For some people who aren't familiar with his work, the name of Sam Peckinpah remains associated with two films: The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971). These two pieces of world are linked with a feature that became a trademark in Peckinpah's cinema: violence. The filmmaker who signed remarkable westerns prior to the 1969 film always contended about The Wild Bunch that violence was the inevitable consequence of a world about to collapse. Although, it is usually revered as one of the most important westerns ever made, I do not think it's a work on a par with other unforgettable westerns made by Anthony Mann or John Ford.
Numerous elements that pigeonhole "The Wild Bunch" as a pessimistic western are here. William Holden and his gang appear to be jaded men who only want to call it a day. They have a strong tendency for alcohol and prostitutes. Even if they are linked by a strong friendship, they are conscious they have no place to go or to be in a changing world: see the sequences with the car. Furthermore, the machine guns they have to snatch was just being invented. Without mentioning, of course, the famous opening sequence with the children playing cruelly with the scorpions being eaten by ants.
So, why is The Wild Bunch ultimately underwhelming? Because if Peckinpah had focused and tightened all the aforementioned features instead of letting his taste for gratuitous violence explode, the result would have been much more palatable. Besides, the only real violent sequences are located at the beginning and at the end of this overlong film. The massacres end up looking like slaughters and they are superfluous filler with the rest of the film. Filming men being killed with massive amounts of blood in slow motion doesn't help matters. Claude Chabrol who sadly died three months ago said about it that it was an example of hateful violence.
Between these two would-be pivotal sequences, the film loses its "raison d'etre" dealing with violence if we can put it this way. The action is often sluggish and the events aren't worth a good storytelling. And Robert Ryan's gang is particularly hateful.
If you want blood, Peckinpah's film has got it. And as for me, the omnipresence of violence to epitomize the end of the western genre isn't proof of an artistic success. There are more subtle devices to express it. See Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992).
Numerous elements that pigeonhole "The Wild Bunch" as a pessimistic western are here. William Holden and his gang appear to be jaded men who only want to call it a day. They have a strong tendency for alcohol and prostitutes. Even if they are linked by a strong friendship, they are conscious they have no place to go or to be in a changing world: see the sequences with the car. Furthermore, the machine guns they have to snatch was just being invented. Without mentioning, of course, the famous opening sequence with the children playing cruelly with the scorpions being eaten by ants.
So, why is The Wild Bunch ultimately underwhelming? Because if Peckinpah had focused and tightened all the aforementioned features instead of letting his taste for gratuitous violence explode, the result would have been much more palatable. Besides, the only real violent sequences are located at the beginning and at the end of this overlong film. The massacres end up looking like slaughters and they are superfluous filler with the rest of the film. Filming men being killed with massive amounts of blood in slow motion doesn't help matters. Claude Chabrol who sadly died three months ago said about it that it was an example of hateful violence.
Between these two would-be pivotal sequences, the film loses its "raison d'etre" dealing with violence if we can put it this way. The action is often sluggish and the events aren't worth a good storytelling. And Robert Ryan's gang is particularly hateful.
If you want blood, Peckinpah's film has got it. And as for me, the omnipresence of violence to epitomize the end of the western genre isn't proof of an artistic success. There are more subtle devices to express it. See Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992).