Blog Directory CineVerse: CineVersary: The Wild Bunch hits middle age

CineVersary: The Wild Bunch hits middle age

Wednesday, September 16, 2009


The Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns that featured “man with no name” Clint Eastwood had style. The John Ford old West epics that starred John “The Duke” Wayne had stories and characters of substance. 

But Sam Peckinpah’s classic 1969 western “The Wild Bunch”--released 40 years ago--tops them all when it comes to pure, pulse-pounding blood and guts.

And there’s plenty of blood spilled and splattered throughout this flick, restored in the 1990s in a bountiful director’s cut that adds several extra minutes to the picture—lending color and texture to the characters and situations.

William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates and Robert Ryan give outstanding performances as a band of elder outlaws who, knowing their time has passed and they can’t outpace the law forever, aim to go out in a blaze of blood-soaked glory and take a lot of bad hombres with them.
 
Visually innovative for its unique editing style and slow-motion sequences of ultraviolent gunplay, “The Wild Bunch” is memorable as perhaps the last truly great big-screen western of the 20th Century.

CineVerse discussed "The Wild Bunch" last December and garnered an inspired, shrewd discourse and analysis on this western from members. To hear that discussion, click here. To read more about "The Wild Bunch," check out our "Reflections" handout on the movie by clicking here.

  © Blogger template Cumulus by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP