Triumph of the Will?

As Hollywood grows increasingly bereft of original ideas, more and more classic films are being desecrated by unnecessary, unwanted and ultimately inferior remakes. Don't get me wrong - I think remakes are fine in certain cases. If the original film was technically flawed in some way, or if it missed an opportunity to make a salient point, or if the story can be updated in some way to make it more relevant for our time, then by all means have at it, but some films are so perfect, so timeless, that they should be off the table as far as remakes go. Sam Peckinpah's monumental 1969 Western, The Wild Bunch, is just such a film, but of course, nothing is off the table in today's Hollywood, and a remake has been in the works for some time. If that wasn't bad enough in and of itself, it was recently announced that Will Smith is on tap to star in the film. I have nothing against Will Smith; I've enjoyed him in many films, such as Independence Day and the Men In Black series, but the announcement of his (mis)casting in what is certain to be a cinematic travesty is the straw (dog) that broke the camel's back. I now present for you seven reasons why remaking The Wild Bunch, especially with Will Smith, is a bad, bad idea.

1. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, The Wild Bunch does not need to be remade. Peckinpah's original still retains its visceral power nearly 45 years after its release. It's arguably the finest film by one of the greatest directors in the history of American cinema, and there's really nothing about it that could have been done better.

2. Smith is a fine actor in the right role, but I'm not convinced that he's capable of fully conveying the self-loathing that is a crucial aspect of the main character in The Wild Bunch. William Holden did a magnificent job in the original film of demonstrating Pike Bishop's inner disgust at the man he had become. Smith just doesn't have the world-weariness or the gravitas necessary for the role.

3. The remake will not be a Western, but will be a contemporary thriller featuring Smith as a disgraced DEA agent. The whole raison d'être of the original was to tell the story of a group of outlaws left behind by changing times not long after the turn of the twentieth century. A remake set in modern times won't be capable of rendering that milieu with any sort of authenticity, which begs the question: what's the point?

4. The original was extremely violent and bloody, but the violence was presented in a realistic fashion meant to show the audience that death is an ugly business. The remake will undoubtedly try to top the original, but will showcase the violence in a flashier manner, with less moral weight - as modern action film audiences are accustomed to - and it will probably be rendered with fake-looking CGI blood, totally ruining the effect.
 
5. Smith rejected the title role in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (which eventually went to Jamie Foxx), reportedly because he felt it wasn't prominent enough (anyone who actually saw Foxx's rousing performance in the finished film should find such a sentiment laughable). If he's truly conceited enough to feel that he's not suited for any role other than the lead, then he has no business acting in The Wild Bunch. It's an ensemble piece, not a star vehicle.

6. The practical effects that were accomplished on the set of the original, such as the bridge that was blown up with actual stuntmen and horses on it, gave it a sense of realism that will likely be completely absent from the remake due to the overuse of CGI effects.

7. It's highly unlikely that the characters will be as morally ambiguous as they were in the original, which is what made them so interesting. I have a difficult time imagining that the remake's screenplay and performances will have the courage to walk the fine line between showing the audience that the characters are very bad people yet still allowing us to care deeply for them. That sort of nuance is hard to come by these days, at least in big budget, star-driven films that have to appeal to the widest audience possible if they're to have any hope of earning their production costs back.

Let's talk about violence

One of the first of countless casualties in The Wild Bunch

"...I feel totally great and fine in saying that in real life I have a major problem with violence, that I do think our society is too violent, but I have no problem going to a film and seeing violence on the screen." 
-- Quentin Tarantino

"When people talk about violence in cinema, it's like talking about cheese on pasta; it sort of comes with the dish." 
-- Brian De Palma

Let's take a cue from Mr. De Palma and discuss violence a bit, shall we? It's something that's going to come up again and again in this blog (in fact, I already touched on it a bit in my first few entries), and there are a few things I feel I should get out in the open. I recently watched the special edition DVD of The Enforcer, and one of the special features was a documentary featuring various filmmakers and film historians frankly discussing the pros and cons of cinematic violence. It was an interesting show, and it got me thinking about my views on the subject. First of all, let me say that I am in no way, shape or form a violent person. In general, I'm what you would refer to as a bleeding heart liberal (if you want proof, see the post immediately prior to this one). I've never been in a real fight, I've never raised my hand in anger against anyone, I despise war and I'm against capital punishment and solidly in favor of gun control. Despite all this, I find myself watching a lot of violent movies. All you have to do is look through a list of some of my favorite films - Taxi Driver, The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now, Drive, A Clockwork Orange, Alien, Dirty Harry, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Once Upon a Time in the West and countless blood-drenched horror films you've probably never heard of - to see that violence is an integral part of my film diet. In my view, many of the most interesting and intriguing films also happen to be the most violent. How can this be? How can such a mild-mannered person as myself derive pleasure from watching brutality take place on the screen? Well, it's complicated. You know, like life.

A reluctant execution in Army of Shadows

In my mind, there are different types of screen violence. First of all, there's violence that's supposed to be ugly, that's supposed to repulse the viewer and demonstrate to them how horrible violence really is. This is what I consider to be, more or less, realistic violence. You'll find it in many of the films of Sam Peckinpah, or Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, or Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left, or Jean-Pierre Melville's L'armée des ombres (Army of Shadows). When you watch a violent sequence in one these films, it's the filmmakers' intention that you should be sickened by it. In many cases, the characters in the films who perpetrate the violence are sickened by it as well. It couldn't possibly be argued that a well-adjusted person would view these films and get the idea that violence is a positive thing (although that hasn't stopped a never-ending stream of pundits from trying to do just that over virtually the entire history of the cinema). At the very least, it's shown to be repugnant but necessary. Melville's film contains an incredibly powerful scene in which members of the French resistance during World War II reluctantly kill an informer who would otherwise give them away to the Nazis; the necessity of doing it quietly and cleanly means that they have to strangle him, and it's absolutely excruciating to watch, despite the fact that it's not at all graphic.

With that being said, many of the violent sequences in these films are nevertheless filmed and presented in a way that is visually and cinematically exciting. Scenes like the Normandy invasion in Private Ryan or the opening and closing gun battles in The Wild Bunch are horrifying, yes, but there's no denying the fact that the bravura expression of sheer cinematic technique utilized in these sequences is thrilling in its own right, and is somehow artistically divorced from the content itself. In short, it's possible to admire them even as you're appalled by them. (By contrast, the rape/murder sequences in Last House on the Left are filmed so dispassionately and with such a lack of flourish that they become practically unbearable to watch.) The argument has been put forth that these films somehow condone violence merely by presenting it, but the idea that exhibiting violence in a graphic manner is tantamount to condoning it seems ludicrous to me. Film is no different than other forms of art. If I look at Picasso's Guernica and say "Goddamn, that's an amazing painting," does that mean I think it's OK for fascists to bomb a town full of women and children into splinters? Of course not. Cinematic violence of this type can justifiably be referred to as an artist making a statement about society. 

Steven Seagal wants to talk to you about your behavior

Another type of screen violence, which is somewhat more problematic, is the type that isn't supposed to turn us off. It's the kind we're actually supposed to, well, enjoy. It's heroes taking out villains by any means necessary. It's Charles Bronson blowing away a scumbag rapist, or John Rambo using an explosive-tipped arrow to detonate a Vietnamese soldier, or Steven Seagal kicking the living shit out of a terrorist. It's violence that's supposed to elicit a cheer from the audience, or a giggle, or at the very least, a satisfied sigh. This is the type of violence that worries some people, and to a certain extent, I can understand why. The violence in these films is presented as less consequential, or even inconsequential. In most cases, we aren't shown the bad guys' pain at any great length, or the grief of their loved ones (if they have any; more often than not, they exist in a vacuum), or the circumstances that made them the way they were. The filmmakers aren't interested in those things, nor are we supposed to be, and as a result, those on the receiving end of this "righteous" violence are dehumanized.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (my daughter said he screamed like a girl)

Of course, the antagonists in police dramas and action movies are often presented as unrepentantly evil to begin with, and that is, in my opinion, the key to being able to enjoy these films without feeling too guilty about it. These aren't characters; they're caricatures, and sometimes it's nice to visit a world in which everything is black and white (in a moral sense). In the documentary I mentioned earlier, screenwriter Shane Black says something to the effect of "It's fun to see the bad guy get blown the fuck out of his socks," and I tend to agree. As I write this, I'm preparing to take my nine-year-old daughter to a theatrical screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. She might be a bit young for it, but it's a rare opportunity to see this classic film on the big screen, and I want to take advantage of it in the hope that it will help kindle a love of film in her (much the same as it did for me). I was discussing with a relative whether or not I'd need to cover her eyes at the climax, when Belloq and the Nazi villains are gruesomely obliterated by the Ark, and he remarked, "Well, they deserve it!" That sums it up right there. Movie villains always deserve it. There's no doubt that they've committed their crimes; hell, we've seen them do it, and we've got the film to prove it! This absolute certainty squelches many of my moral reservations about seeing them wiped out. Speaking of Raiders, has the scene where Indy shoots the sword-wielding baddie ever failed to elicit an uproarious laugh from the audience? Like it or not, sometimes violence is just fucking hilarious! (I did end up letting my daughter watch the end; she remarked that the melting Nazi "screamed like a girl," and later, we discussed how the effects were accomplished.)

Riverdance this is not - Ryan Gosling in Drive

Some filmmakers do try to have it both ways. In Nicolas Winding Refn's stunning crime film Drive, Ryan Gosling's unnamed character commits some intense acts of violence in the course of protecting a young mother and her son from vicious gangsters. While his motives may be good and pure, he's obviously got some issues of his own, as evidenced by the extreme methods he uses. In Drive's most infamous scene, when confronted in an elevator, he repeatedly stomps on a thug's head until it resembles a pancake, and both the woman he's protecting in the film and we the audience are left in dumbstruck silence by his sheer ferocity. Or, there's The Matrix, in which we witness Keanu Reeves blowing away dozens of bad guys who, as it turns out, aren't even real. As much as I hate violence in real life, I have to admit I love watching it in movies of this ilk. The trick is to realize that they're just movies, and this sort of violent response to evil rarely works in the real world.

If I haven't said much yet about violence in horror films, it's because they're a different animal altogether. Horror films are specifically designed to confront us with our own mortality, and as such, the representation of violent death is an intrinsic part of their DNA. While it's entirely possible to make an effective horror film without explicit violence, since the late 1950s, these more subtle attempts at horror have increasingly been the exceptions to the rule. Horror films do often showcase violence as something ugly and reprehensible, as in Craven's Last House, but it's just as often presented as a visual spectacle, even more so than the action films referenced above. Horror fans watch these so-called "body count" films not only to be scared (if that even happens) but also to revel in the meticulously gory creations of special effects artists. We watch them for the specific purpose of seeing people dispatched in various messy ways, and we don't really care much about them at all. Of the thousands of characters who've been graphically butchered in horror films over the last five decades, many are often even greater ciphers than many of the action movie villains. The disposability of these victims is exacerbated by the fact that a good number of these horror films are low-budget affairs, with substandard writing and acting that don't do much to endear the characters to us. Violence is the raison d'être of these films; if you remove it, they're essentially pointless.

Alessio Orano delivers the coup de grâce in Lisa and the Devil

Again, there are quite a few exceptions. Neil Marshall's The Descent gives us a group of characters we grow to care about before they're plunged into a subterranean nightmare. We're terribly frightened for them and horrified by their brutal, ghastly deaths. We also root for them as they turn the tables on their subhuman tormentors and bring the pain back to them. Near the end, we're conflicted when one of them turns on another in retaliation for an earlier transgression; we understand, but we don't necessarily agree. Ultimately, we're emotionally shattered by the downbeat ending. Other horror films, while they may have their share of bloody moments, transcend these gruesome scenes and become truly exceptional films due to the sheer artistry on display. Mario Bava's 1972 horror masterpiece, Lisa and the Devil, features a number of grotesque murders, including a man who is run over repeatedly by a car and a half-dressed woman who is bludgeoned to death, but the film is so elegantly made and achieves such a remarkable, dreamlike quality that the violence doesn't seem as grotesque as it should. Other filmmakers play the violence for laughs, as in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II. The gruesome dismemberments and popped-out eyeballs in Raimi's sequel to/remake of his own Evil Dead (which was a far more serious film) are famously inspired by the physically abusive comedy of The Three Stooges.

Whatever its context or presentation may be, violence in the cinema has been around since the very beginning, and it's not likely that it'll be going away anytime soon, despite the fact that many people would like it to. There's a group of people who seem to think that getting rid of violent movies will make our society less violent. That's patently absurd. While there are certain damaged individuals who may latch on to a violent film and find inspiration in it, is preventing everyone from seeing it really the answer? Won't these people just find something else that will set them off? One could argue that violence should be allowed in films if it has artistic merit, but who decides which films qualify? Ultimately, violent films are a reflection of our society as it is now. Perhaps someday, if and when we evolve to the point where we stop killing one another, these movies will become passé. While I'd love to live in a peaceful society, going to the movies in such a utopian world will sure be a hell of a lot more boring.

The Wild Bunch

Appropriately enough, the first film in my Peckinpah retrospective was The Wild Bunch, courtesy of the spectacular Warner Brothers Blu-ray. It's one of only three Peckinpah films to have received a Blu-ray release in the United States to date (a Blu-ray of Straw Dogs was just released, presumably to coincide with the theatrical release of Rod Lurie's ill-advised remake). I was a late adopter of HDTV and Blu-ray thanks to an initial skepticism about the format's alleged superiority coupled with a resentment of being asked to upgrade to something better yet again. I finally gave in earlier this year, and I'm glad I did, as Blu-ray discs do indeed have the potential to look absolutely stunning when they're done right. Of course, upgrading to Blu-ray meant that I had to repurchase some films I already owned on DVD (and had previously owned on VHS and LaserDisc, for that matter), and it's a no-brainer that The Wild Bunch was among the first Blu-rays I bought. The screenshots accompanying this article, however, are most definitely not from the Blu-ray, as I don't yet have a Blu-ray drive on my computer (and it's unlikely that I will for some time).

The Wild Bunch tells the story of a gang of outlaws unsuccessfully struggling to remain relevant in the quickly fading American West circa 1913. The Bunch, the core of which is Pike Bishop (William Holden), Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), brothers Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson) and Angel (Jaime Sánchez), find themselves on the run in Mexico after a botched robbery attempt and subsequent shootout that leaves scores of innocent civilians dead, though the deaths are attributable more to the ruthless bounty hunters pursuing them than to the Bunch themselves. As lawless as they may be, the Bunch maintain a certain code of honor, a fact not lost on Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). Thornton is an ex-member of the Bunch who was captured and is being compelled to assist in tracking them down in the hope of avoiding a return to the hellish prison he was released from. After arranging to steal a trainload of weapons for a corrupt Mexican general, Mapache (Emilio Fernández), a series of events lead to a confrontation with Mapache and his troops, ultimately ending in a sustained massacre which leaves the majority of the participants on both sides dead.

"When you side with a man, you stick with him!" - Pike Bishop (William Holden)
delivers one of the film's signature lines to Tector Gorch (Ben Johnson)

Like many others, The Wild Bunch served as my introduction to the cinema of Sam Peckinpah, and I'll freely admit that I was first attracted to it due to the notoriety that its graphic violence engendered. When I was fairly young and first starting to read about the cinema, I obtained a copy of John Brosnan's special effects bible Movie Magic. This eye-opening book had a section on violence and gore which discussed The Wild Bunch at length, as it was still considered at that time to be one of the most violent films ever made. Reading about the bloody bullet hits created by attaching condoms filled with stage blood to explosive squibs and the notorious throat-slitting scene, my curiosity was piqued, but my general antipathy toward westerns at the time meant that it would be several more years until I finally saw the film. As a young man who was by then used to horror films that casually spilled buckets of blood without much thought to the meaning of it all, the cataclysmic eruptions of violence that bookend The Wild Bunch were a revelation. Here were characters I actually cared about dying in a horribly vivid manner, their agony plainly visible on their contorted faces. When the mortally wounded Dutch Engstrom cries out, "Pike! Pike!," while witnessing his partner's death, blood gushing from both of their bullet-riddled bodies, it packs a powerful, emotional punch. At the time, it was something I had not yet experienced, and The Wild Bunch was one of the first movies to demonstrate to me that the medium of film could actually say something important while it was entertaining you. As I've grown older, I've found that the themes of alienation, regret and confusion in the face of changing times that infuse the film have only become more poignant.

Lyle Gorch (Warren Oates) heads up the Bunch's robbery of a munitions train

The 2007 Blu-ray release of The Wild Bunch looks absolutely stunning to me. It's hard to believe that the film is over 40 years old. Over time, I've seen it in several different formats, including a theatrical screening that I was lucky enough to catch back in the day, and I can't ever recall being as impressed with the scenery as I was here. I never considered The Wild Bunch to be a particularly lovely-looking film, but the Blu-ray definitely brings that aspect out, with the color looking especially vivid compared to the previous DVD releases. When Angel surveys the panoramic vista of his home country, just across the Rio Grande, and remarks "Mexico lindo," I tend to agree with him, even the Gorch brothers don't. The Blu-ray's 5.1 soundtrack has been taken to task for not being lossless, but it sounded pretty good to me, with clear dialogue and a fairly impressive bottom end, despite the film's age. The disc contains numerous supplements, including a handful of documentaries and a commentary by several of the notable Peckinpah scholars mentioned in my previous post. (I believe all of these materials were present on the previous Special Edition DVD release.) Although I've read several of the books on Peckinpah that these men have written, I haven't yet found the time to listen to one of their commentaries; I hope to remedy that soon. The fact that I picked the disc up for under $10 was icing on the cake. I can only hope that subsequent Blu-ray releases of Peckinpah's films are handled as well as this one.

If you've never seen a Sam Peckinpah film, start here. As well as being his most renowned and arguably his best film, The Wild Bunch functions as a perfect encapsulation of everything he was trying to express through his art. It's a masterpiece made by a world-class filmmaker at the height of his power and creativity, and it's a glorious thing to behold.

Summer of Sam

Having embarked upon a mission to view every one of director Sam Peckinpah's films this summer, including a number of them that I've never seen before, my undertaking seemed a natural subject for my newly-christened blog. The problem is that volumes have been written about Peckinpah's life and films by a small army of respected scholars, including David Weddle, Garner Simmons, Paul Seydor, Stephen Prince and the estimable Neil Fulwood, whose erudite and entertaining blog, The Agitation of the Mind, can be found here. I would not presume to hold myself in the company of these esteemed gentlemen by thinking I could add much of anything to the conversation, but I'm going to give it a go anyway. After all, isn't that why I'm here? I'll talk a little bit about the films themselves and then discuss their digital presentations, some of which I'm finding to be sorely lacking. With that being said, when it comes to DVDs and Blu-rays, I'm far from an expert on the technical side of things, so you won't be hearing me use such menacing phrases as "macroblocking," "edge enhancement" or "DNR" all that much. I'm no video guru; I just know what looks good to me and what looks like crap.

Peckinpah himself as a coffin maker in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid

Obviously, the summer is almost over, and I've already watched many of these films, so many in fact that my wife pleaded with me the other day to watch something without "dust and guns." At this point, with only a few weeks left, I'm uncertain if my objective will be reached. Nevertheless, I do plan to comment on what I've seen so far. I'll break my observations up into periodic installments to avoid posts that are too lengthy. This first post is mainly concerned with Peckinpah as a director and how I feel about his films in general. To begin, an introduction to the maestro would seem to be in order.

Sam Peckinpah was a legendary figure, infamous not only for his films, some of which pushed the level of screen violence far beyond what had previously been seen, but also for his volatile personal life. He directed a relatively small number of films in his career, which was tragically cut short by heart failure at age 59. Undoubtedly, his near-constant boozing and, later, cocaine use, contributed to his early demise, but it's not hard to imagine that his legendary, volcanic battles with producers and film studios who sought to sanitize his output for public consumption also took their toll on his well-being. Despite this interference, almost all of his films are recognizable as his work in some way, due to their technical and thematic elements. Peckinpah was one of the first American directors to be recognized as an auteur. His involvement in his films, when not sabotaged by clueless higher-ups, usually began with a script rewrite and extended all the way through the final editing process (unless he found himself summarily kicked out of the editing bay by vengeful producers), and because of this total involvement, his filmic signature is distinct and indelible.

William Holden dies an ugly death in The Wild Bunch

More often than not, Peckinpah's name is invoked within the context of a discussion on film violence. A number of his films, beginning with 1969's monumental western, The Wild Bunch, do indeed depict scenes of savage brutality, the likes of which were completely foreign to movie audiences at the time. Viewed out of context now, they would likely elicit a yawn from many younger viewers who've been weaned on graphically violent movies and video games. Indeed, the quantity of blood spilled in most of Peckinpah's violent films is routinely surpassed by today's average "family-friendly" PG-13 action movie. But with Peckinpah, context is everything. The violence in his films still shocks and disturbs because it's not neat and tidy. When the titular members of The Wild Bunch meet their end at the film's climax, we feel it, despite the fact that they're less than savory characters whose self-serving actions ultimately precipitate their collective demise. In stark contrast to the thoughtless exhilaration we're meant to experience when one of today's action heroes empties their automatic weapon into an advancing horde of faceless villains (and please don't think that I'm condemning those types of films out of hand, because I'm not), Peckinpah unflinchingly demonstrates to us the agonizing pain of being ripped apart by a hail of bullets, the despair of watching friends die and above all, the utter senselessness of violence and the resounding void it creates. These upsetting images and themes would recur throughout Peckinpah's oeuvre, though many critics were unable to see past the blood. Small-minded individuals sometimes cling to the warped notion that showing something on screen is tantamount to condoning it; in Peckinpah's case, this could not be further from the truth. He was truly a cinematic maverick, and he remains one of the most revered - or reviled - filmmakers in motion picture history, depending on who you're talking to. As far as I'm concerned, his genius will probably never be surpassed.