Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" (Cambridge Film Handbooks)

Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch is one of the most influential films in American cinema. The intensity of its violence was unprecedented, while the director's use of multiple cameras, montage editing, and slow motion quickly became the normative style for rendering screen violence. This volume includes freshly-commissioned essays by several leading scholars of Peckinpah's work. Examining the film's production history from script to screen, its rich and ambivalent vision of American society, and its relationship to the Western genre, among other topics, it provides a definitive reinterpretation of an enduring film classic. Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch is one of the most influential films in American cinema. The intensity of its violence was unprecedented, while the director's use of multiple cameras, montage editing, and slow motion quickly became the normative style for rendering screen violence. Demonstrating to filmmakers the power of irony as a narrative voice and its effectiveness as a tool for exploring and portraying brutality, The Wild Bunch fundamentally changed the Western, moving it into a more brutal and psychopathic territory than it had ever occupied. This volume includes newly commissioned essays by several leading scholars of Peckinpah's work. Examining the film's production history from script to screen, its rich and ambivalent vision of American society, and its relationship to the Western genre, among other topics, it provides a definitive reinterpretation of an enduring film classic Introduction : Sam Peckinpah, Savage Poet Of American Cinema / Stephen Prince -- The Wild Bunch : The Screenplay / Paul Seydor -- Peckinpah The Radical : The Politics Of The Wild Bunch / Christopher Sharrett -- Back Off To What? Enclosure, Violence, And Capitalism In Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch / Michael Bliss -- Ballistic Balletics : Styles Of Violent Representation In The Wild Bunch And After / David A. Cook -- Re-visioning The Western : Code, Myth, And Genre In Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch / Wheeler Winston Dixon -- The Wild Bunch : Innovation And Retreat / Devin Mckinney -- Reviews And Commentary. Edited By Stephen Prince. Filmography: P.213-220. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 221-223) And Index.