Peckinpah definitely had a peak. His early work was so-so and some of
his later stuff was awful, but for about a decade there he was really
at the top of his game. I always wondered if it wasn't the ebb and
flow of the alcoholism that kind of defined his best work. The Wild
Bunch is way up there, IMO. Some of the characters are just so ugly.
There's a line in there somewhere about something being, "more fun
than a hog killin'" that always gets me. That 1000mm f5.6 lens he
used when they're all walking towards the camera on their way to the
last fight is a classic shot, IMO. There's just so much compression.
It looks like they're going to walk right into the Mexicans in the
foreground, but they just keep walking and walking and walking. Great
cast, too. That's the thing with Ride the High Country, too, though.
It's another older cast; in that case Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott.
Something about the way he directed those westerns about aging
gunslingers that really sucks me in. There's some of that in Pat
Garrett and Billy the Kid, too, with James Coburn and Kris
Kristofferson as guys who have a history together. And of course Bob
"just call me alias" Dylan. Great stuff there. Sorry. I can't shut up
when it comes to this stuff.
BTW, anyone ever seen a little western from the early 80's called
Barbarosa? Terrible score and some kind of haphazard stuff in there,
but I have a real warm spot in my heart for it, anyway. Gary Busey
and Willie Nelson have great chemistry in sort of a "buddy western."
One of Gilbert Roland's last roles.
On May 29, 2005, at 7:36 PM, Winsor Crosby wrote:
> I have to go back and see some more Peckinpah movies.
>
> Of course the Wild Bunch was sort of the end of westerns as a genre.
> The reality in it made it much harder to suspend belief after that.
> Unless it was something like the wonderfully silly, "Sunset" with
> Bruce Willis starring as Tom Mix and James Garner as Wyatt Earp and
> directed by Blake Edwards.
>
> Winsor
> Long Beach, California, USA
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