It Needs a Longer End Credit Sequence: The Wild Bunch (1969)

I wasn’t trying to make an epic. I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is that you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line.
-- Sam Peckinpah

Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is playing in town at Cinema 21, so Lynda and I shuffled down the street to experience it in the theater. Although we’ve both seen it on the big screen before, it’s a hard film to pass up. Cinema 21 is showing the 144-minute version, which reinstates some flashback sequences and the scene when Villa’s rebels attack Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), and his troops. If you’ve never seen this film, I urge you to check it out, even if you don’t like Westerns. Hell, especially if you don’t like Westerns. From its simple yet dynamic narrative to its revolutionary cinematic syntax (especially for the genre) to the twilight moral universe of killers and victims that Pike (William Holden) and The Bunch exist in and that we, the audience, are forced to submit to –- this is cinema of the highest order. Many have copied and ripped it off (e.g. Brian De Palma, Walter Hill, Paul Schrader, Oliver Stone, Robert Rodriguez, and John Woo, to name only a few culprits), but none of them have ever equaled the monstrous force or moral complexity that comprises Peckinpah’s film. Basically, The Wild Bunch are the only men in a town of boys. Christopher McQaurrie’s 2000 neo-noir, The Way of the Gun, paid splendid homage to The Wild Bunch and is probably the best of the newer crop of films inspired by Peckinpah’s legacy, although it nevertheless lacks the seriousness of Peckinpah’s film. In the end, it’s still a cartoon. A fiendishly good one, but a cartoon nonetheless. But off the top of my head, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) is arguably the only other Western that comes close to matching the emotional and moral weight of The Wild Bunch.

It’s 1912 and World War One is looming on the horizon. The American Old West is dying out and with it, the violent men who helped shape, tame, and define it. Pike Bishop, Dutch Engstrom (Ernest Borgnine), Lyle Gorch (Warren Oates), his brother Tector (Ben Johnson), and Angel (Jaime Sanchez) are looking for one more big score after their attempt to rob a bank in the town of Starbuck went horribly wrong when Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) and his crew of bloodthirsty bounty hunters ambushed them. Barely making it out alive of the melee, Pike and his gang of killers regroup and end up working for a corrupt Mexican general, Mapache, to steal a shipment of U.S. military guns and ammo, while Thornton and his posse of cut-throats are riding hard on their trail.

Even thirty-five years after it was first released, the violence in The Wild Bunch is still ferocious and shocking. Between this and Arthur Penn’s ode to lawlessness and pop-art criminality, Bonnie and Clyde (1967), never had a film so ruthlessly propelled the audience into the topsy-turvy moral universe of its characters; never had a film so thoroughly abandoned its audience and not given them a character to root for and bad guys to hiss at. There are no Good Guys and Bad Guys in this film -- only killers and prey. Remarkably, Peckinpah manages to make us feel and mourn for The Bunch when they go down at the end in a hail of apocalyptic rage and bullets, but it comes attached with plenty of moral dilemmas and a bitter taste in our mouths. Like the character The Judge said in Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece, Blood Meridian, there are “Bears that dance, bears that don’t.”

When the film ended and the house lights went up, Lynda leaned over to me and whispered, “The film really needs a longer end credit sequence.” I looked into her weary eyes, scanned the theater around me to see others who were still seated looking equally worn out and wounded by what they’d just witnessed, and nodded my head. Bears that dance and bears that don’t. Indeed.

The Candidate's Bookshelf!

This comes from the Book Sense web site. Amusing and very, very interesting:

http://www.booksense.com/candidatebooks/index.jsp

RED RAIN by Michael Crow

Half-Vietnamese, half-black, all cranked up -- Baltimore cop Luther Ewing is a guy who enjoys existing in the underbelly of society. He breathes in corruption and feeds off of violence and mayhem. He likes the wet work. He craves it like a shark needs the sea. For Luther, the troubled waters that most of us will do anything to avoid, have become the source of his being. He drinks greedily from the killing tide and swims freely within the dark waters. And he grows stronger while submerged there. But does he become less human the longer he swims? Luther is a Gulf War vet. He also utilized his killing trade as a mercenary in Bosnia, which is where he met the Russian merc Vassily. Now Luther's old friend is in Baltimore stirring up trouble with the Russian mob. Bosnia was one thing, but Baltimore is Luther's turf. Guess Luther and Vassily are just going to have to start a war. Pray they don't take the whole city down with 'em.

Red Rain is a punch to the face. It makes Mickey Spillane and James Ellroy subtle as haiku. Its feverish prose, vivid characters, over-the-top action sequences that border on the side of parody but always manage to stay engaging, and expertly measured hallucinatory pulp sensation, easily make the novel a tight read. Red Rain, and its sequel The Bite, are written under the pseudonym Michael Crow. The only thing known about the real author's identity is that he is a "prizewinning, critically acclaimed literary novelist whose works have been translated and published in nine languages." A reporter from the Baltimore City Paper believes that it's William Vollman. Mr. Crow has neither confirmed nor denied the accusation. I'll get to The Bite soon and give you the lowdown. Bottoms up!

Mind the Doors: Raw Meat aka Death Line (1972)

Although this British made film is well regarded in its home country -- considered to be one of the finest modern English horror films ever made -- this intelligent and moody shocker has long been relegated to cult obscurity in the U.S. and sadly forgotten outside of those genre aficionados who have valiantly tried to keep the film’s dark flame burning over the years. Written and directed by American Gary Sherman, who would later direct the cult fave Dead & Buried (1981), Raw Meat ostensibly focuses on a series of bizarre disappearances in the London Underground and the subsequent ongoing police investigation led by two of Scotland Yard’s finest, Donald Pleasence and Norman Rossington. Genre-vet Pleasance and Rossington have a great repartee together and their scenes add a much needed levity to an otherwise claustrophobic and unsettling film. But just when you think you know where the film is headed, Sherman introduces us to the film’s true main character and real tragic heart of the picture. Long forgotten underneath the streets of London, buried beneath years of rubble and debris that are his sole links to the outside world’s dreams of “advancement” and “progress,” lurks the inbred cannibalistic creature (played by Hugh Armstrong) causing all of the mayhem above. Mindlessly moaning “Mind the doors!” as he shuffles through the deserted tunnels, the creature, along with a dying pregnant female, is the last descendent of a group of tunnel workers buried alive during construction of a new underground station in the late-19th century. Violent, totally crazed, and barely recognizable as a human being, Armstrong nevertheless manages to make us feel empathy for this great, shambling tragic beast. Not since Boris Karloff breathed life into the role of Frankenstein’s Monster has a horror film displayed such a complex yet terrifying “villain.”

The film is available on DVD from MGM Home Entertainment.

Talk is Cheap: The Great Silence (1968)

This is simply one of the greatest Spaghetti Westerns ever made. It’s also one of the darkest films ever, regardless of genre. But don’t let that scare you off if you’re skittish about such things since it’s also frequently haunting (thanks to composer Ennio Morricone’s unforgettable score), beautiful, lyrical, humorous, crazy, and most important of all, thoroughly captivating. It stars the one-and-only Klaus Kinski, in one of his finest roles, as a droll yet blood-crazed bounty hunter named Loco, and the great French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant as the aptly named, mysterious gunslinger Silence. The wonderful American character actor Frank Wolff (Once Upon a Time in the West among many others) co-stars as the sheriff and Vonetta McGee (Repo Man) brings a tragic humanity to the film as the widow who hires Silence to avenge the death of her husband. Director Sergio Corbucci, although not always the best craftsman, manages to bring an unbridled energy and passion to the film that occasionally rivals the power of the great Sergio Leone’s Westerns from the same period. Corbucci, who also directed the very influential Django (1966) starring Euro-superstar Franco Nero, Navajo Joe (1966) with Burt Reynolds (!), and the excellent Companeros (1970), was more or less a political filmmaker when it came to making Westerns and actually called his take on the genre “Zapata-Spaghetti.” Basically, when it comes down to his Westerns, the good guys are the tough Lefties and the bad guys the fascist Right. Simple and direct though they may be, Corbucci’s films are nevertheless emotional powder kegs and they still manage a fair amount of complexity when it comes around to character. But if you’re looking for ambiguity, look elsewhere. There’s no time for that jazz when the bullets are flying.

The Great Silence is available on DVD from Fantoma. The disc contains the loony alternate “Happy Ending” that Corbucci filmed for the North African and Asian audiences that demanded that their Westerns end on an up note. Even after watching it you’ll still not believe it. Director and longtime Spaghetti Western fan Alex Cox (Repo Man, Sid & Nancy, Straight to Hell) supplies a brief yet interesting video interview wherein he talks about the film’s brooding tone and puts Corbucci’s work within an historical context. He also pens the liner notes. Although I have to disagree with Cox’s assessment that Silence is the greatest Spaghetti Western ever made (that honor still has to go to Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West), it’s right up there. But please, don’t watch this if you’re feeling unstable or depressed. I’ve got enough of a guilty conscience as it is.

A JUDGEMENT IN STONE by Ruth Rendell

British crime novelist Ruth Rendell is probably best known for her long-running police procedural series starring Chief Inspector Reginald Wexford. But Rendell also writes under the nom de plume Barbara Vine, creating non-series books that are rich in psychological portraits of unstable people who are unwilling or unable to combat the ever-encroaching criminal chaos entering their lives. Hailed by both critics and fans as one of her best novels, A Judgement in Stone, although written under the Rendell name, arguably foreshadows what she would accomplish writing as Vine more than what she would do in the Inspector Wexford series.

Ostensibly about the killing of the Coverdale family by their surly maid because she couldn’t read or write, Rendell brilliantly examines the mindset of someone who would so willingly commit such a senseless crime. There is no mystery in A Judgement in Stone. The first sentence matter-of-factly informs us that the Coverdale clan has been murdered by their maid, Eunice Parchman. But there are numerous puzzling questions concerning Parchman’s descent into violence and how her illiteracy shaped her simmering rage.

Rendell’s straightforward yet elegant prose unflinchingly casts a strange spell over the proceedings, offering the reader no escape from the horrifying yet inevitable conclusion. Although Parchman is thoroughly unlikable, pathetic, and in many respects the personification of a tangible Evil, Rendell nevertheless manages to make us feel empathy toward her. Much of the novel painfully deals with Parchman’s inability to interact with people due to her illiteracy and how the fear of her disability being discovered overruled everything in her life. But we also grow increasingly frustrated with Parchman when help is offered to her and she refuses to accept it because ultimately she doesn’t care. She’s too far-gone, too content with the deadening comfort that is her dull, uneventful life.

For those of you who believe that British crime fiction is always good humored and cozily sordid, read this savage misanthropic masterpiece and feel the cold dread sink in. You’ll be scrambling for a Miss Marple novel in no time flat.

Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster

My DVD review of the 1964 Japanese yakuza film, Pale Flower, is now live on the Images web site. Check it out:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/paleflower/

Zatoichi Lives!

Well, at least on DVD he does. My review of episodes six, seven, and eight from the original Zatoichi saga is also up at Images. Check it out:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/zatoichi2/

UPDATE COMING!

Between working at the bookstore wrangling customers in to shop, shop, shop because it's Christmas, you know, and seeing Kill Bill over and over and over and over again to heal myself, I've been pretty busy. But I should have some new reviews up over the next couple of days, including pieces on Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Sergio Corbucci's classic Spaghetti Western The Great Silence, the cult British horror film Raw Meat (aka Death Line), Ruth Rendell's 1977 crime novel A Judgement in Stone, and Michael Crow's scorching debut novel Red Rain, as well as more Top Thirteen Horror lists. I also hope to have some music reviews up soon. So stay safe, stay sane, and stay home! It's murder out there.

Also, I have a new review up over at the Images web site on the new Tinto Brass DVD box set. Check it out at:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/2003/reviews/tintobrass/

Frodo Lives!

I’m not ashamed. I'm a total Lord of the Rings geek. Director Peter Jackson has brought to the screen the kind of epic filmmaking I didn't think was still possible in this day and age of horribly lame Star Wars and Matrix epic-simulacra. The most obvious difference, I think, between Jackson and the creators behind the latter films is that Jackson actually still cares about cinema. George Lucas has long ago lost the ability to tell a story with compelling characters, and the Wachowski Brothers are . . . hell, I don’t have a clue as to what happened to them. But Peter Jackson still understands the power of genuine storytelling and the alchemical sorcery of celluloid. Great acting + great imagery + great storytelling = the waking dream.

Anyway, I’m not telling you guys anything new. It’s not like Jackson’s skills at crafting story, visual splendor, and heaps of well-earned emotion is something we’ve just found out about. But man, I’ve got to tell you, Jackson tops even himself with the third and last installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

This morning I had the opportunity to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King at a special trade screening. Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything concerning the plot or what fates befall our beloved characters. Just trust me on this -- it's a magnificent finale. The film more than lives up to its burden of tying up loose ends, delivering astonishing battle scenes, and ultimately resolving our heroes’ struggle to defeat the evil of Sauron. All of the principal actors have great moments (except for Christopher Lee and Brad Dourif whose scenes were both left on the cutting room floor), and the film’s last half-hour or so will absolutely sap you emotionally. If it doesn’t, well . . . you have no heart. I can’t wait to see it again. Easily the best three and half-hours you’ll spend in the theater this year. And just wait until the extended edition DVD hits the stores next year! Woo Hoo!!!

Okay. I’m in control. But I’m still not ashamed.