Over three Saturday evenings in March, we will celebrate the centennial of Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984), one of the most-discussed, and ultimately, most mythologized directors in film history. Our three film series focuses on Peckinpah’s Westerns, the genre in which the writer and director felt most at home. Peckinpah frequently fell afoul of meddling studio executives who recut his movies for theatrical release and our screenings will include Peckinpah’s cut of his most famous film, The Wild Bunch, as well as a more complex and fascinating extended version of the director’s once-mutilated Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Peckinpah’s penchant for realistic and painful violence is countered by the lyrical and often comic Western The Ballad of Cable Hogue, shown here in an original Technicolor 35mm print.
SAT., 3/8, 7 p.m.
THE WILD BUNCH
USA | 1969 | DCP | 144 min.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan
In Peckinpah’s revered classic, a group of mostly aging bank robbers (led by Holden as Pike Bishop) head South to pull off one last heist for a volatile Mexican warlord…while a posse closes in. Violent, brilliantly edited, and brimming with tour-de-force action sequences that blend seamlessly with quiet, reflective moments, The Wild Bunch is a true masterpiece of cinema. “This is not the kind of film that would likely be made today, but it represents its set of sad, empty values with real poetry.” (Roger Ebert).
SAT., 3/15, 7 p.m.
THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE
USA | 1970 | 35mm | 121 min.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Jason Robards, Stella Stevens, David Warner
Cable Hogue (Robards) is a lonely prospector, robbed of his claim and left to die in the desert. He cheats death and fate when he stumbles on an oasis and turns it into a profitable stagecoach stop. Later, Cable falls for the beautiful Hildy (Stevens), a prostitute who wants him to choose between his love for her and his quest for revenge against the men who robbed him. This uncharacteristically sweet and light-hearted gem from Peckinpah also offers the filmmaker’s usual thoughtful reflections on mortality and a lost way of American life. An original 35mm Technicolor print will be screened from the collections of Chicago Film Society.
SAT., 3/22, 7 p.m.
PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID
USA | 1973 | DCP | 117 min.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Cast: Kris Kristofferson, James Coburn, Bob Dylan
In Peckinpah’s haunting Western death poem, Kristofferson is Billy the Kid, the fiery gunslinger who parts ways with his companion-turned-lawman, Pat Garrett (Coburn). After Billy busts out of a New Mexico jail, a group of powerful cattlemen hire Garrett to assemble a posse and track the bandit down, along with his gang (including Dylan, who wrote the film’s music). Recently reconstructed by a team that includes original editor Roger Spottiswoode, this special edition comes closest to realizing Peckinpah’s vision than any of the previously released versions.