The Wild Bunch
(Sam Peckinpah) 1969
An
astonishing amount of thought obviously went into Sam Peckinpah’s The
Wild Bunch. In some ways, the movie seems to act as group therapy, healing
the pain caused by the many liberties taken by the Western genre before (and
after) its release. The film contains a vast amount of unsubtitled Spanish,
there are few among the cast that can be considered conventionally attractive,
the landscape looks gritty instead of pretty, and when people get shot they
bleed profusely. It a thoroughly modern movie, and has barely aged a bit since
its release, since it places itself in opposition to all things past.
Radicalism, it seems, never grows old. Yet, at the same time that its polemic is
at its most furious, there’s a strangely sad feeling in the air that an era is
ending. The film’s ironic ending, which suggests this lifestyle can continue
somehow, seems the one fraudulent note in the film. The run down group of
bandits that the film follows is nearing the end of its robbing days, whether
they want it that way or not. Set in 1913, the characters sense old age,
technology, and world war will soon overtake their relevance. When a car wheels
onto the screen, it seems an anachronism and an affront to their way of life.
There’s thematic significance to even the film’s smallest details, and that
depth of field in Peckinpah’s vision is admirable.
The
opening salvo in which a bank robbery turns sour is especially impressive. The
assault that Peckinpah hits the audience with is thoroughly impressive in its
comprehensive look at how one group of bandits can tear a town apart and vice
versa. It isn’t exactly subtle, and the montage aesthetics sometimes are too
rambunctious to provide a clear sense of coherency, but chaos that’s put on
screen is nevertheless impressively orchestrated. The movie continues to astound
throughout its running time, following each set piece with sharply observed
moments of bonding and brawling between the outlaws. The lack of clear moral
judgement in the film is surprising. Even the “good guys” are sleazy here.
The only moments where a sense of honor rears its head come from the “bad
guys”. Clearly Peckinpah thinks such moral simplicity is inadequate, and its
inclusion in this genre, where the good guys are supposed to wear white and the
bad guys have to wear black is rebuffed heavily here. He sees the assumption
that times were simpler back then as unwarranted condescension. The Wild
Bunch forges an uneasy alliance with the audience because of its refusal to
turn itself over to easy answers to the questions that it poses. No consistent
moral center exists. The audience rides with these bad boys with only our
memories of reality to ground us morally. The filmmaking sometimes becomes so
adept and encompassing, however, that we lose ourselves and cheer on the
carnage. The infusion of intelligence that usually follows such outbursts allows
us to feel good about it afterwards.
****
02-12-02
Jeremy Heilman