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The Wild Bunch

70.153.146.106

Will somebody remind me why this is held in high regard? I have seen it before - several times over the years - in original theater cut and remember admiring it.

Having just finished the director's cut I find it quite dated, even in the context of that period of western filmmaking. It is a stilted script, of many cliches and incongruence. It is filled with an incredibly racist, sexist portrayal of Mexican stereotypes. And it is flippant in dramatizing the realities of the hardships of that time and that place. It's message about the noble savage v. civilization now seems clumsy, heavy-handed.

There is the ramped-up standard of violence. There are some enjoyable, mostly over-the-top individual performances - Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Edmond O'Brien. But that is not enough to save it for me. The lead characters, excepting the reserved intensity of Robert Ryan, are virtual caricatures, of false dimension, especially Borgnine and Holden.

I love westerns but I'm sorry to say that this hasn't aged well for me.

Follow Ups:

As I recall it was the first squibbified, flying blood in a film--slow motion, of course.... - mr grits 16:16:20 01/25/08 (0)
Peckinpah fathered that 'genre'.

Stereotypes? Ever watch Americans in foreign film? We're all from Texas and smart as longhorns. All too real.

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Complicit Constapo Talibangelical since MMIII
RE: The Wild Bunch - DWPC 16:00:54 01/25/08 (2)
Peckenpah's novel use of graphic violence in a western/drama is the accepted reason. Until then it was either left to the imagination or resticted to overdone caricature in horror pictures.
All westerns are cliches to some extent. A lot like science fiction; westerns just provide a setting thats outside the familiar social behavior and relationships.

Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy - WB Yeats

Edits: 01/26/08
- RE: The Wild Bunch - Sumflow 16:28:21 06/08/12 (0)
  This is the point in the story where Holden silently says "Fuck it," Borgnine silently agrees. Ben Johnson and Warren Oates may not be sure, but they signed on the dotted line a long time ago, and can't back out.
  Even though one of them is from my home town, I still have to say that The Wild Bunch is not Sam Peckinpah's best Western.
  
  ~~~Our lunacies may be infringed..
  - Dylan (Open in New Window)
  Edits: 06/08/12 06/08/12
- He specifically referenced the portrayal of Mexicans as violent, dumb, - tinear 06:41:47 01/27/08 (0)
  gullible, and dirty.
  Like Native Americans and African-Americans, Mexicans have been a great source of amusement in many films. That hardly excuses the practice. And, remember, this film was made in an era, though Peck was already older, where these stereotypes were under attack.

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