"The Western of Westerns"

"If they move...kill 'em."

...said by Ernest Borgnine at last night's screening of The Wild Bunch, of which I was in attendance. Showing at The Million Dollar Theater in downtown L.A., practically all of the two-thousand-some seats were filled in support of the classic, game-changing 1969 Western, helmed by the legendary Sam Peckinpah, and starring William Holden and Borgnine.

The sincere speeches given by Borgnine and Peckinpah's daughter, among others, made the event that much more special. The vintage theater—in all ways epic—also added to the momentousness of it all. Throw in the fact that the film never actually received a true premiere, the whole deal was really something else (the widescreen cinemascope was AMAZING as well).

I could go on and on, but I'll get to the film:

I've watched The Wild Bunch a few times now. For me, it used to be all about the end shootout...the tension, the ultraviolence, the almost video game-quality of it all some thirty years in advance—it made the rest of the film seem slow. And then, as I saw more and more movies, I could see the influence it's had all around; every scene seems to foreshadow some theme or moment or just a general feel (i.e. Walter Hill) of a future film. But now, more than anything, when I watch The Wild Bunch I see William Holden, the late, great, and very-much underappreciated William Holden. Holden's success in Hollywood was always pretty spotty...he was never as hard as Lee Marvin, nor as handsome as Frank Sinatra, but somewhere in between, somewhere in the middle. His ultimately tragic pairing with Audrey Hepburn and rampant alcoholism didn't help either, and he died young at the age of 63 under mysterious circumstances. In The Wild Bunch, Holden gets dressed after spending time with a prostitute, and after leaving his friend to die. Having already pawned him off—having already sold what little soul they have left, it seems too late; it's the kind of ingenious scene where the heroes decide to save the day after it's already gone. No dialogue is spoken. Holden just carries the scene on his own.

The looks he gives...that sincere look of self-disgust ripples with me every single time I see it. Behind all the violence and dementia, Peckinpah really knew his stuff, he really knew what it was to be depressed, and so did Holden. His career and personal life flailing, Holden too was saying "fuck it" by taking on the film (according to IMDb, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, James Stewart, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sterling Hayden, Richard Boone, and Robert Mitchum all rejected the part, all of them!). It's one of the most powerful moments in cinema history and you can't help but feel swept up in it, feeling for the man, for the bunch, and for the movie as a whole. So, if you missed out on the screening, go and watch The Wild Bunch again—you won't be disappointed—and ravish in the legacy it represents.