So after watching a film, I like to go and dive into the trivia and productions notes about it. I normally post the links to imdb.com and wikipedia at the top of my posts (and I will do the same here) but I want to point out one bit of trivia that I feel speaks a lot about The Wild Bunch.
John Wayne complained that the film destroyed the myth of the Old West.
I wonder how accurate that is but it feels oddly appropriate after having just seen True Grit before this, a film that takes the piss out of the traditional western and has some shocking moments of violence with some less than respectable characters. Did it honor the myth of the Old West?
The only honor the Wild Bunch worried about was amongst Pike and his gang.
Film #19 The Wild Bunch (1969)
Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production.
Set in 1913, Pike Bishop (William Holden) and his gang, Dutch (Ernest Borgnine!), the Gorch Brothers (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson, Angel (Jamie Sanchez) and handful of others, are on the very edge of the Texas-Mexico border where the west is still wild but that time is soon coming to an end. They rob a bank dressed as soldiers but are ambushed by Deke (Robert Ryan) a former member of Pike's gang that was sent to prison but given a conditional release if he can capture or kill the gang within 30 days.
The ambush is a complete massacre as Deke's posse is made up of scraps of men that are bounty hunters but are quick to shoot and not think about consequences. What happens is a lot of local townspeople end up in the crossfire and the streets are littered with their bodies while Pike and most of his gang escapes, with one of them blinded by gunfire and can barely stay on his horse. When that man falls, he tells Pike to just end it fast and Pike shoots him point blank, knowing that any weakness will slow them down and that once a man has served his purpose, they are not worth much more.
After getting across the border, they stop long enough to split their score to find out the bags of gold coins they thought they had were full of metal washers. They know that Deke set a trap for them and it almost cost them their lives.
Pike is getting older and knows that his life as a bandit is ending because of his age and that the times are changing. 'We got to start thinking beyond our guns, those days are closing fast,' he tells them as they are planning their next move. They head further into Mexico to Angel's village in order to throw Deke off of their trail and while they are there, they learn that what little the village has has been taken by General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), a corrupt officer with the Mexican Federal Army. Angel finds out that his father was killed by Mapache's men and a girl that he loved has run off to join them. Pike warns him that if he makes this about revenge, they will leave him in the village and be on their way. He agrees to stay with them and not make it an issue.
They leave the village and head towards the next major town in hopes to figure out their next move and find themselves in the middle of Mapache's troops and the General himself. They decide to go to talk to his men in hopes of trading their extra horses for supplies. While sitting down for a drink, the girl that Angel loves walks by them, he calls out to her, she rejects him and laughs in his face and goes and sits on the lap of Mapache. So Angel pulls his gun out and shoots her in the chest, killing her. This gets the attention of the General, thinking that Angel was trying to shoot him. Both sides talk, and come to an understanding: Mapache needs guns and ammunition to keep his fight against the rebels going, and Pike and his men need gold.
An uneasy agreement is formed, the five of them will rob a US Army train (something that Pike has had eye on as a target for while now) for their weapons shipment and each of them will be paid 2,500 in gold. They agree to the deal as they have little choice and so begins a three pronged dilemma: the gang robbing the train and delivering the weapons, playing along with Mapache long enough to get what they want without being killed, and Deke hot on their trail as soon as they set foot back in the state of Texas.
Okay, that's the main thrust of the story. I feel like I will end up spoiling the rest of the film in order to talk about it a little more, so if you have not seen The Wild Bunch, please stop reading and go watch this film. You will not regret it and much like The Great Silence, it would be terrible if I was to rob anyone else of the jaw dropping gut punches that are thrown repeatedly over and over again in this film.
The violence in this film is equal parts horrifying and beautiful. I have talked before about how a lot of the films up to this point would show someone getting shot, they clutch their chest and fall down, with blood showing up later on their person. Even though you clearly see someone getting shot, there was a tidiness to the violence, no weight with the actions. This is not the case in the Wild Bunch.
For example, this is the ambush at the bank robbery at the start of the film:
The Wild Bunch tricks you at the very start of the sequence (not seen in the clip) with the gang crossing the street to the bank, they bump into a older woman who drops her packages. Dutch picks them up and offers to carry them for her, and Pike walks her by the arm across the street. No violence, these are civilized men. Then when the job turns sour and bullets start flying, you see actual squib (the exploding packs of blood that simulate gunshots) work here and it really sells the chaos and terribleness of the situation. What also sells the moment? Seeing an innocent woman getting stomped by a panicking horse. Oh, and all the kids watching while their families die around them.
Not only are there practical effects improvements that showcase the reality of violence here, but also advancements in film making itself. You will notice that the pacing of the sequence is very up tempo with a lot of quick edits and going back between real time and slow motion. This new technique (of effective smooth slow motion) was shown to director Sam Peckinpah and he knew immediately he wanted to use it in The Wild Bunch. If you slow down the violence, it looks like it hits twice as hard. You see the odd and gruesome ballet of a how a human body spins against their will and then falls to the ground. You see the horses trying to charge forward but they veer to the side like a boat slowly capsizing. It's something we take for granted now (Zack Snyder has made a career on powerful slow motion shots and Michael Bay has destroyed our attention spans with his lighting quick edits) but this feels like it was blazing a trail with a new visual vocabulary of how you could tell a story. This may be too grand a statement, but for me, The Wild Bunch is to westerns what Citizen Kane was to dramas. I left both with the same feeling that what would come after should be affected by their presence.
It is also fitting that the medium would be moved forward into more modern techniques and more reality based story telling with a film that is all about the end of a specific time period. I think I said in one of the earlier posts that the Old West was roughly between 1865, the end of the Civil War, till 1895, so a span of thirty plus years. With The Wild Bunch taking place 1913, it is very end of that time and soon electricity would be available to a lot of country, telegraphs could submit information quickly between towns, we had already had sustainable flight, and the automobile would be quickly replacing the horse. The days of robbing and crossing state lines with the reasonable knowledge you could get away was over. When the gang sees General Mapache's vehicle, they are truly taken aback by it. One of them even asks it if runs on steam. The 20th century was coming to them whether liked it or not.
This is a theme I have seen in previous westerns on this list (even going back to the first film Johnny Guitar with Vienna building her saloon/casino in a location that she knew would eventually be along the route of the still being built railroad) but it feels more present here in The Wild Bunch as its eye wasn't towards the future, the future was now and you had two choices, go along with it or get swallowed up by it. We got to start thinking beyond our guns, those days are closing fast, indeed.
A few notes about the guns in the film before I forget to mention them. First, Peckinpah made it a point to have all the gun shots sound different and appropriate for the weapon being fired. Up to this point, no matter if it was a hand gun, a rifle, or a shotgun, a lot of films would have the same stock gunfire sounds. This would change the way guns were treated in films going forward. Second, the type of guns used varied from old six shot revolvers to slide action 9 mm handguns to pump grip shotguns to a heavy duty tripod mounted machine gun. Dutch even uses some grenades. The efficiency of violence was progressing.
None of the men are presented as inherently good but you get the feeling of loyalty that has been earned by many jobs pulled off together and the years of barely getting out alive. Pike has a hard code that he lives by and he doesn't like breaking it. Dutch trusts Pike and will ride with him wherever he goes, even if he knows that odds are not in their favor. Deke, only driven by not wanting to go back to prison (which they show him getting flogged by guards in a short but nasty flashback), doesn't really want to chase down Pike as he states that he would much rather be with them than hunt them, as he knows that he has basically turned on his family. I appreciate that these bad men are bad and won't hesitate to shoot someone if they are in their way, but it gives them a little more depth as they do care about each other. Even the Gorch brothers (the other two in the gang... I would mention them more but they aren't given much to do outside some weird comedy relief with them partying with some local ladies in very large barrel of wine), who were always challenging Pike over his decision making but ultimately fall in line when they have a job to do and with the group's back is against the wall.
The train robbery sequence is amazing and surprisingly, a lot of fun. It was cool to see how they planned to take the engine and the single cargo flat car with the munitions without alerting the soldiers that were in the passenger car escorting the supplies. It went from a silent slow moving heist to a full tilt chase sequence that eventually lead to Pike sending the train backwards down the track after getting what they needed as they headed off with a wagon full of weapons. It all culminates in a tense moment where they are crossing a bridge into Mexico that they had rigged with dynamite. They lit the fuse but then the wagon gets stuck on the bridge, so they are trying to free the wagon while the army and Deke's men are coming down on them. Just watch the finale below.
Those were real stuntmen with horses on that bridge when it exploded. You will never see anything like that done again as it is just too dangerous, but goddam, that is sight to behold. There is a quick moment when Pike takes his hat off to say goodbye to Deke, as you would see in most westerns when the bad guy gets away, but once the bridge explodes, you see the horror on his face at what actually happened. Spectacle has cost.
They get away and arrange a payment system with Mapache (as they don't trust him to honor his word... and rightfully so), but the General takes Angel captive in the process as he found out that Angel gave some of the stolen guns to his village so that they can fight back. They rest of the gang are paid and can leave, however, Dutch points out that Angel earned their trust and he did his part in the heist and he is worth saving.
So, with Deke right on their heels, they make a decision to go back in Mapache's lion's den to get Angel out and to keep Deke away. Its a dangerous gamble and they know it. Mapache won't give up Angel and keeps him tied up to back of his car and drags him around the courtyard, with children laughing and hopping on his back like he is a sled. Pike is warned to not push it and go enjoy the spoils of victory as they delivered on their promise of getting the weapons.
This brings about one of the most badass moments I think I have ever seen in a film. Without much spoken between the four of them, and a laugh from Dutch, they load up and walk towards where the General is feasting.
Not only is the way they carry themselves badass, but the way the sequence is shot is amazing. Watch how people cross in the front of them and how almost everyone stays in focus in the foreground, the middle, and the background. It creates a sense of how they are being watched and almost swarmed but they just keep marching forward.
What happens after that is probably one of the most violent sequences I have ever seen in a film. It is equal parts shocking and breathtaking. The sheer amount of violence is one thing, but then how the individuals carry themselves during it is also noteworthy. One of the gang uses a woman as a human shield. These are not good men and they use every advantage they have and the film will remind you of this often.
William Holden as Pike is stellar. Very similar to Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West as both have a charisma about them and both know they are on the losing end of time. Also, both have kind faces when they want but can turn to stone in a moment's notice. You don't see leads like this anymore and it is a shame. There is an inherent complexity to a character when you cast an older actor in the role of someone near the end of their profession. Much like Lee Van Cleef in Day of Anger, they know they aren't what they once were but they are crafty enough to still make it work.
Ernest Borgnine as Dutch was great. He was given the chance to bring some range to a character that could have just been a side kick. He also knows that times are changing, but as long as he rides with Pike, they have a shot. He gets a great twinkle in his eye when a plan is coming together and you just smile with him. I will always love him no matter the role he plays.
Robert Ryan as Deke Thornton is also worth mentioning. He always knew what Pike was going to do, but was given such little resources, he knew that it was always going to be an uphill battle. He also did not like his role in being the judas goat (which is what he was called at one point early in the film). You can tell he was conflicted in going after the gang, and there was atmosphere of resignation he carried with him. He was a tired broken former bandit that was doing what he had to do live. Ryan's performance really got that across.
The score by Jerry Fielding is very rich and complex and fits the film very well. It goes from having military drums to the muted horns and strings you would hear in Spaghetti Westerns. There are times where it felt like it was almost television drama-like, but I think that was more of an effect on how TV changed its sound after this film came out. Its a good score and it feels like the most Hollywood of the ones I have heard recently.
I have talked a lot of Pekinpah's stylistic choices for the film but I haven't mentioned how beautiful it is in general. There are plenty of wonderful shots of the open blue sky with some clouds scattered about that just pop. Every frame of this film was stuffed with detail and it shows. Its weird to say that there is beautifully shot violence but that does apply to The Wild Bunch.
This is a great film and it deserves it place on all the Best Ofs that it is listed on. It is a gritty, fully realized work that tells a story of hard men making hard decision with bloody consequences. It never intended to have a good ending and rode hard all the way to its massively violent finale. Watch this film and understand a lot of what we appreciate and love that came after this owes a debt to The Wild Bunch.
Western Checklist (nowhere near official or scientific):
- Weird gang member names? Well, Pike is a badass name and Dutch is just cool.
- Beautiful landscapes? Yes, it was shot in Mexico and it has those wonderful old Spanish sanctuaries that were functional but in ruins.
- Any terrified horses? Yes. So many. And at least one real death as a horse drowned in the bridge explosion. Also, there are scorpions tortured at the beginning by children. You see them being placed in a pile of swarming ants and then they are all SET ON FIRE. It fit the films themes very well but I am pretty sure those scorpions didn't volunteer.
- How many Ernest Borgnines? I didn't realize when I made this joke during the first film I watched that he would be in another western on the list. He is so great and I am glad I got to see him dig into a bigger and better role than he had in Johnny Guitar.
- Any buildings catch on fire? Surprisingly for a film with so much realistic violence, there was not a single building fire. I am sure had they done it, it would have been beautiful and horrific in equal measures.
- Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, but here is a portion of the score and like I said above, it is quite good.
Rating:
I am going to give this 5 out of 5 tin stars. I think I prefer my westerns bloody and darker and this fits the bill nicely. The editing and use of slow motion gives this film a different feel to what I have seen before and it adds weight to what you are witnessing. The acting is top notch and the realistic effects of gun violence really drive the point home that the lives of these men came at the cost of many others. Highly recommended and please, if you have not seen this film, do it as soon as you can.
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