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Reviews Peckinpah: The Western Films. By Paul Seydor. (Champaign: The University of Illinois Press, 1996. 410 pages, $29.95.) Whenever Sam Peckinpah’s name is evoked in a conversation, the discussion almost inevitably turns to the debate over violence in film. But to anyone who has seen all or even most of Peckinpah’s work, who has studied it and come to appreciate it, argu­ ing over his use of violence is about the same as arguing about whether Wagner is too long, the Mona Lisa too plain, or Shakespeare too hard to understand. In this new, expanded, and handsomely printed edition of his 1980 study, Seydor demonstrates that any discussion of Peckinpah’ .s films has to be contained in both the context of the politics of Hollywood and the greater American literary tradition. Such discussion also must consider the director’s personal vision of the human condition. For any student of American film or of American Western literature, this volume is a must. It’s hard to imagine trying to teach a film course—not merely a course in west­ ern film but in any film—without it. Seydor includes in this new edition a complete discussion of Peckinpah’s early years in television. He examines the director’s participation in such series as Gunsmoke and The Rifleman, contending that Peckinpah’s contribution molded those programs and made them unique in an overburdened subgenre of half-hour horse operas. He also dis­ cusses The Westerner, possibly the most forward-thinking TV Western ever produced, one that opened new frontiers and that others would imitate for years. In each chapter, Seydor explains and discusses the business context of filmmaking with regard to such Peckinpah classics as Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Ballad of Cable Hoague, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He then offers a cogent analysis of each film’s place in the greater context of American literature. Finally, Seydor expands his discussion to link each of Peckinpah’s works to the clearly defined vision the director had of the American West and of the kind of people it attracted and produced. Along the way, Seydor exposes Peckinpah’s notions of love, death, and the tenderness and mystery of the human spirit. But the meat of this fine examination lies in Seydor’s expanded discussion of Peckinpah’s most sensational film, The Wild Bunch. Seydor clarifies the myths and mis­ information about the several versions of the film that continue to circulate, even inter­ nationally, and outlines the horrific pain Peckinpah suffered in his efforts to protect the integrity of what most astute film critics regard as the most iconoclastic American film produced since World War II. (Possibly only a few other films—Bonnie and Clyde, The Godfather, and Apocalypse, Now!—approach that distinction.) 300 Western American Literature Exceedingly well written and thoroughly documented, the book would have bene­ fited by a time-line chronology and list of Peckinpah’s works, but there is little else to complain of in this thorough study of one American artist’s work, his pain, and his incredible contribution to our culture. C la y R e y n o ld s D ento n , Texas New Westers: The West in Contemporary American Culture. By Michael L. Johnson. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1996. 408 pages, $29.95.) In terms that Johnson adapts from Tony Hillerman, “Wester . . . refers to a person whose fantasies do take place in the West, who enjoys the scenery there, wants to live life outdoors, wears jeans.” The “Old Wester” likes John Wayne, refuses to give up guns and exploitive “boomer” behavior that he—gender intended—regards as Manifest Destiny, and he might actually have gotten close to a cow. A “New Wester” is “any per­ son who more or less recently has developed (or redeveloped) an extraordinary interest in the American West.” Probably, but not quite necessarily, he or she is conscious of the environment and of Native Americans and of the role played by the really Old Westers in damaging both, and he or she is a “sticker”—while unconsciously, and ironically, imposing a kinder and gentler type of Manifest Destiny. To illustrate the...

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