KC Hill
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Craig Hill
Oracle of DelphiSam Peckinpah's 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' (1973)
June 16th 2006 09:47
My favourite western is probably Sam Peckinpah's 1973 film 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid', which stars Kris Kristoffersen as the Kid and James Coburn as Garrett, old friends who find themselves on different sides of the law. The film's plot charts Garrett's journey in search of the Kid; a physical journey, but also a journey that charts the destruction of his spirit and, at the same time, the spirit of the 'Old West'. As Garrett puts it resignedly "this country's growin' old, and I plan to grow old with it."
Maximilian Le Cain suggests, I thik rightly, that the film holds a place in the canon of American film making:
"What was the most important American film of the '70s? In terms of what was to come in the decades that followed, the answer would probably be Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977). For sheer artistic achievement and innovation I would nominate John Cassavetes' Husbands (1970). But for its place in the ongoing history of Hollywood filmmaking with respect to what came before rather than what was to follow, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973) is definitely the most interesting film of its time. Sam Peckinpah occupies a unique, transitional position in the history of the American cinema.... Within the context of the Western, where Peckinpah did his best work, he is probably the last great creative force."
With the exception of Clint Eastwood (and arguably Kevin Costner), I think it's pretty fair to say that Peckinpah does represents the western's final auteur.
And indeed, Sam Peckinpah himself believed that 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' was his last chance to make a definitive final statement on the Western genre, and complete the revision of the western he had begun with 'Ride the High Country' and 'The Wild Bunch'. He rewrote the script in order to create a more cyclical narrative, and added a prologue and epilogue depicting Garrett's own assassination at the hands of those who had hired him to kill Billy the Kid to create a narrative trajectory imbued with proleptic poignance.
However, until 2005, the film had languished in a form that was brutally cut by the Studio, which objected to several scenes they considered superfluous to the film's plot, and Peckinpah and his crew reportedly worked weekends and lunch hours in order to complete these sequences. Moreover, from the beginning, the film was plagued with production difficulties. The studio, for economic reasons, refused to give Peckinpah the time or budget he required, and forced the director to rely on a local crew on location in Durango, Mexico, which led to technical problems and costly reshoots. So it was great that in 2005 the 121 min. Directors Cut was released which returned the film to the form that Peckinpah always intended it to take.
For those who enjoy the genre I insist that you rent this movie, if only for Kris Kristoffersen's ebullient, free spirited performance as the Kid, and for Bob Dylan's elegiac score.
Maximilian Le Cain suggests, I thik rightly, that the film holds a place in the canon of American film making:
"What was the most important American film of the '70s? In terms of what was to come in the decades that followed, the answer would probably be Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977). For sheer artistic achievement and innovation I would nominate John Cassavetes' Husbands (1970). But for its place in the ongoing history of Hollywood filmmaking with respect to what came before rather than what was to follow, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973) is definitely the most interesting film of its time. Sam Peckinpah occupies a unique, transitional position in the history of the American cinema.... Within the context of the Western, where Peckinpah did his best work, he is probably the last great creative force."
With the exception of Clint Eastwood (and arguably Kevin Costner), I think it's pretty fair to say that Peckinpah does represents the western's final auteur.
And indeed, Sam Peckinpah himself believed that 'Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid' was his last chance to make a definitive final statement on the Western genre, and complete the revision of the western he had begun with 'Ride the High Country' and 'The Wild Bunch'. He rewrote the script in order to create a more cyclical narrative, and added a prologue and epilogue depicting Garrett's own assassination at the hands of those who had hired him to kill Billy the Kid to create a narrative trajectory imbued with proleptic poignance.
the Kid and Garrett
However, until 2005, the film had languished in a form that was brutally cut by the Studio, which objected to several scenes they considered superfluous to the film's plot, and Peckinpah and his crew reportedly worked weekends and lunch hours in order to complete these sequences. Moreover, from the beginning, the film was plagued with production difficulties. The studio, for economic reasons, refused to give Peckinpah the time or budget he required, and forced the director to rely on a local crew on location in Durango, Mexico, which led to technical problems and costly reshoots. So it was great that in 2005 the 121 min. Directors Cut was released which returned the film to the form that Peckinpah always intended it to take.
For those who enjoy the genre I insist that you rent this movie, if only for Kris Kristoffersen's ebullient, free spirited performance as the Kid, and for Bob Dylan's elegiac score.
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