Peckinpah Today: New Essays on the Films of Sam Peckinpah

Human Striving, Human Strife: Sam Peckinpah and the Journey of the Soul

137 Human Striving, Human Strife: Sam Peckinpah and the Journey of the Soul Cordell Strug Everything’s lethal. —The Killer Elite (1975) I have no home. —Cross of Iron (1976) Savagery, rage, violence: these are words, themes, that you expect to encounter in discussions of Sam Peckinpah. They testify to power, impact, uncomfortable reception. But would his work have touched so many people so deeply if these words were adequate descriptions of its nature? I think that when people use those terms, they’re following obvious avenues to an understanding of this artist, but, explicitly or not, they’re groping for something beyond them. Certainly, Peckinpah’s characters find themselves on the way to savagery, rage, violence. But the works themselves are about their needs and choices, paths they choose, desperately or ignorantly, paths they are forced into. Through these films, we experience a concentration of life and a meditation on its worth. One of the oldest ideas about the effect of tragic drama comes from Aristotle : the audience experiences catharsis, often understood as a purging of emotions. I’ve heard Peckinpah in interviews speak defensively of his work this way, as being shaped toward catharsis, intended to purge society of violence by its vivid portrayal. He can’t have believed this, and the notion of purging never seemed to make much sense anyway, except as a defense against moralists. Martha Nussbaum, in a penetrating work on Greek thought, has argued that catharsis was not about purgation but about clarification: tragedy clarified life and its values—how much it hurts to lose 138 Cordell Strug some things, how much some things are worth fighting for. The passions aren’t eliminated; they’re clarified, understood.1 Put that way, catharsis seems a perfect description of Greek tragedy and of Peckinpah’s art, as well as a way of discriminating one strong and violent work from another. It’s the reason that we watch and don’t want to leave. The appeal of violence, combat, physical struggle, and warfare in the arts goes far beyond any experience most of us have of those things, let alone the desire to experience them. But there is a part of the human spirit and a dimension of life that needs that imagery for its full expression. Nothing else would be as clear. Early Christianity, for example, was nonviolent to the point of absolute pacifism. Yet one of its most famous calls to discipleship goes like this: “Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. . . . Take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:13–17).2 This is the equivalent of the Wild Bunch getting ready for its last walk. Or: this is another version of the same scene. The spirit’s need for violent imagery guarantees the enduring presence of conflict and violence in drama. But Peckinpah is one of the rare artists for whom the transaction goes both ways. It’s hard to talk about his work without using images and terms from the spiritual life: pilgrim, seeker, quest, vision, journey, fighting the good fight. Just as Ephesians can use the imagery of warfare for the spirit’s readiness, so its tracing of the spirit’s dangers offers a fair description of what’s at stake in a Peckinpah creation: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). It was that strong sense of an artistic and spiritual pilgrimage running through his work as a whole that formed a bond with the audience beyond any particular work. Not Peckinpah the flawed man but Peckinpah the pilgrim soul was forcefully present in his creations, much as Hemingway was and, in a different way, Dickens. 139 Human Striving, Human Strife Experience and time test those bonds. Looking back on the artists and thinkers I’ve followed in my life, I’m surprised by some...