Western #8: The Wild Bunch

Once the doors have opened to fresh voices and perspectives, there comes a flood of challenges to convention and pushing boundaries - for the Western genre, the Spaghetti Westerns paved the way for American directors, those who were just entering into the era of New Hollywood out of the strict confines of the studio system, to explore ambiguous themes, infuse more sex and violence, and react to new societal circumstances by upending the genre conventions that had been so ingrained in American culture and filmmaking. Director Sam Peckinpah barreled through this era with several Westerns, highlighted by The Wild Bunch (1969), where he experimented with filmmaking techniques to heighten and glorify violence as the Old West began transitioning into the modern timeframe. Our final stop on the Western Marathon takes us to the close of the traditional studio system and toward the post-classical era that transformed the genre and gave rise to new rules out West. 

In 1913, Pike Bishop (William Holden) takes his band of aging outlaws on one more robbery in a Texas town, but are outwitted by Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), his former partner and now head of a posse of bounty hunters who are on their tail. The outlaw gang make their way to Mexico, where they take shelter at the home village of Angel (Jaime Sanchez), one of their members; the village has been ravaged by ruffians in the Mexican Federal Army. The gang eventually meet and strike a deal with the Army’s corrupt General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) - they are to steal an arms shipment from the US Army and deliver those weapons to the general for a generous reward. The gang smoothly and successfully pull off the train robbery and are briefly chased by Thornton’s posse, but Bishop’s gang destroys a bridge to ensure their escape. Angel has stolen a portion of the weapons to send to rebels who are defying the corrupt army, but his scheme is discovered and he is kidnapped and tortured. The gang, in a final attempt to save their compatriot, confront Mapache and demand the release of Angel - the ensuing bloody battle brings the violent end of the gang; but, before they are taken down, the outlaws manage to gain control of the single machine gun and proceed to decimate the remaining army’s forces. Thornton arrives to survey the aftermath of the devastation, reflecting on the new state of the Old West.

There were several societal, economic, and cultural forces that brought dynamic change to the film industry at the dawn of the 1970s, and the Western genre was not immune to the shifting tides. Most notably, the United States entered into the Vietnam War in 1965 and images of violence and young men dying were broadcast into American living rooms on a nightly basis. On the economic side, the rise of television paired with the dismantling of the Hollywood studio system gave space for fresh new voices and innovative ways of financing. On the cultural front, the formation of the MPAA rating board in 1968 promised self-censorship of the industry in lieu of government imposed standards and prompted the introduction of the R rating, which expanded the amount of sex and violence allowed in a motion picture. And finally, the Spaghetti Westerns broke open the conventions of the Western genre and presented new formulations on the old standards. All these forces were swirling in the societal consciousness as The Wild Bunch was co-written and directed by Peckinpah.

In the classic Western genre conventions, there is a strict line drawn between the good guys (often embodied by law enforcement or decent cowboys) and the villains (outlaws, grifters, train robbers, etc.) and, with strict adherence to the Hays Code, the forces of good always triumphed in the end. The Wild Bunch plays on this trope in the opening sequence and the plot spends the rest of the narrative upending the good vs evil moral framework. Bishop’s gang arrives in the Texas town dressed as respectable military officers, but with the nefarious intention of robbery. The posse of bounty hunters hired to take them down is led by Bishop’s former partner, who is only pursuing the outlaw to keep himself out of jail, thus establishing the shifting ambiguity of the men’s moral code. Once the gang escapes the town, the supposed “good guys” show no remorse for the piles of dead bodies that perished in their violent scuffle; rather, they bicker over who gets to claim the dead’s possessions - hardly the actions of paragons of virtue - they are fighting on the side of good for the money and bounty, but not to uphold the morals of decent society. The overarching message of a film’s morality is often expressed in how the narrative concludes - and while this film does end with the band of outlaws all perishing in their last stand, this in no way places the film within the good/evil paradigm of classical Westerns. After moments of reflection (spent with whores in a Mexican outpost), the group decides to demand the release of their member who has been kidnapped by Mapache’s army - which in itself seems a selfless act, but their noble efforts are undermined by Angel’s state - bloodied and tortured and only just clinging to life. The team is also four men against...an entire army and in their revenge for Angel’s treatment, they wipe out the entire contingent of Mapache’s men. This is senseless, indiscriminate, and mass killing - far from a noble cause of  revenge with a purpose. Furthermore, the forces of good are portrayed as completely inept - the bounty hunters are always several steps behind the outlaws and the US military is staffed with young inexperienced boys who are outwitted at every turn; good and evil are upended and replaced with ambiguity that audiences had to contend with in the shadow of the Vietnam War.

The film also makes a firm statement on the passing of the native wilderness in the West towards the modernity of machines and civilization. Set in the year 1913, the protagonists are all ageing men, with Bishop’s gang looking to execute one more job before retirement. Most films in the classical Western are set in the late 1800s, so this film’s setting in the next century and featuring the machine gun as a weapon of war that would become commonplace in World War I (set to begin only one year after the film’s events) illustrate the changing world. A sequence in the film further emphasizes the emerging technology - a car is seen driving into the Mexican army’s compound and the new technology is astonishing to the men who have only known horses as modes of transportation. In addition to the emerging machinery, the film also acknowledges the growing globalization of the world, breaking out of the small bubble of archetypes usually present in a classic Western. The Mexican Army has a foreign advisor, a German military man who is very interested in working with the country to steal the US weapons in order to view a sample of their advanced knowledge. International relations and military gamesmanship are sophisticated concepts creeping into a genre that usually focused on sheriffs and outlaws. The film is establishing not only the end of the wild West era within American history, but also marking the passing of the old Western genre tropes that ruled cinema for the first half of the 20th century.

The Western genre has a stilted history with the portrayal of women and indigenous peoples and while the evolution of the genre expanded a focus on women and Native American’s perspectives and stories in the Western territories, The Wild Bunch does not mark the beginning of that transformative storytelling. Women barely have a compelling presence in this film, besides as a target of sexual harassment, whores whom the outlaws partake in their services, or as pawns between men. When Angel sees his former lover in the arms of Mapache, his instinct is to shoot her down, instead of considering that she may have been taken from their village and forced into this situation; rather, he immediately concludes she has betrayed him and seeks revenge by killing her! During the final battle, one woman gets a good shot in at Bishop as he is taking down the officers, but his reaction is to call her a “bitch” and blows her away in one shot. After that, another woman is literally used as a human shield as Bishop makes his way toward the machine gun, starkly showing the little regard this world has for women's bodies. Well developed female characters are non-existent in this narrative world of violent and vengeful men.

The portrayal of Mexican characters, however, lays a much more rich narrative landscape. Certainly the main antagonists of Bishop’s gang is a corrupt Mexican general who is ravaging the countryside, but the film also presents images of an idyllic village that is full of decent people who are suffering under Mapache’s oppressive tactics. Bishop’s team also includes Angel, a member who starts off with contention amongst the group, but whose suffering ultimately is the motivation for the men to take their stand against the Army. Additionally, Hispanic actors were cast to portray the Mexican characters, Spanish is spoken frequently in the film with no translations, authentic Mexican music is incorporated into the soundtrack and, with the majority of the film set and shot in Mexico itself, much of the background players are realistically portrayed.

Peckinpah also set out to realistically portray the agony and pain of violence in a way not often acknowledged by classical Westerns. The violent clashes in this film were considered absolutely gratuitous compared to past Westerns (although are tame compared to films in the contemporary era) and, although stylized with slow motion and fast cutting techniques, accomplished the goal of capturing a more realistic vision of bodies reacting to getting shot. The opening of the film makes this explicitly clear - Bishops barks orders to his gang stealing the money - “If they move, kill em” and the movie surely adheres to this advice. The robbery sequence in the Texas town captures the feel of the chaos on the streets through the explosion of blood spurting and the wild camera movements. Fast intercutting also conveys the idea of how quickly death can come to a peaceful town - a member of the posse is shot on the roof and falls to the street below. The arc of his fall is intercut four times with various shots of other action in the streets, from innocent townspeople rushing to escape, to more outlaw and bounty hunters exchanging shots. This stands in direct contrast to the methodical fights in classical Westerns, such as the slow burning drama at the OK Corral, and the single shots where the victim crumples to the ground. This opening displays chaos, blood, and more bullets than could be counted.

The final battle takes the opening scenes body count and raises it to unexpected heights. The outlaws are outnumbered four members to an entire army, but they somehow fight their way over to the newest expression of modernity in war - the machine gun. At this point, the mass destruction kicks in, as various members of the gang take their turn on the killing machine, mowing down members of the Mexican Army with impunity - decimating their opposition with no compunction. As backup forces attempt to storm the battle front, Peckinpah lingers on reaction shots of their bodies hit with a flail of bullets, blood spurting from their wounds, and falling to the ground as a nameless victim of blind excessive rage. Modernity has taken a slow-burning shootout filled with dramatic sequences from the classic Western and upped the ante to a mass killing spree that knows no morality.

One fascinating element of this new emphasis on violence is the centrality that Peckinpah gives to children’s relationship to the violence happening around them. In the opening sequence, the director places two small children in the center of the town’s chaos, zooming in on their terrified faces at the destruction and killing happening around them. Kids themselves are not immune from this new world’s influence and in several instances partake in the violence themselves. The film opens on a circle of children watching ants overwhelm and kill a scorpion in the baking hot sun - they are not motivated to save the wretched creature, but are fascinated by the violent act of nature unfolding before their eyes. Then as the outlaws escape the town, the kids pick up detritus and set it on fire over the pile of ants - the violent nature of this evolving West begins at an early age. The film also takes a small moment to show the relationship between Mapache and the young messenger in his army; as the kid brings him news of Bishop’s gang’s successful train raid, he physically looks up to the General, beaming at him in his fancy uniform and with men all around following his orders. The General notices the child’s admiration and the actor takes a beat to smile back at the child, reinforcing the notion of the ideals of masculinity and violence taking hold at a young age, perpetuating the cycle into the future. This same child, in the final battle, takes up arms and shoots at Pike as he is manning the machine gun, participating in the violence that his heroes were just struck down by.

This film marks the transition from the classic Westerns produced within the Hollywood studio system to the post-classical Western that expands the traditional genre conventions and challenges old guard values in favor of excessive violence, moral ambiguity, and the freedom of New Hollywood. The film’s ending perfectly sums up the transition, as the rebels encounter Thornton in the aftermath of the epic battle and invite him to join their squad, acknowledging that it “ain’t like it used to be, but it’ll do” - times have changed and the genre must change with it. The Wild Bunch marks the twilight of the traditional Western and thus brings our Marathon to an end; we move next to consider the Marathon as a whole, a reflection on the Western genre, and consider the standout elements of the films viewed.