards the crumbling values of today's society, and, as fanatical as he might be, most of his raves are worryingly close to the truth. William Holden is also excellent as Max Schumacher, Beale's long-time colleague, who resents the networks' treatment of his friend, but does little to interfere. Schumacher's adulterous relationship with the seductive but soulless Diana (Dunaway) consciously follows the conventional path of a television soap opera, ending with the realisation that his affair with the ratings-obsessed mistress is sapping him of any real emotion or humanity; in Schumacher's own words, "after living with you for six months, I'm turning into one of your scripts." Television corrupts life.
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