Wild Bunch, The

Posted by Elliot

This Sam Peckinpah masterpiece about an aging gang of outlaws and their last big job came out at a defining moment in American cinema, when violence was being portrayed on the screen in new and different ways. Along with Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, this western redefined how much gore was allowed in films and how death was to be shown. The hypnotic, beautiful, and almost balletic violence of some of the gun battles made it seem to critics that the film condoned—even advocated—violence. Others countered that previously, audiences would have expected dead actors to get up, brush themselves off, and go home from the set at the end of a day’s shooting. Most today would concur that Peckinpah (and Penn) brought home as never before the horrendous consequences of violence.