"Lets go," says Pike Bishop (William Holden) to the rest of his small posse of aging outlaws. What they set out to do they knew they weren't coming back from. But they were going down, as they say, with guns a-blazing. It was 1914, and the Old West and its inhabitors were a dying breed, just like the old men who occupied the screen, led by William Holden and Warren Oates.
The men stand around a newly made automobile and scratch their heads and dismount from their horses. This is not the land they once knew. The only thing they know how to do is to retaliate, their last bit of angst mustered and thrown at the future and its neglect. Their blood that is dried in the sand is as fresh as it was when it was spilled.
Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch speaks for the dead who roamed the West, always in anticipation and wonder.
Most Western films have a climatic shootout. WB's was contraversial, but revolutionary in the film and pop culture world in the late 1960's for its use of gratuitous violence. But as director Sam Peckinpah saw it, he was capturing the blood lust and violent world that was the Old West, and he rightfully remained unapologetic. Great ending sequence.
Users browsing this forum: 10Club Management and 2 guests
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum