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IF THEY MOVE.KILL'EM! THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAM PECKINPAH.
"What Citizen Kane was to movie lovers in 1941, The Wild Bunch was to cineastes in 1969," critic Michael Sragow wrote in the New Yorker. "Its adrenaline rush of revelations seemed to explode the parameters of the screen." "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em" is the first major biography of David Samuel Peckinpah. Written by the film critic and historian David Weddle, this fascinating account does critical justice to an important body of cinema as it spins the tale of Peckinpah's dramatic, overcharged life and the turbulent times through which he moved. Sam Peckinpah was born into a clan of lumberjacks, cattle ranchers, and frontier lawyers. After a hitch with the marines, he made his way to Hollywood, where he worked on a string of low-budget features. In 1955 he began writing scripts for Gunsmoke; in less than a year he was one of the hottest writers in television, with two classic series, The Rifleman and The Westerner, to his credit. From there he went on to direct a phenomenal series of features, including Ride the High Country, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah was both a hopeless romantic and a grim nihilist, a filmmaker who defined his era as much as he was shaped by it. Rising to prominence in the social and political upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies, Peckinpah and his generation of directors - Stanley Kubrick, Arthur Penn, Robert Altman - broke with convention and turned the traditional genres of Western, science fiction, war, and detective movies inside out. No other era in Hollywood has matched it for sheer energy, audacity, and originality, and no one cut a wider path through that time than Sam Peckinpah.
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First published September 1, 1994
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February 6, 2022
And to think I thought Fassbinder Filmmaker was bad. If They Move.. Kill 'Em! is the story of Sam Peckinpah: filmmaker, womaniser, alcoholic, all-around tyrant. Plagued by a fiery temper (to put it mildly) and beset by personal demons throughout his life, Sam Peckinpah somehow managed to stamp his influence on the landscape of American cinema in the shape of movies like The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs and Ride the High Country, imbuing them with a strange kind of sensitive brutality that bore the mark of an auteur, despite constant interference from studio higher-ups who despaired of Peckinpah's individualism and wanton budget-breaking. Desperate to salvage potential profits and often not understanding the quality of Peckinpah's work, they frequently took his movies out of his hands during post-production. David Weddle documents how this studio interference gradually chipped away at Peckinpah's already fragile psyche, leading to an eventual submission that saw the director helming financially successful but creatively barren films like Convoy. As his life approached its end, hastened as it was by hard living, even thankless tasks like Convoy were out of his tremulous reach. He burned too many bridges.
This is a brilliant biography that explores the life and career of an infamous director without shying away from the worst aspects of his character. Weddle finds that Peckinpah beat women, slept with teenage prostitutes, alienated his own children, abused drugs and drink to the point of self-destruction, and frequently harassed and hounded his film crews to an incredible degree. I'm struggling to think of a present-day director who comes close to the man portrayed in If They Move.. Kill 'Em! and maybe that's a good thing, even if it means you don't see too many movies like The Wild Bunch or Straw Dogs. But, paradoxically, Peckinpah was also a man of charity and vulnerability, as given to outbursts of helpless emotion as he was to verbal and physical violence. Weddle makes the case that Peckinpah's formative years left a permanent scar on the man that never faded. Some part of him was broken before he ever sat in the director's chair.
This is one of those books that leaves you feeling more than a little conflicted about its subject. Peckinpah was no doubt a visionary American filmmaker who made memorable contributions to what many see as the true golden age of cinema in the late 1960s and 1970s. But, like Fassbinder and Kubrick, he was a bit of a bastard -- and then some. The stories of how he toyed with the women in his life are especially start. But whatever label you want to ascribe to Peckinpah (drunkard, misogynist, bully, genius, relic, legend, etc.), one thing becomes clear while reading If They Move... Kill 'Em!: his life makes for a hell of a story.
This is a brilliant biography that explores the life and career of an infamous director without shying away from the worst aspects of his character. Weddle finds that Peckinpah beat women, slept with teenage prostitutes, alienated his own children, abused drugs and drink to the point of self-destruction, and frequently harassed and hounded his film crews to an incredible degree. I'm struggling to think of a present-day director who comes close to the man portrayed in If They Move.. Kill 'Em! and maybe that's a good thing, even if it means you don't see too many movies like The Wild Bunch or Straw Dogs. But, paradoxically, Peckinpah was also a man of charity and vulnerability, as given to outbursts of helpless emotion as he was to verbal and physical violence. Weddle makes the case that Peckinpah's formative years left a permanent scar on the man that never faded. Some part of him was broken before he ever sat in the director's chair.
This is one of those books that leaves you feeling more than a little conflicted about its subject. Peckinpah was no doubt a visionary American filmmaker who made memorable contributions to what many see as the true golden age of cinema in the late 1960s and 1970s. But, like Fassbinder and Kubrick, he was a bit of a bastard -- and then some. The stories of how he toyed with the women in his life are especially start. But whatever label you want to ascribe to Peckinpah (drunkard, misogynist, bully, genius, relic, legend, etc.), one thing becomes clear while reading If They Move... Kill 'Em!: his life makes for a hell of a story.
January 15, 2016
He was Mr. Hollywood. And he was coming to talk to me.
He was tall and lanky and sported a mane of blond permed curls and a bushy blond mustache with a touch of grey. Before I even saw his highway patrolman sunglasses my eyes were drawn to the gold medallions on a chain hanging from his neck and adhering to the tan leathery skin of his upper chest, revealed astride the edges of his unbuttoned silk shirt. He had on jeans and cowboy boots, of course.
He smiled and offered a handshake and a warm greeting in a burnished voice with a Texas accent. The man was L.Q. Jones, actor and director, and he was coming to talk to me about the re-release of a sci-fi movie that he had directed in 1975 called A Boy and His Dog, which starred an actor who at the time of its first release was virtually unknown, Don Johnson. The movie, which had gained some cult notoriety over the years was being reissued in the 1980s to cash in on Johnson's newfound stardom on the hit TV show, Miami Vice.
In coming to talk to me, Jones was being a Tinseltown trouper, hitting the trail and making the rounds, publicizing the re-release of his movie wherever he could, including in the basement office of a college newspaper in Milwaukee, letting a green newbie reporter like me pepper him with mostly softball questions to elicit sexy copy for my entertainment column.
I had seen A Boy and His Dog the evening before in a special screening for theater owners and various invited guests and media, and thought the movie was great, which made it easier to interview Jones. At the time though, my knowledge of cinema was formative, and I missed opportunities to ask the actor-director some things that, in retrospect, I should have. For instance: Was there a conscious link between the misogyny in A Boy and His Dog and the objectification of women in the films of his colleague and mentor, the revered director Sam Peckinpah? And what about Peckinpah himself? Working with him? Enduring his drunken tirades and maddening working methods?
I knew that Jones--a veteran character actor in western movies and in television--had been in Peckinpah's 1969 masterpiece, The Wild Bunch, as the dumber half of a psychotic duo of bounty hunters chasing after the movie's anti-heroes. I asked a trivial question or two about that, and then moved on to my real objective of getting juicy tidbits for my article about the production of A Boy and His Dog. I got the feeling that half the time I was being lied to, being handed tall tales as big as Jones' beloved Texas. But, as long as I printed what Jones said in quotation marks I was absolved of all responsibility. (Jones is still alive and kicking at 83 as of this writing and is still telling tales about his dystopic sci-fi film, as shown in a 2010 Kansas City Star article).
Reading David Weddle's towering biography of Sam Peckinpah, If They Move..Kill 'Em, I notice that L.Q. Jones is quoted fairly often throughout, offering up insight into Peckinpah that I might have elicited myself if I'd done my homework. But, at that time I had not seen Peckinpah's films, apart from The Wild Bunch, so the patterns and themes in his art would have been largely unknown to me. Thus, I missed out on a chance to explore Peckinpah with a guy whose resume as a cast member in the great director's films spans the entirety of Peckinpah's greatest years, and included almost all of the auteur's best films: Ride the High Country (1962), Major Dundee (1965), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (1973).
But, enough of my anecdotes. The book...
Weddle's biography of Sam Peckinpah runs for 550 pages, and at no time was I bored, and at all times I was enthralled. It's a page-turner, impeccably researched and well written. The writing lacks that certain something of a personal literary style that marks the great entertainment biographies, such as Gene Fowler's bio of John Barrymore Good Night, Sweet Prince, but the subject is so fascinating and so well covered that this is a minor quibble.
Weddle's is a bravura synthesis and analysis of a huge amount of information about Peckinpah's life, particularly how the dysfunctions of his childhood family life made their way into film after film in the director's oeuvre. He traces the influence of a hunting trip Peckinpah took as a young boy with his father, and the emotion that overcame him when seeing the blood spurt from the first deer he shot. Not only did the blood-spurting imagery become a Peckinpah filmic trademark but the chastisement young Peckinpah received from his father for showing emotion about the deer's demise deeply confused him all his life, about what it means to be a man and particularly about man's relationship to violence. Peckinpah's films were dark and challenging as well as viscerally exciting, both elegiac and violent; studies of outsiders, rebels, loners who are usually pushed to the edge--the kind of men he fancied himself to be.
This is a great biography about a deeply conflicted and disturbed film artist; a man who spent thousands of dollars helping 18 children he never met through the Save the Children fund at the same time he was berating and verbally and physically abusing his own children. A man who could work with efficiency and lightning dispatch and artistic vision while sober during the day who was equally determined to wreck his career with booze and drug binges at night. A man whose confusions about women (he had four wives and countless lovers) stemmed from his complex relationship to his mother, a woman who suffered with bi-polar-like control issues and whose grave he repeatedly vowed to piss on. At the end he cradled her as her mental faculties faded. Peckinpah's cavalier ways with women are reflected in their objectification in his films.
Weddle does an excellent job of showing where critics have gone wrong in interpreting Peckinpah's work, showing where his films are quite the opposite of nihilistic, misogynistic or gratuitously violent. The sense of betrayal that Peckinpah felt, from friends, studio executives, family and women make their way into film after film. Betrayal by a trusted partner, Weddle writes, is the dominant theme in Peckinpah's movies.
The book is filled with great inside-Hollywood shit, particularly Peckinpah's constant battles with studio bureaucrats and moguls who tried, and often succeeded, in mutilating his films and contributing to the damage of his reputation.
The book takes a hard eye to Peckinpah, pointing out his many hypocrisies, putting his madness in perspective, but doing so with sympathy when warranted. This is not hagiography, and Weddle respects the reader's intelligence. The prose is smart and insightful without ever stooping to incomprehensible academic gobbledygook.
The book's title comes from a line of dialog uttered at the beginning of The Wild Bunch by William Holden as Pike, the leader of a band of aging renegade soldiers who have turned to bank robbery as the days of the Old West have faded. A more appropriate title (though a bit long), from page 539 and uttered by Peckinpah, might have been, "I wonder if there is a place for me anymore in this world."
This is, in short, a great biography.
He was tall and lanky and sported a mane of blond permed curls and a bushy blond mustache with a touch of grey. Before I even saw his highway patrolman sunglasses my eyes were drawn to the gold medallions on a chain hanging from his neck and adhering to the tan leathery skin of his upper chest, revealed astride the edges of his unbuttoned silk shirt. He had on jeans and cowboy boots, of course.
He smiled and offered a handshake and a warm greeting in a burnished voice with a Texas accent. The man was L.Q. Jones, actor and director, and he was coming to talk to me about the re-release of a sci-fi movie that he had directed in 1975 called A Boy and His Dog, which starred an actor who at the time of its first release was virtually unknown, Don Johnson. The movie, which had gained some cult notoriety over the years was being reissued in the 1980s to cash in on Johnson's newfound stardom on the hit TV show, Miami Vice.
In coming to talk to me, Jones was being a Tinseltown trouper, hitting the trail and making the rounds, publicizing the re-release of his movie wherever he could, including in the basement office of a college newspaper in Milwaukee, letting a green newbie reporter like me pepper him with mostly softball questions to elicit sexy copy for my entertainment column.
I had seen A Boy and His Dog the evening before in a special screening for theater owners and various invited guests and media, and thought the movie was great, which made it easier to interview Jones. At the time though, my knowledge of cinema was formative, and I missed opportunities to ask the actor-director some things that, in retrospect, I should have. For instance: Was there a conscious link between the misogyny in A Boy and His Dog and the objectification of women in the films of his colleague and mentor, the revered director Sam Peckinpah? And what about Peckinpah himself? Working with him? Enduring his drunken tirades and maddening working methods?
I knew that Jones--a veteran character actor in western movies and in television--had been in Peckinpah's 1969 masterpiece, The Wild Bunch, as the dumber half of a psychotic duo of bounty hunters chasing after the movie's anti-heroes. I asked a trivial question or two about that, and then moved on to my real objective of getting juicy tidbits for my article about the production of A Boy and His Dog. I got the feeling that half the time I was being lied to, being handed tall tales as big as Jones' beloved Texas. But, as long as I printed what Jones said in quotation marks I was absolved of all responsibility. (Jones is still alive and kicking at 83 as of this writing and is still telling tales about his dystopic sci-fi film, as shown in a 2010 Kansas City Star article).
Reading David Weddle's towering biography of Sam Peckinpah, If They Move..Kill 'Em, I notice that L.Q. Jones is quoted fairly often throughout, offering up insight into Peckinpah that I might have elicited myself if I'd done my homework. But, at that time I had not seen Peckinpah's films, apart from The Wild Bunch, so the patterns and themes in his art would have been largely unknown to me. Thus, I missed out on a chance to explore Peckinpah with a guy whose resume as a cast member in the great director's films spans the entirety of Peckinpah's greatest years, and included almost all of the auteur's best films: Ride the High Country (1962), Major Dundee (1965), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (1973).
But, enough of my anecdotes. The book...
Weddle's biography of Sam Peckinpah runs for 550 pages, and at no time was I bored, and at all times I was enthralled. It's a page-turner, impeccably researched and well written. The writing lacks that certain something of a personal literary style that marks the great entertainment biographies, such as Gene Fowler's bio of John Barrymore Good Night, Sweet Prince, but the subject is so fascinating and so well covered that this is a minor quibble.
Weddle's is a bravura synthesis and analysis of a huge amount of information about Peckinpah's life, particularly how the dysfunctions of his childhood family life made their way into film after film in the director's oeuvre. He traces the influence of a hunting trip Peckinpah took as a young boy with his father, and the emotion that overcame him when seeing the blood spurt from the first deer he shot. Not only did the blood-spurting imagery become a Peckinpah filmic trademark but the chastisement young Peckinpah received from his father for showing emotion about the deer's demise deeply confused him all his life, about what it means to be a man and particularly about man's relationship to violence. Peckinpah's films were dark and challenging as well as viscerally exciting, both elegiac and violent; studies of outsiders, rebels, loners who are usually pushed to the edge--the kind of men he fancied himself to be.
This is a great biography about a deeply conflicted and disturbed film artist; a man who spent thousands of dollars helping 18 children he never met through the Save the Children fund at the same time he was berating and verbally and physically abusing his own children. A man who could work with efficiency and lightning dispatch and artistic vision while sober during the day who was equally determined to wreck his career with booze and drug binges at night. A man whose confusions about women (he had four wives and countless lovers) stemmed from his complex relationship to his mother, a woman who suffered with bi-polar-like control issues and whose grave he repeatedly vowed to piss on. At the end he cradled her as her mental faculties faded. Peckinpah's cavalier ways with women are reflected in their objectification in his films.
Weddle does an excellent job of showing where critics have gone wrong in interpreting Peckinpah's work, showing where his films are quite the opposite of nihilistic, misogynistic or gratuitously violent. The sense of betrayal that Peckinpah felt, from friends, studio executives, family and women make their way into film after film. Betrayal by a trusted partner, Weddle writes, is the dominant theme in Peckinpah's movies.
The book is filled with great inside-Hollywood shit, particularly Peckinpah's constant battles with studio bureaucrats and moguls who tried, and often succeeded, in mutilating his films and contributing to the damage of his reputation.
The book takes a hard eye to Peckinpah, pointing out his many hypocrisies, putting his madness in perspective, but doing so with sympathy when warranted. This is not hagiography, and Weddle respects the reader's intelligence. The prose is smart and insightful without ever stooping to incomprehensible academic gobbledygook.
The book's title comes from a line of dialog uttered at the beginning of The Wild Bunch by William Holden as Pike, the leader of a band of aging renegade soldiers who have turned to bank robbery as the days of the Old West have faded. A more appropriate title (though a bit long), from page 539 and uttered by Peckinpah, might have been, "I wonder if there is a place for me anymore in this world."
This is, in short, a great biography.
May 21, 2014
This was a decent read about a man who was anything but decent. Sam Peckinpah was a silver spoon type who turned out to be one of the best directors of all time. Mr Weddle follows Sam (I'll call him Sam because it's easier to handle than Peckinpah) from the cradle to the coffin, with heavy emphasis on Sam's 3 best movies ( Wild Bunch, The Getaway, and Strawdogs . Sam's descent into the darkness of alcoholism and drug abuse is well-documented, as are the countless instances of betrayal and disloyalty. Sam, it seems, couldn't be true to anyone.
The author has done a very good job of impartially pointing out both the good and bad in Sam Peckinpah; there was plenty of both. I thought I was a pretty solid fan of Sam the artist (not the man) but I learned things from this volume. For instance, while I knew that he had started out in television, I had no idea that he had directed a series called The Westerner starring Brian Keith. Sure enough, I found a single episode on YouTube. He has directed other obscure works, some of which I couldn't find online. Sam had a habit of getting studio brass mad at him, so they had less interest in preserving his work than they might otherwise have had.
This book gave me an excuse to watch a couple of Sam's movies again for the umpteenth time. I really developed a greater appreciation for these treasures after reading the book. I have only a couple of slight criticisms; some technical terms are used from time to time that assume a certain knowledge on the part of the reader: focal length and "master" and why in hell should focal length affect a master anyway? I think I muddled through those not too badly. The thing that really got my goat was that the writer has a tendency to intimate that he has titillating information, but doesn't want to spill the beans because he would embarrass living people. I can live without the dirty laundry just so long as you don't tease me with it; produce or shut the hell up!
All in all, a likable biography of an unlikeable man.
The author has done a very good job of impartially pointing out both the good and bad in Sam Peckinpah; there was plenty of both. I thought I was a pretty solid fan of Sam the artist (not the man) but I learned things from this volume. For instance, while I knew that he had started out in television, I had no idea that he had directed a series called The Westerner starring Brian Keith. Sure enough, I found a single episode on YouTube. He has directed other obscure works, some of which I couldn't find online. Sam had a habit of getting studio brass mad at him, so they had less interest in preserving his work than they might otherwise have had.
This book gave me an excuse to watch a couple of Sam's movies again for the umpteenth time. I really developed a greater appreciation for these treasures after reading the book. I have only a couple of slight criticisms; some technical terms are used from time to time that assume a certain knowledge on the part of the reader: focal length and "master" and why in hell should focal length affect a master anyway? I think I muddled through those not too badly. The thing that really got my goat was that the writer has a tendency to intimate that he has titillating information, but doesn't want to spill the beans because he would embarrass living people. I can live without the dirty laundry just so long as you don't tease me with it; produce or shut the hell up!
All in all, a likable biography of an unlikeable man.
May 18, 2019
«Tutti sogniamo di tornare bambini, anche i peggiori tra noi, forse i peggiori più di tutti.»
«Che facciamo, Sam?», rispose Silke in maniera socratica. «Facciamo il vero Billy Kid o facciamo la leggenda?» Peckinpah restò seduto per venti minuti senza rispondere. Silke semplicemente aspettò. Alla fine Sam disse: «Facciamo la leggenda».
Per quei due o tre che non l’avessero ancora incontrato, David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah – nato a Fresno, in California il 21 febbraio 1925 e morto a Inglewood, nella contea di Los Angeles, sempre in California, il 28 dicembre 1984 - è stato un regista, sceneggiatore e attore statunitense.
Weddle, con sguardo attento e partecipe, ci racconta la vita pubblica e privata di Peckinpah e nello stesso tempo, narra dei profondi cambiamenti e degli eventi, spesso tragici, che hanno caratterizzato la storia della società americana in quei sessant’anni a cavallo della seconda guerra mondiale.
Un’appassionante e struggente cavalcata tra Nevada, California, Messico, e poi ancora Cina, Inghilterra, Colombia!, nel corso della quale mette a nudo il genio, le asprezze e le fragilità di … Bloody Sam. Interviste, documenti, scritti, testimonianze di amici, colleghi, mogli, amanti, figli che lo hanno accompagnato nel corso dei suoi, troppo pochi, cinquantanove anni, parte dei quali caratterizzati dalla progressiva discesa verso l’abisso cui si era condannato, a causa dell’uso smodato di alcool e cocaina.
Le vette della sua arte raccontate - dall’avvento della televisione fino alle mutazioni tecnologiche dell’industria cinematografica - attraverso le singole riprese, il montaggio, le reazioni dei produttori, dei critici e del pubblico nei confronti di capolavori come Sfida nell’Alta Sierra, Sierra Charriba, Il mucchio selvaggio, La ballata di Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett e Billy Kid. Film geniali e innovativi - non solo western, dove peraltro mostrò il meglio di sé - spesso massacrati in fase di montaggio o affossati con programmi di distribuzione fallimentari da parte di produttori ingordi e incapaci.
«La Poetica di Aristotele pose le basi della sua scrittura drammaturgica e Sam divenne un grande sostenitore della teoria del filosofo per cui il grande teatro fornisce al pubblico una catarsi attraverso la quale espiare il proprio dolore, la propria rabbia e la propria paura.»
Il vivido, appassionato e documentatissimo racconto di Weddle fornisce, a noi spettatori spesso distratti, le giuste chiavi di lettura per cogliere al meglio valore delle opere dell’artista, ma ci fa anche conoscere il Peckinpah ‘privato’, con tutto il vissuto delle sue nevrosi, delle sue follie e della sua personalissima guerra combattuta, in quella vasta terra desolata, contro l’ebetizzazione estetica della cultura del consumo.
«Surely, whatever his conscious attitudes toward the violence of his films, no one can stage scenes of violence with the kind of controlled frenzy Peckinpah brings to them without being susceptible to the frenzy despite his controlling it; without, in some sense, enjoying what he does. And it is this investment of himself and attempted exorcism of his devils in his work, perhaps even more than his film-making genius, that makes Peckinpah at once so hard to take and so impossible to turn away from. Kubrick coldly lectures us that we are living in a hell of our own making. Peckinpah writhes in the flames with us, burning.» William S. Pechter, Commentary, marzo 1972.
«Che facciamo, Sam?», rispose Silke in maniera socratica. «Facciamo il vero Billy Kid o facciamo la leggenda?» Peckinpah restò seduto per venti minuti senza rispondere. Silke semplicemente aspettò. Alla fine Sam disse: «Facciamo la leggenda».
Per quei due o tre che non l’avessero ancora incontrato, David Samuel "Sam" Peckinpah – nato a Fresno, in California il 21 febbraio 1925 e morto a Inglewood, nella contea di Los Angeles, sempre in California, il 28 dicembre 1984 - è stato un regista, sceneggiatore e attore statunitense.
Weddle, con sguardo attento e partecipe, ci racconta la vita pubblica e privata di Peckinpah e nello stesso tempo, narra dei profondi cambiamenti e degli eventi, spesso tragici, che hanno caratterizzato la storia della società americana in quei sessant’anni a cavallo della seconda guerra mondiale.
Un’appassionante e struggente cavalcata tra Nevada, California, Messico, e poi ancora Cina, Inghilterra, Colombia!, nel corso della quale mette a nudo il genio, le asprezze e le fragilità di … Bloody Sam. Interviste, documenti, scritti, testimonianze di amici, colleghi, mogli, amanti, figli che lo hanno accompagnato nel corso dei suoi, troppo pochi, cinquantanove anni, parte dei quali caratterizzati dalla progressiva discesa verso l’abisso cui si era condannato, a causa dell’uso smodato di alcool e cocaina.
Le vette della sua arte raccontate - dall’avvento della televisione fino alle mutazioni tecnologiche dell’industria cinematografica - attraverso le singole riprese, il montaggio, le reazioni dei produttori, dei critici e del pubblico nei confronti di capolavori come Sfida nell’Alta Sierra, Sierra Charriba, Il mucchio selvaggio, La ballata di Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett e Billy Kid. Film geniali e innovativi - non solo western, dove peraltro mostrò il meglio di sé - spesso massacrati in fase di montaggio o affossati con programmi di distribuzione fallimentari da parte di produttori ingordi e incapaci.
«La Poetica di Aristotele pose le basi della sua scrittura drammaturgica e Sam divenne un grande sostenitore della teoria del filosofo per cui il grande teatro fornisce al pubblico una catarsi attraverso la quale espiare il proprio dolore, la propria rabbia e la propria paura.»
Il vivido, appassionato e documentatissimo racconto di Weddle fornisce, a noi spettatori spesso distratti, le giuste chiavi di lettura per cogliere al meglio valore delle opere dell’artista, ma ci fa anche conoscere il Peckinpah ‘privato’, con tutto il vissuto delle sue nevrosi, delle sue follie e della sua personalissima guerra combattuta, in quella vasta terra desolata, contro l’ebetizzazione estetica della cultura del consumo.
«Surely, whatever his conscious attitudes toward the violence of his films, no one can stage scenes of violence with the kind of controlled frenzy Peckinpah brings to them without being susceptible to the frenzy despite his controlling it; without, in some sense, enjoying what he does. And it is this investment of himself and attempted exorcism of his devils in his work, perhaps even more than his film-making genius, that makes Peckinpah at once so hard to take and so impossible to turn away from. Kubrick coldly lectures us that we are living in a hell of our own making. Peckinpah writhes in the flames with us, burning.» William S. Pechter, Commentary, marzo 1972.
December 9, 2024
Beh, che dire?
Gran bel libro se sei un cinefilo (e ADORI Sam Peckinpah)!
Gran bel libro se sei un cinefilo (e ADORI Sam Peckinpah)!
May 4, 2012
A comprehensive biography of an underrated director whose work was deeply misunderstood and harshly criticized when initially released. Fortunately, film historians and critics, as well as a wide range of movie lovers are revisiting and reappraising the films of Sam Peckinpah. I would have given this five stars, but the writing is a bit imprecise at times. For instance, at least twice the author uses the phrase "All of Hollywood came to his . . ." And while I know what he means, I found it a bit lazy, and therefore annoying.
I did enjoy his descriptions of the movie-making process and was saddened by the interference Peckinpah had to endure from the moneymen who thought they knew more about how to make a movie. It's something of a miracle that any of his movies were able to retain the idiosyncrasies that make them not only singular but in many respects unparalleled. It's hard to imagine any directors today releasing a string of movies such as Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and The Cross of Iron.
The course of Peckinpah's personal life however was an unmitigated disaster. Emotionally and physically abusive, a nasty (and seemingly constant) drunk, he also could be quite gentle and charming. But his self-destructiveness seemed to have the upper hand for most of his life. It's hard to say if his legacy in film was worth the personal cost, but it's not the first, nor sadly the last time that an incredible artistic talent will be burdened with personal demons that cannot be exorcised from their life.
On the technical side of filmmaking, it was interesting to learn that he originated the process filming scenes with multiple cameras running at separate speeds (sometimes as many as six), and would then intercut them in the editing process. This creates a distortion and stretching of time for the viewer, an effect that is quite powerful as it virtually draws you into the action on the screen and has now become pretty much SOP for filmmakers. And since he made movies meant to be seen on the big screen, I highly recommend that if a chance arises to see any of the movies listed above in a movie theater, you do not hesitate. If ever there was a director whose works suffers greatly from being viewed on a TV (even the newer big-screen TVs), it is Peckinpah's.
Finally, this book was written in the early 90s, so it doesn't refer to the 70mm rerelease of The Wild Bunch back in '94 or '95, which I was fortunate to see twice, or the expanded versions of many of his films now available on DVD or Blu-Ray, all of which has contributed to the reappraisal of his work.
For myself, I can say that except for HIgh Country and Dundee, I was able to see his movies, sometimes more than once, upon their release and I was never disappointed by what I experienced. I could certainly discern a distinction between the great and near-great, but in every case I knew I had seen something powerful and unique.
I did enjoy his descriptions of the movie-making process and was saddened by the interference Peckinpah had to endure from the moneymen who thought they knew more about how to make a movie. It's something of a miracle that any of his movies were able to retain the idiosyncrasies that make them not only singular but in many respects unparalleled. It's hard to imagine any directors today releasing a string of movies such as Ride the High Country, Major Dundee, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and The Cross of Iron.
The course of Peckinpah's personal life however was an unmitigated disaster. Emotionally and physically abusive, a nasty (and seemingly constant) drunk, he also could be quite gentle and charming. But his self-destructiveness seemed to have the upper hand for most of his life. It's hard to say if his legacy in film was worth the personal cost, but it's not the first, nor sadly the last time that an incredible artistic talent will be burdened with personal demons that cannot be exorcised from their life.
On the technical side of filmmaking, it was interesting to learn that he originated the process filming scenes with multiple cameras running at separate speeds (sometimes as many as six), and would then intercut them in the editing process. This creates a distortion and stretching of time for the viewer, an effect that is quite powerful as it virtually draws you into the action on the screen and has now become pretty much SOP for filmmakers. And since he made movies meant to be seen on the big screen, I highly recommend that if a chance arises to see any of the movies listed above in a movie theater, you do not hesitate. If ever there was a director whose works suffers greatly from being viewed on a TV (even the newer big-screen TVs), it is Peckinpah's.
Finally, this book was written in the early 90s, so it doesn't refer to the 70mm rerelease of The Wild Bunch back in '94 or '95, which I was fortunate to see twice, or the expanded versions of many of his films now available on DVD or Blu-Ray, all of which has contributed to the reappraisal of his work.
For myself, I can say that except for HIgh Country and Dundee, I was able to see his movies, sometimes more than once, upon their release and I was never disappointed by what I experienced. I could certainly discern a distinction between the great and near-great, but in every case I knew I had seen something powerful and unique.
Read
August 31, 2025Been watching a lot of westerns this year and was thinking about why Peckinpah’s reputation has kind of waned. Really great warts-and-all portrait of an angry “maverick” (one way to put it) director…but more so just a deeply sad portrait of an artist who was also a major alcoholic in an industry driven by money….and later cocaine. Seeing Peckinpah slowly turn himself inside-out through drunkenness, debauchery, infidelity, abuse, coke, truly makes you hate him, a kind of Bukowski of cinema, which makes his need to make his characters all equally hate themselves all the more fascinating about his work. Also just lots of weird industry behavior and mythic drunkenness (throwing knives in production meetings, walking around shooting his reflection in any mirror he saw with a gun, lots of others). Hard to read at times, he drove almost every single person in his life away from him, abused countless people, but seeing how his behavior and paranoia drove him into the abyss even further makes it as powerful and tragic a read as his best movies.
June 14, 2025
An exceptional deep-dive into one of the most unpleasant artist's to make unpleasant art in modern times. Peckinpah will forever need to be grappled with, argued over, but at least Weddle's book give you every piece of context you could need.
September 26, 2012
A genuinely enthralling biography - one of the best I've ever read - of American cinema's enfant terrible, Sam Peckinpah. David Weddle's wealth of informtion is astonishing, and his style is immediately engaging and readable.
Particularly good is the way Weddle makes no effort to disguise Peckinpah's many faults as a human being (abusiveness, drug use, promiscuity, anger, insecurity, etc.). It's all there, honest and true and often somewhat ugly.
Every film gets a thorough write-up and peckinpah's early life on the ranch and in the military is explored thoroughly too. As biographies go, this is a masterclass. If you have the slightest interest in cinema or indeed this particular film-maker, this is not to be missed.
Particularly good is the way Weddle makes no effort to disguise Peckinpah's many faults as a human being (abusiveness, drug use, promiscuity, anger, insecurity, etc.). It's all there, honest and true and often somewhat ugly.
Every film gets a thorough write-up and peckinpah's early life on the ranch and in the military is explored thoroughly too. As biographies go, this is a masterclass. If you have the slightest interest in cinema or indeed this particular film-maker, this is not to be missed.
January 10, 2019
The Wild Bunch is my all-time favorite movie probably because I saw it when I was young. When your your young you appreciate movies with a sad ending. I think as you age you want things to just turn out all right in the end. This is a good biography and analysis of Peckinpah's film. This book rates the Wild Bunch, Strawdogs, and the Getaway as his best films. I might put bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia in there as well. One of the ways Peckinpah was ahead of his times is his use of Spanish as there are far more Spanish language scenes in his films then those of other directors in the period. In particular the Wild Bunch regardless, I must recommend to those interested in Hollywood or Westerns.
April 22, 2010
Basically, this guy researched the shit out of Peckinpah. It takes more than 200 pages for him to direct his first film, another 100+ till he does The Wild Bunch, and it's still a total page-turner. (Still took me almost a month to read. Not the book's fault.) Does a good job of portraying his faults without over-defending them. Weddle puts Peckinpah's flaws on the page, just as Peckinpah himself put his own flaws in his movies, wrestling with them. Makes a strong case in defense of Straw Dog's notorious rape scene. Also, did you know Peckinpah, post-Alfredo Garcia yet, was asked to direct both the '76 King Kong reboot and Superman? God, I love Sam Peckinpah.
January 24, 2014
A must read for any fan of his movies;takes you behind the scenes on the making of such classics as Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The book also provides a wealth of detail on how Hollywood operated in the 1960's and 70's when the studios were still really in control and creative artists like Peckinpah were at a real disadvantage. Author Weddle did his homework and gives us a vivid portrait of a truly talented, but equally troubled man, who was often his own worst enemy. This book would appeal to any movie buff, but especially to any one interested in how the creative process works in the movie business.
June 13, 2019
This book really got rid of the idea of the demonic selfdestructive genius. Peckinpah was essentially a brilliant director to begin with but then totally blew it because he was a drunk. The anger and the rebellion was just nonsense. Ultimately he could have produced so much more and so much better. The Wild Bunch he made relatively sober. By the latter part of his career he wasn't even directing the film's. Weddle has a critical eye and the reading of films is good. There is a bit of a problem with the attempt to be in Sam's corner. The way feminist objections are just thrust away as if they have no validity and worse the way domestic violence is given a pass.
July 28, 2012
The best of several biographies of Sam Peckinpah. The chapter on the filming of The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece.
After this, read Marshall Fine's Bloody Sam.
After this, read Marshall Fine's Bloody Sam.
November 14, 2023
Thorough and engaging biography of one of cinema's great directors. David Weddle's book is imperfect to a degree, imbalanced to a fault, yet far too good too allow its deficits define it. Especially if one is a fan, "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is often a fascinating, page-turning narrative that both illuminates and educates one's basic knowledge of Sam Peckinpah and his films, creating a fully formed portrait of the complicated filmmaker.
The great thing about "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is that it allows the reader a deep understanding of Sam Peckinpah really was, what made him like the way he was, which better explained why Peckinpah was too often dysfunctional and self-destructive, acting as his own worst enemy, creating obstacles for himself to conquer, or not. Sensitive, alcoholic, drug-addicted, possibly inflicted with a borderline personality, Peckinpah achieved great success despite himself, despite his entire being holding him back.
The child of a stern, pious, conservative yet successful lawyer and a troubled, narcissistic mother, Sam Peckinpah grew up in a world of wealth and privilege yet also chauvinistic machismo. As a child, Peckinpah spent his youth on his family's wide open land near Fresno, California, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, drinking, shooting...a life like a farmer or cowboy, like the men who would later populate his films...LIKE these men, yet never one of them. Sure, as Peckinpah got older, he hunted and gambled and fought drank and whored with the best of them...yet that was only one side of him.
As illustrated in "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah," Sam Peckinpah was also a sensitive and artistic young man, gravitating towards literature, plays and films. Probably not many real cowboys spark to the dramatic works of Tennessee Williams, or were inspired to act and direct theater, and later television. Peckinpah did. Unlike his relatives and in-laws, Sam Peckinpah was self-reflective, and a keen observer of nature and humanity, of poetry, of violence.
Perhaps it was the struggle between his sensitive, creative self and the manly-macho side of Peckinpah, when mixed with his upbringing and past-present family relations that turned Sam Peckinpah into a psychologically unsound, hedonistic, selfish, narcissistic, impossible and abusive alcoholic who tended to turn against the men and women who loved him. Yet one must remember that he was not all of that,. all of the time. Peckinpah had his sweet, loving, romantic, generous and charming side. AND...the man was talented.
As illustrated in "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah," it was through Peckinpah's force of will, his strength of character, and through his exceptional way with story, character and camera that the world is forever graced with his excellent directorial work on films like RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, the television drama "Noon Wine," and classic cinema like THE WILD BUNCH and STRAW DOGS, and popular films like THE GETAWAY.
"If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" covers the colorful catalog of Peckinpah's career, his early writing and directing days on television westerns "Gunsmoke," "The Rifleman" and "The Westerner" to all fourteen of his feature films, as well as the two music videos he made for Julian Lennon. Though the book covers a lot of ground for features like THE WILD BUNCH, it pays less attention to films like STRAW DOGS and THE KILLER ELITE, and barely any attention to his feature debut THE DEADLY COMPANIONS or his final feature film THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND. Considering the book's length, and the paucity of Peckinpah feature films, it felt like a curious and disappointing oversight.
That said, it's easy for one to forget that "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is not an expose on Sam Peckinpah's career, it's a biography about the work AND the man. Sure, there are some editing blunders here and there (with information repeated as if the reader had not just read it earlier in the book) and yes, better coverage of ALL of Sam Peckinpah's films would have been appreciated. BUT, as biographies go, as a book written to convey a fully-realized portrait of a person, "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is no doubt a success.
The great thing about "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is that it allows the reader a deep understanding of Sam Peckinpah really was, what made him like the way he was, which better explained why Peckinpah was too often dysfunctional and self-destructive, acting as his own worst enemy, creating obstacles for himself to conquer, or not. Sensitive, alcoholic, drug-addicted, possibly inflicted with a borderline personality, Peckinpah achieved great success despite himself, despite his entire being holding him back.
The child of a stern, pious, conservative yet successful lawyer and a troubled, narcissistic mother, Sam Peckinpah grew up in a world of wealth and privilege yet also chauvinistic machismo. As a child, Peckinpah spent his youth on his family's wide open land near Fresno, California, hunting, fishing, horseback riding, drinking, shooting...a life like a farmer or cowboy, like the men who would later populate his films...LIKE these men, yet never one of them. Sure, as Peckinpah got older, he hunted and gambled and fought drank and whored with the best of them...yet that was only one side of him.
As illustrated in "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah," Sam Peckinpah was also a sensitive and artistic young man, gravitating towards literature, plays and films. Probably not many real cowboys spark to the dramatic works of Tennessee Williams, or were inspired to act and direct theater, and later television. Peckinpah did. Unlike his relatives and in-laws, Sam Peckinpah was self-reflective, and a keen observer of nature and humanity, of poetry, of violence.
Perhaps it was the struggle between his sensitive, creative self and the manly-macho side of Peckinpah, when mixed with his upbringing and past-present family relations that turned Sam Peckinpah into a psychologically unsound, hedonistic, selfish, narcissistic, impossible and abusive alcoholic who tended to turn against the men and women who loved him. Yet one must remember that he was not all of that,. all of the time. Peckinpah had his sweet, loving, romantic, generous and charming side. AND...the man was talented.
As illustrated in "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah," it was through Peckinpah's force of will, his strength of character, and through his exceptional way with story, character and camera that the world is forever graced with his excellent directorial work on films like RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY, the television drama "Noon Wine," and classic cinema like THE WILD BUNCH and STRAW DOGS, and popular films like THE GETAWAY.
"If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" covers the colorful catalog of Peckinpah's career, his early writing and directing days on television westerns "Gunsmoke," "The Rifleman" and "The Westerner" to all fourteen of his feature films, as well as the two music videos he made for Julian Lennon. Though the book covers a lot of ground for features like THE WILD BUNCH, it pays less attention to films like STRAW DOGS and THE KILLER ELITE, and barely any attention to his feature debut THE DEADLY COMPANIONS or his final feature film THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND. Considering the book's length, and the paucity of Peckinpah feature films, it felt like a curious and disappointing oversight.
That said, it's easy for one to forget that "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is not an expose on Sam Peckinpah's career, it's a biography about the work AND the man. Sure, there are some editing blunders here and there (with information repeated as if the reader had not just read it earlier in the book) and yes, better coverage of ALL of Sam Peckinpah's films would have been appreciated. BUT, as biographies go, as a book written to convey a fully-realized portrait of a person, "If They Move . . . Kill 'Em!: The Life and Times of Sam Peckinpah" is no doubt a success.
November 17, 2025
More often than not, film directors seem to be far more interesting than the actors and actresses that make movies. Sam Peckinpah was one of the most interesting characters to have ever helmed a film.
Born in Montana, he grew up hunting, farming and living off the land, loving the cowboy lifestyle and using it as his way to get away from his alcoholic father and emotionally distant mother, he worshipped cowboy actors like Tom Mix and after seeing "Shane" in the movie theater, he knew exactly what his destiny was. In his almost five decade career, he got his start writing and directing a majority of the episodes of "Gunsmoke", creating "The Rifleman" and moving to directing some of the best and underappreciated films of the sixties and seventies, even directing the videos for "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes" for Julian Lennon in the mid-eighties.
He specialized in a style of film that was dirty and grimy, extremely violent and misogynistic, he created films that caused people to walk out of the theater in fits of rage, rage not at him, but at themselves because it made them see the latent violence inside of them, and it would make them uncomfortable. His "heroes" were flawed men, usually ex-cons, who would continuously be confronted by hard moral choices that would define them, usually in ambiguous situations that require difficult decisions, without the presence of any God or tangible set of morals to guide them.
He was also a malcontent, constantly at war with the studios or producers that tried to rein him in. He was such a perfectionist that he would shoot so much film, being such a ruthless, bullying taskmaster that he would have his cast on crew in tears daily. His films, more often than not, were a reflection of him, he was a drunk, a cokehead, a philanderer (married four times) and a horrible friend, father and husband. His massive temper and inability to take direction was his downfall as he was forced to direct crap like the movie "Convoy" simply to pay his bills.
If you are interested in seeing the best of Sam Peckinpah, see films like "Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," "The Ballad of Cable Hogue," "The Getaway" (the original one with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw), "Straw Dogs" and his best film, the western masterpiece "The Wild Bunch." All of these films are morality plays, where old friends usually end up facing each other in some strange way where one, or both, end up either dead, or left with an empty feeling inside from having to make these decisions.
He would be a lot more appreciated as a director if he weren't such a rebel. He has taken on a second life recently through cult films and scholars who were able to separate the art from the artist and respect his contributions to cinema as a whole.
This book is a really good, soup to nuts profile of an extremely flawed man, one I would call a horrible human being for sure, but I would also call him a great director of classic films. It's an "A-" grade and the strongest of recommendations for any film fan.
Born in Montana, he grew up hunting, farming and living off the land, loving the cowboy lifestyle and using it as his way to get away from his alcoholic father and emotionally distant mother, he worshipped cowboy actors like Tom Mix and after seeing "Shane" in the movie theater, he knew exactly what his destiny was. In his almost five decade career, he got his start writing and directing a majority of the episodes of "Gunsmoke", creating "The Rifleman" and moving to directing some of the best and underappreciated films of the sixties and seventies, even directing the videos for "Valotte" and "Too Late for Goodbyes" for Julian Lennon in the mid-eighties.
He specialized in a style of film that was dirty and grimy, extremely violent and misogynistic, he created films that caused people to walk out of the theater in fits of rage, rage not at him, but at themselves because it made them see the latent violence inside of them, and it would make them uncomfortable. His "heroes" were flawed men, usually ex-cons, who would continuously be confronted by hard moral choices that would define them, usually in ambiguous situations that require difficult decisions, without the presence of any God or tangible set of morals to guide them.
He was also a malcontent, constantly at war with the studios or producers that tried to rein him in. He was such a perfectionist that he would shoot so much film, being such a ruthless, bullying taskmaster that he would have his cast on crew in tears daily. His films, more often than not, were a reflection of him, he was a drunk, a cokehead, a philanderer (married four times) and a horrible friend, father and husband. His massive temper and inability to take direction was his downfall as he was forced to direct crap like the movie "Convoy" simply to pay his bills.
If you are interested in seeing the best of Sam Peckinpah, see films like "Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia," "The Ballad of Cable Hogue," "The Getaway" (the original one with Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw), "Straw Dogs" and his best film, the western masterpiece "The Wild Bunch." All of these films are morality plays, where old friends usually end up facing each other in some strange way where one, or both, end up either dead, or left with an empty feeling inside from having to make these decisions.
He would be a lot more appreciated as a director if he weren't such a rebel. He has taken on a second life recently through cult films and scholars who were able to separate the art from the artist and respect his contributions to cinema as a whole.
This book is a really good, soup to nuts profile of an extremely flawed man, one I would call a horrible human being for sure, but I would also call him a great director of classic films. It's an "A-" grade and the strongest of recommendations for any film fan.
Read
April 1, 2025Bobby Visciglia answered his phone at home at about ten o'clock on the morning of December 28. It was Walter Kelley. “Sam died this morning,” he said in a broken voice.
The receiver froze to the side of Bobby's face. How fuckin’ dare he, he thought. He hung up, and found his mind leaping back through the years to the last day of shooting on Cross of Iron.
They had just finished the movie's last sequence, the one in which James Coburn and Maximilian Schell flee across a ruined trainyard past a row of burning freight cars. Black-gray smoke hung heavy in the air, the sky above darkening into dusk. The grips loaded the cameras and lights into the trucks, and actors and crew members hustled across the rusty tracks with their bags, hurrying to catch rides to the airport, their voices echoing off the twisted steel rails as if over water: “Well, what plane are you taking?” “Are you gonna stop off in Paris, or are you gonna go on to London?”
A hundred yards down the tracks, near the smoking boxcars, Peckinpah and Visciglia sat on a steel rail, each taking pulls from a bottle of slivovitz. Faces smudged from the smoke, clothes rust-stained, hair tousled, they looked like they'd just returned from the Russian Front themselves. Not a word passed between them while the footfalls and shouts behind them grew fainter and the sun sank beneath the distant hills. Finally, Peckinpah set his bottle down, turned to his prop man and said, “Now, tomorrow, for my first shot, I want to get two cameras, one set up there with a long lens, and another over there. I want to . . .” On and on he went with his description of a vast battle sequence that would never be.
“That's what I thought about when I got Kelley's phone call,” Visciglia says, his normally brassy voice dropping to a soft contemplative murmur. “You see, it never ended for Sam, the picture never ended. You had to fight to get the camera away from him.”
The receiver froze to the side of Bobby's face. How fuckin’ dare he, he thought. He hung up, and found his mind leaping back through the years to the last day of shooting on Cross of Iron.
They had just finished the movie's last sequence, the one in which James Coburn and Maximilian Schell flee across a ruined trainyard past a row of burning freight cars. Black-gray smoke hung heavy in the air, the sky above darkening into dusk. The grips loaded the cameras and lights into the trucks, and actors and crew members hustled across the rusty tracks with their bags, hurrying to catch rides to the airport, their voices echoing off the twisted steel rails as if over water: “Well, what plane are you taking?” “Are you gonna stop off in Paris, or are you gonna go on to London?”
A hundred yards down the tracks, near the smoking boxcars, Peckinpah and Visciglia sat on a steel rail, each taking pulls from a bottle of slivovitz. Faces smudged from the smoke, clothes rust-stained, hair tousled, they looked like they'd just returned from the Russian Front themselves. Not a word passed between them while the footfalls and shouts behind them grew fainter and the sun sank beneath the distant hills. Finally, Peckinpah set his bottle down, turned to his prop man and said, “Now, tomorrow, for my first shot, I want to get two cameras, one set up there with a long lens, and another over there. I want to . . .” On and on he went with his description of a vast battle sequence that would never be.
“That's what I thought about when I got Kelley's phone call,” Visciglia says, his normally brassy voice dropping to a soft contemplative murmur. “You see, it never ended for Sam, the picture never ended. You had to fight to get the camera away from him.”
July 18, 2025
Sam Peckinpah was once considered for the job of adapting James Dickey’s disturbing novel ”Deliverance” into a film. The two men met and talked for hours. Upon parting, Peckinpah told Dickey: ”You and I are doing the same thing, me with my films and you with your words: we’re trying to give the audience images they’ll never forget.” This beautifully written biography of Peckinpah follows in the spirit of that philosophy: rather than indulding in pseudo-Freudian amateur psychoanalysis, author David Weddle gives us glimpses into the important junctions in the life and work of a man who spent his career wondering how deep the primitive animal is buried under man’s mask of sanity. This pondering produced some excellent films: ”Ride the High Country” (1962), ”Straw Dogs” (1971), and of course Peckinpah’s masterpiece ”The Wild Bunch” (1969). ”If They Move…” doesn’t dodge difficult topics, either: Peckinpah’s dark side, with its alcoholism and other demons, is laid bare in all its cold brutality. The most important task the book accomplishes, however, is in destroying the myth of Peckinpah as some kind of a ”nihilist”: he was a man literally obsessed with questions of good vs evil, right vs wrong. Excellent read. Rest in Peace, fellow troubled soul.
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August 26, 2020Un autore tormentato, anche se i suoi problemi psicologici irrisolti non giustificano il modo in cui maltrattò le donne che stavano con lui, le persone a lui più care e rendeva impossibile la vita sul set ai membri delle sue crew. La distinzione tra uomo e opera resta e il valore dei suoi film è indiscutibile, ma dopo avere letto è difficile non pensare almeno un po' a quanto siano costati questi capolavori in termini umani.
October 15, 2019
A fine biography on a Hollywood rebel
This biography of filmmaker Sam Peckinpah was incredibly well researched. It was thorough, factual and an enjoyable read. I learned much about Peckinpah that I didn’t know and was kept constantly engaged. Highly recommended for anyone familiar with the director’s films.
This biography of filmmaker Sam Peckinpah was incredibly well researched. It was thorough, factual and an enjoyable read. I learned much about Peckinpah that I didn’t know and was kept constantly engaged. Highly recommended for anyone familiar with the director’s films.
March 31, 2021
Well done biography of a deeply complicated artist -- director of one of my favorite films, The Wild Bunch, and another guilty pleasure-- Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. Novelistic in its writing, writer David Weddle turned in a page-turning, engaging book about an abusive alcoholic Artist. Let's go.
May 16, 2017
An exhaustive, tragic biography of an embattled genius.
July 14, 2019
“We all dream of being a child again, even the worst of us...perhaps the worst most of all.”
April 25, 2022
Good read on one of my favorite directors. Well paced writing and dug deep enough on subject to sadist the reader.
July 13, 2024
An intense tale of addiction, trauma, and seduction mixed with inside baseball on how to make movies and the fire that drivesad creative souls. Painful and exhilarating.
March 14, 2015
This is a very detailed account of one of cinema's greatest and most influential directors. It details his life, his loves and his demons. It covers his childhood, growing up as the son of a wealthy lawyer with deep roots in the old west to his time in the U.S. Marine Corp stationed in China during WWII, to directing theater in college, to becoming a successful TV screen writer to his evolution to film director. His real life was a booze soaked as many of his films. His demons (booze and cocaine) really did a number on his career but despite that, he is still remembered as legendary director. Peckinpah's drinking was so out of control at one point that his biggest commercial success Convoy was actually directed by his friend James Coburn, who had signed on as an Assistant Director to get his Director Guild of America Card. Towards the end, he was so desperate for work that the last work he did was directing two music videos for Julian Lennon.
From reading this, I wasn't surprised to find out that John Millius (who wrote Apocalypse Now and wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian and the original Red Dawn) was a fan but I was little surprised to find out who told him to watch the Pechinpah's masterpiece The Wild Bunch. The person that told him to watch it was his friend and film school classmate George Lucas. Martin Scorsese was also a fan.
At one point, I was recommending The Wild Bunch to some guys at NeonCon in Las Vegas and one of them asked me if Lee Marvin was in it. That blew my mind. I can remember staring off into space and saying "No. No, he wasn't. But he should have been..." From reading the book, I came to find out that Lee Marvin had accepted the part of Pike Bishop but he walked away to make Paint Your Wagon instead because he was offered 1 million dollars to star in that instead. Nevertheless, William Holden took his place and handed in perhaps one of his most brilliant performances.
From reading this, I wasn't surprised to find out that John Millius (who wrote Apocalypse Now and wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian and the original Red Dawn) was a fan but I was little surprised to find out who told him to watch the Pechinpah's masterpiece The Wild Bunch. The person that told him to watch it was his friend and film school classmate George Lucas. Martin Scorsese was also a fan.
At one point, I was recommending The Wild Bunch to some guys at NeonCon in Las Vegas and one of them asked me if Lee Marvin was in it. That blew my mind. I can remember staring off into space and saying "No. No, he wasn't. But he should have been..." From reading the book, I came to find out that Lee Marvin had accepted the part of Pike Bishop but he walked away to make Paint Your Wagon instead because he was offered 1 million dollars to star in that instead. Nevertheless, William Holden took his place and handed in perhaps one of his most brilliant performances.
February 1, 2024
Cada vez más pienso que no es en los cementerios donde uno debería visitar a grandes artistas, sino en sus obras. En su obra hay una visión viva que es indiferente a la vida de su autor, una consciencia en tiempo presente que emana del libro, la pintura o la película. En las películas de Peckinpah (y en el arte que más me conmueve) esa consciencia está en guerra consigo misma. Ése es su espectáculo: una víbora que se come a sí misma y nos mira de frente. Quizás sea ése el único espectáculo que valga la pena. Peckinpah lo hizo interviniendo en un imaginario mítico en decadencia pero todavía lo suficientemente vivo, en continuidad con la gran tradición literaria norteamericana. Como director quizás haya quedado muy arraigado a su propio tiempo (algo que lo condenó como cineasta a un cierto olvido relativo), pero su sensibilidad trasciende incluso ahí en sus peores fracasos. Hay algo que está en juego en su dramaturgia, en sus personajes, algo terriblemente doloroso y personal. Son historias que despliegan una verdadera pulsión de muerte. Y no deja de sorprenderme que semejante anarquismo, intransigencia y coraje para hacer las cosas que hizo, haya sido posible dentro de la maquinaria industrial de Hollywood. Por eso los 60-70s en USA fueron otra cosa. Weddle describe brevemente la transición cultural hacia el blockbuster y deja entrever su disgusto, y con mucha razón. Las películas de Peckinpah son conscientes de su imposición sobre el mundo, saben que serán olvidadas. De ahí su rabia, su furia cinematográfica. "I want to go out in flames." dice Peckinpah en un momento en el libro. En vida murió lentamente, sólo y asustado. Pero en el cine sigue ahí, más furioso que nunca. Más vivo y audaz que cualquiera.
September 24, 2009
Terrific. Proof of my long held assertion that Peckinpah was born 100 years too late. Luckily for everyone else he was not, and leaves a legacy of great movies. Forever associated with words like "violent" and "crazy", here you can see that Sam was also steadfastly loyal and principled. Input here by all the usual suspects. Best read with one of Peckinpah's movies available, and a beverage he would endorse at hand.
March 11, 2007
Borrowed this from Ben's old London roommate, who was a film student. Still need to return it. Details Peckinpah's coke-fueled whoring lifestyle.
March 22, 2015
The ultimate guide to Peckinpah's films, as well as his tortured, infuriating life.
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