Explain Sam Peckinpah’s editing style in the final shootout scene in his film The Wild Bunch
What will be an ideal response?
Answer: The ideal answer should include:
1. Shootouts in westerns have always been standard features of the genre, but they had never had the visceral impact of the final shootout in Peckinpah’s film.
2. The dramatic context of the shootout involves a group of vicious Mexican outlaws versus a smaller group of aging bank robbers, led by Pike (William Holden), who at least believes in the value of group loyalty and solidarity.
3. New technologies had rendered violence and war more explosive than ever—the automobile, primitive airplanes, and the Gatling gun, forerunner of modern automatic machine guns. And the social context of the film was one of the most revolutionary periods of American history.
4. When one of the bank robbers is captured by Mexican thugs, the others decide to try to rescue him, despite overwhelming numerical odds. It is a suicidal mission, and most of them know it.
5. Much of the violence is choreographed in slow motion, lending it a balletic beauty. Geysers of blood spurt from the necks and bellies of the combatants, while innocent villagers run for cover.
4. The final shootout of the film is spectacularly edited and strangely beautiful in its lyricism, temporarily blinding us to the fact that human beings are dying in all that terrible, apocalyptic beauty.
5. When The Wild Bunch was released in 1969, one critic described it as “the most violent movie ever made.” Many subsequent filmmakers have been influenced by Peckinpah’s style, most notably John Woo, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino.
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