The scene that opens Sam Peckinpah‘s 1969 ‘The Wild Bunch‘ immediately reminds fans of the western genre of John Sturges’ ‘The Magnificent Seven’ made in 1960. A group of riders enter a small town in the Wild West (rather the Wild South – Texas, in this case). The visual resemblance is deceiving. Disguised as soldiers, they come not to defend or save the town but to rob the bank. The radical change in approach reflected the fact that in the decade between 1960 and 1969 just about everything had changed in American cinema. ‘The Wild Bunch‘ is an auteur film, personal and violent, with a naturalistic expressivity and a moral ambiguity that the Hollywood censorship system (the film was produced by Warner Bros. studios) abandoned a few years before would not have allowed ever to be filmed and distributed. The Western did not escape this revolution. The European Sergio Leone’s films provided a liberated alternative, and Arthur Penn’s 1967 ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ brought bad guys (and gals) into the mainstream and violence on big-screens. Inspired by these models, Sam Peckinpah made his contribution with this film, controversial at its release as only Tarantino’s films would be a quarter of a century later, completely changing and freeing the direction of the Western movies genre.
The story takes place in the year 1913, celebrated in Europe and throughout the world as the last year of an order that had lasted for about a century. Social conflicts, economic inequalities, political rivalries smouldered everywhere in the world, predicting the upheavals and catastrophes of the 20th century, which would not bypass anyone anywhere. New transportation and communication technologies were improving people’s lives, but at the same time weapons and explosives were being perfected. Texas did not escape. The film’s heroes belong to a decaying world that has largely disappeared. A gang of villains led by Pike Bishop makes a living (and some of them find their deaths) from one hit to the next, robbing banks and attacking trains. On their trail is a group of bounty hunters whose leader, Deke Thompson, is a former member of the gang, once betrayed by Pike and abandoned to prison and the blackmail of corrupt authorities. The story takes place in the north but also in the south of the American-Mexican border, where armed militias are at war with each other and with the Mexican army. The victims, on either side of the border, are often innocent people. At the beginning and at the end of the film we witness two scenes, cinematically anthological, of armed duels between the ‘wild bunch’ and their followers which would be called if they happened today as ‘urban massacres’ and which take place on both sides of the border. There are no good guys in this movie. Characters are bad or very bad guys. Faced with the extinction of their way of life, belated western heroes in a changing world, the characters act in the only way they know: violently. There is a ‘code’ of honor with military overtones (the wounded or prisoners are not abandoned), but these rules are often broken and the results only amplify the horror.
‘The Wild Bunch‘ takes from the great American films of the genre the characteristic landscapes – the deserts, the burning sun, the distant horizons, the silhouettes of people crushed by nature. It is probably cinematographer Lucien Ballard‘s best-known film, but he had already accompanied Stanley Kubrick’s feature film debut with ‘The Killing’ in 1956. For Sam Peckinpah but also for Henry Hathaway he was the favorite cinematographer. Lou Lombardo‘s editing alternates between long and short shots and is extremely effective in the gun duel scenes. The scenes of the train robbery and the one of blowing up a bridge are also excellently shot. Among the actors chosen by Sam Peckinpah, I must mention William Holden – an active and popular actor at the time, today a little forgotten – and especially Ernest Borgnine, an extremely prolific actor (210 roles in his filmography!), with an unmistakable physiognomy , who here receives a role up to his talent.
I haven’t had a chance to see ‘The Wild Bunch‘ until now. Probably in 1969, this violent and morally ambiguous film did not pass the censorship filters of the communist country I was living in. Now, 54 years after it was made, it doesn’t seem to have aged a by single frame. For me it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.