Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

Peckinpal By Bob Craft The latest film from the guns and gore factory of Sam Peckin pah is an effort entitled "Pat Gar rett and Billy the Kid" which is currently playing at the Miracle Theatre downtown. It stars James Coburn as Pat and Kris Kristofferson as Billy the Kid with appearances from Western standbys such as Slim Pi ckens, Chill Wills, Katy Jurado, Jason Robards, etc. The Western, like the horror movie, is having a small renais sance and film makers seem de termined to damn technology in this society by using the device of the rough and ready Western hero who is fast running out of space and time. "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" is such a film as is Peckinpah's "Wild Bunch". In Peckinpah, we see this en croachment not only in terms of simple physical survival for the hero, but also on a sexual level. If civilization wins, then the man is somehow not a man anymore; his virility is in question. To say that this sort of non sense is precisely that, and to ob ject vehemently with the charge that any man who derives his vi rility from blowing a man apart with a shot gun blast is really not that manly is to leave oneself o pen to the worst sort of tirades. You idiot, they will exclaim, he didn't have to derive his viri lity from killing people. Didn't you see all the women he had in June 12 & 14/ 8 p.m./ Golden 5 June 13 / 7 p.m. / Russell Hou: "A n adventure in acoustic mut YVs 'P-at ( Pecki he picture? Yes, I reply, but he reason he had them was be :ause he was the best killer in he place. Well, what about Pat larrett, smart guy? Didn't you ee that scene where he had four women in bed with him? Yes, I lid and it seems to me that would have to be considerable wastage apart from the fact that these were professional girls and Gar rett was paying for every one of them. LW&ODL I pur e Patio inP 3arrett' "N a I mpah Which brings us to another point. There is a deep strain.of misogyny running throughout "Pat Garrett." The women, for the most part, are whores, and if they are not, their men are taken from them brutally, usually at the hands of Pat Garrett. Witness Slim Pickens, who is killed after being forced by Pat Garrett to go on a mission to roust a band of outlaws. Or Maria, the girl who seems to love Billy. Billy Is cut U11/ froyc June27/R "Rckn so"a lacho Nc down by Garrett only a few mo ments after leaving Maria's bed. There are also scenes of men slap ping women around, women be ing raped while their husbands are being lashed to death by bull whips. This macho nonsense. It should be repugnant to anyone with .any sort of intelligence or value of human life. This world where life is thought so little of, this world where success is counted by how many you kill before you are killed is obscene. John Fowles, in his novel, The Magus, has Conchis say, "Men love war because It is the only thing that stops women fron laughing at them." And Peckin pah has created just such a world He has created a world where the characters are always at war, where they must ever be on guard. True, he has tried to in fuse this world with a shoddy sort of chivalry but it is still a world where men kill themselves in street fights over such trivial things as the style of boots. And it is well that they are al ways at war because if the wo men looked at them, they would see brutal, dirty, ignorant savages whose penises are forged in irori and carried on the hip. However, on another level, Peckinpah had done a remarkabk and able job. He has moved thi movies one step closer to beini the total vicarious experience Males particularly like Peckinpal movies, because they are sucl dsel House Patio/ 7 p.m. )nsens"e macho trash. In "Pat Garrett", such a graphic job is done, every ego and libido damaged male in the audience could have his thrill. A dominating father figure who is blown apart with his own shot gun, telling someone who has tried to bribe him to take the money, "stick it up your ass and set fire to it," becomes grist for the Peckinpah mill. You are certainly too nice to do it, but Pat Garrett isn't, so you watch enthralled while he slaps a girl around brutally. Or how about this one for pure ego enjoyment? You have just ridden back into your old stomping grounds. It is late at night and you walk into the large commun al bedroom. You see one of your friends in bed with a girl you fan cy. You go over and stand over the bed and smile at the girl, and by God, if he doesn't slink right out of there and leave the bed and the girl for you. I could go on cataloguing the sins of this film on a purely psy chological level without stooping to the technicalities, i.e. Bob Dy lan's whiny voice in the back ground singing the same song all the way through the picture, the five minute pauses betweenwords, , the wooden characterizations, etc. The fact that a fourth rate di rector like Peckinpah is so popu lar and that trash like "Pat Gar rett and Billy the Kid" flour ishes may give you some idea of the state of the American cine matic art and of the American Id. esreftls_ atio