The Wild Bunch

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This article is about a fiction movie. For the real Western gang of the same name, see Wild Bunch.
The Wild Bunch
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
Written by Walon Green (story and screenplay)
Roy N. Sickner (story)
Sam Peckinpah (screenplay)
Starring William Holden
Alfonso Arau
Ernest Borgnine
Robert Ryan
Edmond O'Brien
Warren Oates
Ben Johnson
Music by Jerry Fielding
Cinematography Lucien Ballard
Distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
Release date(s) July 18, 1969 (U.S. release)
Running time 145 min. (original European release) (1969)
143 min. (original USA release) (1969)
135 min. (shortened USA release) (1969)
145 min. (re-release) (1995) (final version)
Language English
IMDb profile

The Wild Bunch is a 1969 western film in which an aging group of outlaws hope to have one more score while the West is turning into a modern society. It stars William Holden, Alfonso Arau, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Jaime Sánchez, Ben Johnson, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Bo Hopkins and Dub Taylor.

The screenplay was written by Walon Green, Roy N. Sickner and Sam Peckinpah. It was directed by Peckinpah.

The movie is called "Pipe Dreams" in some countries. This causes some confusion, as the 1996 movie "Down Periscope" is also called "Pipe Dreams" in several countries, particularly in the Middle East.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced.

Originally quite controversial because of its graphic violence, The Wild Bunch is also noted for making the use of slow motion shots in mainstream motion pictures acceptable. The technique of slow motion had existed since the earliest days of film, and was often used in avant-garde and New Wave films, but in the years following The Wild Bunch, slow-motion became a common method of emphasising action sequences in movies, especially action-adventure movies.

In 1993, Warner Bros. resubmitted the film to the MPAA ratings board prior to an expected rerelease. To Warners' surprise, the originally R-rated film was given an NC-17 rating, delaying the rerelease while the decision was appealed.[citation needed]

In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Warner Bros released a newly restored version of The Wild Bunch in a two-disc special edition on January 10, 2006. This edition includes an audio commentary by Peckinpah scholars, two documentaries concerning the making of the film and never-before-seen outtakes from the film.

Contents

[edit] Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The movie takes place in 1913, during the height of the Mexican Revolution. In the town of San Rafael, Texas (a fictional town named after the military academy in California Peckinpah attended as a teenager), also referred to as Starbuck, the Wild Bunch - led by Pike Bishop (Holden), and also including Dutch Engstrom (Borgnine), Lyle and Tector Gorch (Oates and Johnson), Angel (Sanchez), Buck (Rayford Barnes), and Crazy Lee (Hopkins), among others - enters the town, with half of them dressed as cavalry soldiers. They ride past a group of children who are torturing a pair of scorpions by putting them on a hill of red ants (this image was suggested by Emilio Fernandez; he said that he and his friends had done similar things as children), an image of the violence inherited from nature. The gang breaks into the railroad company office and holds it up, but on the roof of a hotel across the street is a ragtag posse of bounty hunters, led by Patrick Harrigan (Albert Dekker), a railroad detective, and Deke Thornton (Ryan), a former member of the gang being ambushed, along with scruffy bounty hunters Coffer (Martin), T.C. (Jones), Huey (Paul Harper), and Jess (stuntman Bill Hart).

The gang's escape is interrupted by the local temperance union, which is holding a parade in the town, led by Reverend Wainscoat (Taylor), playing "Shall We Gather At The River?" (a hymn used as a funeral song in innumerable John Ford Westerns, used here for ironic effect). Various members of the gang, inside and out of the bank, spot the bounty hunters and Pike uses a bank teller as a decoy, throwing him out of the bank to draw the fire of the bounty hunters, allowing for the gang's escape.

A vicious, confusing gunfight occurs, with gang members, bounty hunters, and civilians caught in the crossfires, resulting in numerous deaths. Only six members of the gang escape - Pike, Dutch, the Gorches, Angel, and Buck, who has been shot in the face and blinded - and the rest of the gang is killed. Crazy Lee is left behind to hold the bank patrons as hostages; when Harrigan and Thornton's gang descend from the roof of the hotel to scavenge from the various dead bodies, he is ultimately killed by Harrigan. Outside of town, Pike shoots Buck, who is unable to continue riding due to his injuries.

The surviving gang members arrive at a small Mexican town, where another gang member, the old Freddie Sykes (O'Brien), is waiting with horses and saddles. In this scene, they realize that the robbery was a setup by the railroad - all of their earnings have been nothing but bags of steel washers. The excitable Gorches very nearly turn on Angel and Sykes, but they are held in check by Pike and Dutch. Later in the film, Sykes reveals to Pike that Crazy Lee - who had been deliberately left behind by Pike - was his grandson.

We also learn as the film progresses that Thornton has been given his parole in exchange for his tracking down his old colleague Pike. Though Thornton continually disparages his posse as "gutter trash", he reluctantly continues his pursuit of the gang throughout the film. Pike reveals through flashback (most of which were cut by the studio in the original version) how he abandoned Thornton to the railroad detectives, and also how he developed his painful leg wound (he had an affair with a Mexican woman, played by Aurora Clavell, and was shot by her husband) which he suffers from throughout the film.

Pike and his men return to Angel's village and remain there for a day and night. Pike learns from the village elder, Don Jose (Chano Urueta) that the village has been attacked by General Mapache (Fernandez), a Mexican general working for the government of Victoriano Huerta. Angel's father was hanged, and his girlfriend taken by Mapache for his own. Though he tells Pike that he will not avenge his father, Angel remains obsessed with getting his vengeance on Mapache throughout the film.

The gang then heads to Agua Verde, Mapache's headquarters, to trade their horses. As they go to visit the General, Angel sees Teresa, his girlfriend, presenting a pony to Mapache. Angel shoots her in the arms of Mapache, nearly leading to a confrontation between the Mexicans and the gang, but Pike and Dutch diffuse it. They are later hired by Mapache and his German military advisors to steal a US arms shipment for him, which they agree to for a price of ten thousand dollars - but Angel insists that they allow him to take a case of rifles to his village to protect them from Mapache. Pike and Dutch agree.

The Bunch holds up the train, but Thornton and his posse are also on board the train and pursues them to a bridge over the Rio Grande, themselves being pursued by a squad of inept cavalrymen. After a confusing three-way shootout, the Bunch recrosses the border into Mexico. Thornton and his men are blown into the river when the dynamite wired to the bridge explodes, and the gang makes their escape. After getting themselves back together, Thornton and his men pursue the gang into Mexico.

While waiting for word of the Bunch's robbery at a telegraph station, Mapache and his entourage are attacked by forces led by Pancho Villa and routed. Mapache sends one of his subordinates, Captain Herrera (Alfonso Arau), to meet the Bunch with a large group of soldiers, but the confrontation nearly turns violent after a nervous Mexican soldier fires at the wagon holding the weapons. The Bunch has wired the wagon with dynamite, and Pike lights the fuse until Herrera diffuses the situation by executing the soldier who has fired on the gang. The Bunch then elaborately hides their weapons haul - fifteen cases of rifles, plus a machine gun - and gives it in installments to Mapache in exchange for money. Unfortunately, when Angel and Dutch arrive in town, Mapache reveals that he has been tipped off by Teresa's mother of Angel's perfidy. Angel is captured by Mapache's men, and Dutch simply rides off.

The gang regroups at a canyon outside of town, waiting for Sykes to return with their packhorses, and they argue over what to do. Then they watch as Sykes is ambushed and seriously wounded by Thornton's posse. Pike decides to abandon his old friend, who is being pursued hotly by Thornton's men, and return to Agua Verde to retrieve Angel. Mapache refuses to turn over Angel, who has been badly tortured, and invites the gang to spend the night in town whoring and drinking. The next morning, Pike decides to make a stand. The four gang members load up shotguns and sidearms and in the famous "long walk", march through Agua Verde to Mapache's headquarters. After demanding Angel's release again, a drunken Mapache slits Angel's throat, and he is subsequently gunned down by Pike and Dutch. After a tense moment, where the drunken soldiers under Mapache react, unsure of what to do, Pike takes deliberate aim at Captain Mohr, Mapache's advisor, and shoots him.

A vicious, bloody gunfight (referred to as the "Battle of the Bloody Porch" by the film's crew) results as the Bunch shoots their way through Mapache's officers and takes control of the machine gun. They inflict scores of casualties on the Mexicans but finally fall due to the sheer number of their foes. Lyle and Tector are shot repeatedly as they try to man the machine gun; Pike is finally killed by a Mexican boy who shoots him in the back; Dutch is gunned down rushing to his side.

After the battle, Thornton and his surviving men ride into town and begin looting the bodies of the Mexican soldiers and their prey, while Thornton looks at his fallen colleagues in pity, taking Pike's unused revolver (this revolver is a symbol of the old west that is passing; Pike frequently uses a .45 Automatic Colt Pistol, but he uses the revolver only once, at the bridge). Thornton declines to join the bounty hunters as they return to the United States, remaining at Agua Verde; they are ambushed and killed somewhere down the trail. Sykes, Don Jose, and a large group of Villistas later arrive at the town, and Thornton decides to join them.

[edit] Motifs

Critics of The Wild Bunch made note of the film's storyline that depicted the end of both the wild West and era of the American cowboy. Pike himself makes note of this, "We've got to start thinking beyond our guns. Those days are closin' fast." The Bunch also inspects General Mapache's latest purchase, a brand new, red automobile, an invention that marked the beginning of the end for horse travel. Also, among the guns that the Bunch steals from the U.S. Army is a Browning Model 1917 machine gun, a weapon that allowed the shooter formidable defense against even a small army, like Mapache's. Pike himself uses an M1911 automatic pistol, an obvious break from the traditional "six-shooter" that cowboys and gunfighters had used in the Old West and in its subsequent films of the 20th Century.

The film's onscreen violence was heavily criticized. Critics have often noted that it was meant as an allegory for the violence of the Vietnam War, which had been broadcast nightly on television news programs.

Peckinpah made extensive use of Spanish dialogue with no subtitles. This requires the non-Spanish speaking viewer to pay close attention to the gestures and facial expressions of the actors, and to know the plot of the movie, to get a reasonable idea of what they the characters are saying. Also, this establishes further the idea of an alternative reality, which is raw and real, and not reprocessed and dumbed-down for audience consumption.

[edit] Filming Process

The cinematographic process used in this film was anamorphic. This is a process that was first developed in France in the late 1920s, but did not become widely used until resurrected by 20th Century Fox in the early 1950s. In essence, the anamorphic cinematographic process employs a wider lens that films a wider image than other technologies used in filmmaking. Therefore, the aspect ratio of the image imprinted onto the film is larger. When projected, this process provides the viewer with a wider, more natural view of the scene.

Peckinpah and his cinematographer, Lucien Ballard, also made use of a "depth of field" camera lens, one that allowed for objects and people in both the background and foreground to remain in sharp focus. The effect is best seen in the shots where the Bunch make their final walk to Mapache's courtyard to free Angel; as they walk forward, a constant flow of people pass between them and the camera, yet are as sharply focused as the Bunch.

The editing of the film is also notable: shots of multiple angles of people dying from gunshots would be edited together in rapid succession, often at different speeds, placing greater emphasis on the chaotic nature of the gunfights. This technique was also used in several other action shots in the film.

Peckinpah considered many actors for the part of Pike Bishop, including James Stewart and Charlton Heston, who was the lead in Peckinpah's Major Dundee

[edit] Themes

The film is widely renowned as a depiction of old-time outlaws attempting to come to terms with the inevitable onrush of technology (and its effects on the Wild West), such as the Bunch's use of semi-automatic pistols, and the machine gun and automobile Mapache takes great pride in displaying.

The most prevalent theme of the film is that of betrayal; many of the characters suffer with the knowledge that at some point, they betrayed a friend and left them to their fate:

  • Pike encounters this several times during the film; he deserts Thornton (in flashback) when the law catches up to them; he ruthlessly kills Buck when he is blinded during their escape and cannot keep up, and deserts both Sykes (when he is shot in the leg by the bounty hunters) and Sykes' grandson, Crazy Lee (who gets left behind at the railroad office, ostensibly to guard hostages).
  • Pike and Dutch initially attempt to abandon Angel when he is captured by Mapache. Dutch--who had been saved during the train robbery by Angel--coldly dismisses Angel as a thief and leaves him in Mapache's hands.

Paradoxically, both the Gorch brothers make initial stands to save (or at least pay respects to) Sykes, Angel and Buck; this is particularly ironic as both Sykes and Angel angered the Gorches by mocking them after the failed railroad robbery, nearly causing the Gorches to lose their tempers and initiate a shootout.

Although the main characters are ruthless outlaws, the film's only truly unsympathetic characters that are given substantial screen time are the railroad detective Harrigan (who is portrayed as a spiteful, ill-tempered man who cares only about getting the Bunch and his commission) and the bounty hunters (who are shown to be rash and incompetent in battle, and who scavenge the bodies of the fallen outlaws for whatever goods they can find, up to and including gold teeth). The rest of the film's major characters are given scenes that show an insight to the contrast between their ruthless natures and their more human side:

  • Pike is shown to be genuinely remorseful at both the death of his former lover, and of his abandonment of Thornton. Notably, Pike somewhat redeems himself when he finally refuses to abandon Angel, an act that seals the Bunch's fate.
  • Sykes is given a moment for the audience to sympathize with him, when he reveals that Crazy Lee was his grandson (which distresses Pike, who decided to leave Crazy Lee behind).
  • Angel is shown to care very deeply for the people of his village, in marked contrast to his callous disregard for the innocents who were killed during the railroad robbery.
  • Dutch, even after having delivered the famous sarcastic "I'd like to say a few words for the dear dead departed" speech, is shown to be pained at having left Angel behind (after Angel earlier saved his life); Dutch also adamantly claims there is a difference between the Bunch (who killed those who were in the way of their profit) and Mapache (who, as a despot, kills for the sadistic pleasure of it).
  • The Gorch brothers, inbetween the fighting and whoring, are shown to playfully and respectfully flirt with a girl from Angel's village (Don Jose remarks that "even the worst of us" have the desire to be childlike from time to time).
  • Thornton is obviously pained that he has to hunt his old friend, Pike (at one point, both men have a clear opportunity to shoot the other and deliberately avoid doing so).
  • Even Mapache, vividly portrayed as a particularly brutal and repulsive killer, shows a glimmer of humanity at one point: during the attack by Villa, Mapache stands out in front of his men, even as explosions take place nearby, brazenly disregarding the danger.

During this scene, Mapache's aide tells Mapache that they must leave the town and their other soldiers behind, because they have no guns or artillery to fight Pancho Villa. Mapache refuses to leave, saying, in Spanish, that the men are "nos companeros, nos hermanos," "our comrades, our brothers." This is in clear contrast to Pike Bishop, a supposedly more noble person than Mapache, but who has deserted many whenever it suited him.

It is only when a young boy, in a uniform similar to his, comes up and salutes Mapache that the general offers a saddened smile before advising the boy that they should fall back to safety (inferring that Mapache does not want the boy to end up getting killed for trying to emulate him). A later scene showing a distraught Mapache watching his wounded men being tended to in Agua Verde reinforces this depiction of his character.

[edit] Acknowledgement

[edit] Variant Versions

There have been several versions released:

  • The original European release from 1969 which is 145 min. long, this version had an intermission at the request of the distributor.
  • The original American release from 1969 which is 143 min. long.
  • The second American release from 1969, edited to allow more show times, 135 min. long.
  • The 1995 re-release version which is 145 min. long. It is identical to the original European release minus the intermission, as the intermission was not intended to be part of the original film. This version is currently available on home video and is labelled "The Original Director's Cut" in most markets.

[edit] See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


Films directed by Sam Peckinpah
The Deadly Companions • Ride the High Country • Major Dundee • The Wild Bunch  • The Ballad of Cable Hogue • Straw Dogs  • Junior Bonner • The Getaway • Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid • Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia • The Killer Elite • Cross of Iron • Convoy • The Osterman Weekend
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