Peckinpah Today : New Essays on the Films of Sam Peckinpah

Written exclusively for this collection by today’s leading Peckinpah critics, the nine essays in Peckinpah Today explore the body of work of one of America’s most important filmmakers, revealing new insights into his artistic process and the development of his lasting themes. Edited by Michael Bliss, this book provides groundbreaking criticism of Peckinpah’s work by illuminating new sources, from modified screenplay documents to interviews with screenplay writers and editors. Included is a rare interview with A. S. Fleischman, author of the screenplay for The Deadly Companions, the film that launched Peckinpah’s career in feature films. The collection also contains essays by scholar Stephen Prince and Paul Seydor, editor of the controversial special edition of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. In his essay on Straw Dogs, film critic Michael Sragow reveals how Peckinpah and co-scriptwriter David Zelag Goodman transformed a pulp novel into a powerful film. The final essay of the collection surveys Peckinpah’s career, showing the dark turn that the filmmaker’s artistic path took between his first and last films. This comprehensive approach reinforces the book’s dawn-to-dusk approach, resulting in a fascinating picture of a great filmmaker’s work. Introduction: times maybe, not them, the enduring value of Sam Peckinpah's films / Michael Bliss The deadly companions revisited / Garner Simmons Martyred slaves of time: age, regret, and transcendence in The wild bunch / Michael Bliss The ballad of divine retribution / Steven Lloyd From The siege of Trencher's farm to Straw dogs: the narrative brilliance of Sam Peckinpah / Michael Sragow The recutting of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: ethical problems in film restoration / Stephen Prince The authentic death and contentious afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: the several versions of Peckinpah's last western / Paul Seydor Human striving, human strife: Sam Peckinpah and the journey of the soul / Cordell Strug Peckinpah's last testament: The Osterman weekend / Tony Williams Dawn and dusk / Gérard Camy ; translated by Jean-Paul Gabert. This collection of nine new essays by major critics on the films of Sam Peckinpah is the first since Bliss’s Doing It Right: The Best Criticism on Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. It brings together in book form groundbreaking criticism on one of the most important and controversial directors in American cinema.