A detailed look at the work of one of America's great film directors. Sam Peckinpah helped to redefine the Western, clearing the board of genre cliches in order to present an intelligent examination of the motivation behind, and effects of, violence. The accusations against Peckinpah for making violent films, both Westerns and non-Westerns, for the sake of it as well as misogyny have become cliches themselves. Like their creator, the men who walk or ride through Peckinpah's films are deep, complex and often flawed. Technical accomplishment and the ability to draw out great preformances from his actors are only part of what sets Peckinpah's Films apart. It is their depth and intensity that make them unique. This book takes an in-depth look at the man, his early work for television, and all his films. It covers the critical reception of his films, Peckinpah's approach to film direction, his on-set behaviour, and studio interference during editing. An Appraisal of the iconography of his films plus an analysis of recurring themes and pre-occupations show that his best work was the most personal.

One of the greatest film directors America has produced, Sam Peckinpah revolutionized the way movies were made. In this detailed and insightful study, Bernard F. Dukore examines Peckinpah's fourteen feature films as a coherent body of work. He investigates the director's virtuosic editing techniques, thematic preoccupations that persist from his earliest to his last films, and the structure of his dramatic depiction of violence. He also addresses Peckinpah's cognizance of existentialism and the substantial traces this interest has left in the films. At the heart of Dukore's study is an extensive and detailed examination of Peckinpah's distinctive editing techniques. Focusing on representative sequences--including the breakout from the bank and the final battle in The Wild Bunch, the half-hour siege that concludes Straw Dogs, the killing of the title characters of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and combat sequences in Cross of Iron--Dukore provides a shot-by-shot analysis that illuminates Peckinpah's mastery of pacing and mood. Sam Peckinpah's Feature Films demonstrates that Peckinpah's genius as a director and editor marks not only The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and other classics but also his lesser-known feature films, even those that suffered substantial cuts at the hands of studio producers. Dukore's organic approach to the feature films reveals a highly unified body of work that remains a pointed commentary on power, violence, affection, and moral values.

More than any other filmmaker, Sam Peckinpah opened the door for graphic violence in movies. In this book, Stephen Prince explains the rise of explicit violence in the American cinema, its social effects, and the relation of contemporary ultraviolence to the radical, humanistic filmmaking that Peckinpah practiced. Prince demonstrates Peckinpah's complex approach to screen violence and shows him as a serious artist whose work was tied to the social and political upheavals of the 1960s. He explains how the director's commitment to showing the horror and pain of violence compelled him to use a complex style that aimed to control the viewer's response. Prince offers an unprecedented portrait of Peckinpah the filmmaker. Drawing on primary research materials—Peckinpah's unpublished correspondence, scripts, production memos, and editing notes—he provides a wealth of new information about the making of the films and Peckinpah's critical shaping of their content and violent imagery. This material shows Peckinpah as a filmmaker of intelligence, a keen observer of American society, and a tragic artist disturbed by the images he created. Prince's account establishes, for the first time, Peckinpah's place as a major filmmaker. This book is essential reading for those interested in Peckinpah, the problem of movie violence, and contemporary American cinema.

Collected interviews with the combustible director of The Wild Bunch, Ride the High Country, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, and other films

“A probing biography of the enfant terrible of 1960s and 1970s film-making . . . exhaustive and endlessly intriguing.” —Booklist Written by the film critic and historian David Weddle, this fascinating account does critical justice to an important body of cinema as it spins the tale of David Samuel Peckinpah’s dramatic, overcharged life and the turbulent times through which he moved. Sam Peckinpah was born into a clan of lumberjacks, cattle ranchers, and frontier lawyers. After a hitch with the Marines, he made his way to Hollywood, where he worked on a string of low-budget features. In 1955 he began writing scripts for Gunsmoke; in less than a year he was one of the hottest writers in television, with two classic series, The Rifleman and The Westerner, to his credit. From there he went on to direct a phenomenal series of features, including Ride the High Country, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah was both a hopeless romantic and a grim nihilist, a filmmaker who defined his era as much as he was shaped by it. Rising to prominence in the social and political upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies, Peckinpah and his generation of directors—Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn, Robert Altman—broke with convention and turned the traditional genres of Western, science fiction, war, and detective movies inside out. No other era in Hollywood has matched it for sheer energy, audacity, and originality; no one cut a wider path through that time than Sam Peckinpah. “Groundbreaking.” —Michael Sragow, The Atlantic

A history of extreme violence in movies analyzes the public response to this ever-growing phenomenon, tracing its beginnings in films such as Bonnie and Clyde and discussing how it fits into the artistic vision of filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorcese. Original.

A comprehensive biography of the legendary creator of The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs and The Getaway, taking an aptly no-holds-barred look at his life, his vision and his influence on modern cinema. Famed and reviled in equal measure for his no-frills approach to violent realism, Peckinpah refused to compromise his ideas for his producers, with the result that his films were decried for their apparent amoralism as much as lauded for their groundbreaking style and savage intensity. A complete look at the life and work of a modern seer.