Top Movies #3

The Wild Bunch (1969)

“We all dream of being a child again, even the worst of us. Perhaps the worst most of all.” – Dan Jose

The opening of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch works in two subtle, but fundamental ways. Firstly, it sets up a metaphor and theme that will continue throughout the film and, finally, be mirrored in the climax. Children poke and prod at a hopelessly defeated handful of scorpions who are trying desperately to fight off a swarm of ants. The scorpions remain dignified and unified, despite their doomed fate. Secondly, the opening acutely references, and re-envisions Westerns of the classic era, in particular: John Ford’s My Darling Clementine. The bunch ride into town as a local band plays “Shall We Gather at the River,” reminiscent of the quintessential moment of Clementine when, to the same piece of music, Wyatt Earp leads the heroine to the foundations of the soon-to-be-built town church where dancing and celebration follows. The scene is a symbol of law and order, in the form of religion, being bestowed upon the savage, untamed frontier.

The frontier in The Wild Bunch, however, is very much settled: church and all the rest. These aging outlaws are blatantly out of place in this settled landscape, and all they can do is reminisce about a time when they were young, and the land was theirs to spoil. The film is a look back upon a genre that has perhaps ran its course by this time. The ending once again pits the few scorpions against an army of ants. The only escape for Pike Bishop and the Bunch is death, through which he and the bunch will achieve a form of redemption that abides by their code of loyalty and honor. Pike and the Bunch die while fighting an evil that is ultimately more savage then they are, and, thus, they take on self-liberating attributes. Pike chooses death not because he is unwilling to change his ways, but because the options he has left are undesirable in the face of a past history wrought with regret. Wherever he goes and no matter what aspirations he pursues, he is bound by memories (told in flashbacks) of humiliation and betrayal. The future for the Bunch promises only more corruption typical of Peckinpah’s civilizing social progression. To avoid the confrontation with the evil Mexican general, Mapache, would be to add another shameful, guilty memory to his legend.

And besides, violence itself is a trap: a self-reinforcing relationship between the negative consequences for both perpetrator and victim. In this way, the victims of Pike’s past - the married lover, Aurora, the captured partner,Thornton, and the innocents that died in the crossfire at the Starbuck massacre that opens the film - all culminate into a final bloody battle for redemption. The woman who shoots Pike in the back is a reminder of his misplaced trust in Aurora, while the child that delivers the fatal wound is a symbol of the spreading influence of violence Pike himself pioneered on future generations. But Pike was true to the code in a final effort to rescue their fellow outlaw, Angel, and he fell before a hostile, inhospitable future could enslave him further.

Although the film often overshadows some of Peckinpah’s other excellent works like Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and The Ballad of Cable Hogue, The Wild Bunch is nonetheless a monumental piece of filmming that consistently rewards after every viewing and has truly stood the test of time.