The Wild Bunch

 Let's Go!

Just over 52 years ago The Wild Bunch was released. The picture above is a poor reproduction of anything produced by the great Lucien Ballard (cinematographer) and it is an ironic twist on one of the themes of the film.  This is not a picture of 'The Wild Bunch' but an image of the wild bunch of hired reprobates who are pursuing "The Wild Bunch" who are ageing, seasoned, criminals.

Today it will not be a film that everyone is comfortable with - it probably could not be made today (despite a reputed attempt by Mel Gibson) as the currents of mores and attitudes are out of date.

However, I wish to confess, it is (one of) my favourite film(s).  And I just watched it again, my ancient DVD showing signs of wear, though the drama itself does not age.

The cast are universally superb; the cinematography wonderful; the direction extraordinary; the plot tight and supremely effective; the dialogue terse and realistic.  I now watch the Original Director's Cut, 140 minutes of violent escapism.

As you will, no doubt, race to watch it, I won't tell the story, but if you are a first time viewer, note the children - all the children.  At the start there are children laughing at scorpions being tormented by ants, all of which they then burn.  In the middle a child is enormously proud that he can stand by the crass would-be dictator Mapache.  At the end, it is a child who shoots Pike Bishop dead.

Philip French had this to say, in The Observer, in 2006:

Unlike most directors of westerns, Sam Peckinpah (1924-1984) came from a pioneering family. He was a difficult, self-destructive man who commanded the love and loyalty of those he worked with but was hated by studio bosses. His second western, the elegiac Ride the High Country (1962) established his reputation and is his most likable picture.

But the fierce, nihilistic The Wild Bunch, a savage allegory of the Vietnam War, is his masterpiece. A study of violence in American life and the meaning of loyalty, it centres on a band of ageing outlaws (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Edmond O'Brien) who've outlived their time. They're trapped between revolutionary and reactionary forces in 1914 (1913 Ed) Mexico , and in flight from bounty hunters working for the American railroad company they've robbed.

The first significant line is: 'If they move, kill 'em'; then all hell breaks lose. The use of slow motion in the shoot-outs was unprecedented in its scale and, though much imitated, this uncompromising film retains its cruelty and moral power. It has a rare dramatic depth and kinetic energy and the violence is punctuated by scenes of tenderness and male camaraderie. This is a story of restless men incapable of embracing a settled domestic life....

A related view of the morality of the film comes from Edward Buscombe, in his BFI Screen Guide to 100 Westerns:

....notions of honour seem outdated in a world where technology (motor cars, machine guns) increasingly dominates and realpolitik and business (represented by the rapacious railroad) are more powerful than love and honour. If ultimately the wild bunch reveal the nihilism that lies beneath their heroics, in comparison to Mapache and Harrigan, the railroad magnate, they are giants in the world of pygmies.....

Jim Kitses, in Horizons West, notices that, The Wild Bunch succeeds in arousing in us precisely the world that it explores: an atavistic pleasure, a militant glee, a tragic sense of waste and failure..... the group acts not for Angel's values - the 'dream of love' - but for the dead Angel, their own inadequate code, the past. More simply, they do what they do because there is nowhere to go..... The quiet battle cry of the group is, ironically, 'Let's go': but we can only ask where?....

From a cinematic/entertainment point of view the film is brilliant, if shocking. The final sequence took twelve days to shoot, with 350 extras wearing 6,000 recycled uniforms to represent the mayhem that follows Angel's throat being cut by Mapache.....

And Mapache being shot by Pike Bishop.....

Sam Peckinpah was an uncompromising, difficult man, by most accounts, but he put together a film here which, despite the fifty years since its making, relates all too well to our times.  Few, if any, of the cast are still with us, but I feel that, for instance, they would recognise the protest that Richard Ratcliffe has carried out in support of his wife, Nazanin, to mention just one current piece of news.....

The spectacular finale of The Wild Bunch shows us how far some people will go to support, or avenge, their kin.  What would you do in his place?  He gave his word.....

In my dreams, perhaps, I see myself walking defiantly through groups of unhappy people towards a table of drunken overlords and benighted hangers on. Mapache takes on the face of a fickle and untrustworthy Prime Minister and he kills my angel, my hope for the future, callously cutting his throat.  So I shoot, knowing this is criminal and pointless and that I will die suddenly and soon..... Film and reality blend and we all have our fantasies, but the message from the limited dialogue of this cinematic masterpiece raises significant points of morality:

They?  Who the hell is They?

I wouldn't have it any other way.....

When you side with a man, you stay with him....

I wish I could be Pike Bishop....

[Or perhaps Deke Thornton....]

Let's go!