Peckinpah Today: New Essays on the Films of Sam Peckinpah edited by Michael, Bliss (review)

Almost thirty years after his death in 1984, the films of director Sam Peckinpah continue to attract considerable scholarly interest, as this new collection of essays attests. After a brief career in television, Peckinpah directed fourteen feature films between 1961 and 1983. Noted for his revisions of the American Western genre and the quantity of violence in his films, which earned him the nickname “Bloody Sam,” Peckinpah was perhaps best known for Ride the High Country (1962), The Wild Bunch (1969), Straw Dogs (1971), and The Getaway (1972). However, this collection of nine essays edited by Michael Bliss, who has written two books on Peckinpah and teaches literature and cinema at Virginia Tech, makes a valuable contribution by concentrating more upon Peckinpah’s later films—Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), The Killer Elite (1975), Cross of Iron (1977), and The Osterman Weekend (1.983)--which initially fared poorly with both critics and film audiences. There is no effort made here to resurrect the reputation of Convoy (1978), which was panned almost universally by critics but remains nonetheless Peckinpah’s biggest box office hit.

In his succinct and insightful introduction to the collection, Bliss argues that Peckinpah’s work demonstrates an allegiance to the values of loyalty, friendship, love, and commitment. According to Bliss, Peckinpah’s cinema achieves its power by drawing viewers “into that region from which the films emerged: the imagination, the soul, the universe, and, if one dare say it, God” (2). This sense of spirituality initially yielded a motif of redemption in Peckinpah’s most acclaimed films, but in his later years, as the filmmaker succumbed to alcoholism, Bliss concludes that this optimistic note begins to slip from the films. These themes, along with Peckinpah’s reputation for clashing with producers, are certainly examined in the essays, especially Bliss’s own piece on The Wild Bunch. In suggesting that one’s mistakes in life do not matter if one seeks redemption (42), the film, Bliss argues, represents “the cornerstone of Peckinpah’s moralistic universe.” Thus, the “Wild Bunch” redeem themselves when they choose at the end of the film to sacrifice their lives for their friend Angel.

The essays compiled by Bliss are largely free of cultural studies jargon; they rely instead on close readings of the film texts and careful attention to the production histories of the pictures. The first, by Peckinpah scholar Garner Simmons, focuses upon the conflict between producer Charles B. FitzSimons and Peckinpah on the set of the director’s first feature film, The Deadly Companions (1961). The producer saw the film as a vehicle for his sister Maureen O’Hara and elicited little input from Peckinpah. By contrasting the original script with the finished film, however, Simmons is able to conclude that Peckinpah inserted his own vision into the picture—especially by having Yellowleg (Brian Keith) break the film’s cycle of violence by abandoning his quest for revenge. The pursuit of revenge is also critiqued in The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) with Jason Robards in the title role. Pointing out Peckinpah’s religious family background, Steven Lloyd asserts that The Ballad of Cable Hogue is “one of the screen’s most determined conceptions ever of God’s generosity to humanity” (50). Hogue is initially blessed by God, but much of his Divine good fortune is lost when he fails to abandon his desire for revenge. But he attains salvation at the end of the film when he sacrifices his life to save that of his sworn enemy.

Again addressing the themes of revenge and retribution, Straw Dogs is one of Peckinpah’s most controversial films. Michael Sragow emphasizes the improvements made by Peckinpah to the film’s source material novel, The Siege of Trencher’s Farm (1969) by Gordon M. Williams. In the hands of Peckinpah, Sragow argues, this revenge tale becomes a modernist commentary on “a failing marriage and a world gone awry...