How I learned to stop worrying and love Sam Peckinpah

William Holden in The Wild Bunch

When I was younger I used to be binge on certain artists -- now I do it with film directors. Recently, I've gained a newfound appreciation for the brilliant Sam Peckinpah.

He's a controversial director -- largely because his films revel in unapologetic, violent machismo, but I think that's an unfair generalization of his greatness.

His films were shockingly brutal for their time, but now they're often rightfully viewed as ahead of their time and while the blood and body count is sometimes substantial, it pales in comparison to what we see on screens today.

In fact, his films would be considered conspicuously slow by the standards of modern filmgoers, which is, of course, quite sad.

Peckinpah, not unlike myself (and many of my favorite directors), was preoccupied with the nature of violence and obsessive men. In the few films he made he did carve out some strong roles for women, but his main interest was in the male psyche, which has alienated a lot of viewers at best and at worst left him open for widespread condemnation as a sexist. I can't argue that his films aren't hopelessly political incorrect, but they are also uniquely powerful -- and that's what draws me in.

I haven't even seen some of his most acclaimed masterpieces, there are various camps which continue to debate the value of some of his later efforts, but the few I have watched I've found astounding.

This is a man who takes his time to really tell a story and his films are filled with dread but also a rich gallows humor that I really appreciate. He gets great, evocative performances out of his actors whether they're major stars like William Holden, Steve McQueen or Dustin Hoffman or lesser known character actors like Warren Oates, who played an homage to Peckinpah in the director's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

That movie is a classic, but I first became acquainted with Peckinpah's work in his best known film, the 1969 western The Wild Bunch. The movie is infamous for its spectacularly intense and gory finale, which rivals Bonnie & Clyde for its sheer audacity. But what's often lost in commentary about the film is that it's an incisive revisionist western where the "good guys" are actually terrible guys but you sort of love them anyway.

His next best known film is probably the 1971 thriller Straw Dogs. The movie is about a couple (played by Hoffman and an excellent Susan George) who spend the first two thirds of the film inflicting psychological violence on each other until outside forces lead them to commit physical acts of cruelty.

This film continues to stir debate and provoke emotions because of some disturbing questions about gender, sex, rape and human nature which is pretty impressive for a movie that came out over 40 years ago.

My other favorites of his include Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, a project that was troubled and initially released in a version Peckinpah abhorred. The film has since been recut and resurrected, and its reputation has grown in recent years. This mournful and moody western about an aging sheriff (played by James Coburn) who is tasked with hunting down and killing his younger friend (played Kris Kristofferson) has an understated power that takes a few viewings to fully appreciate.

Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw in The Getaway

What a lot of Peckinpah's critics and the filmmakers who think they're emulating him often forget is that he never portrayed violence for the sake of violence. He was thoughtful both in his characterizations and with his use of action. Deaths have consequences and impact. You're meant to ponder whether the lives risked or taken was worth it and to feel a sense of regret.

Even his most commercial film, The Getaway (1972), has some complex ideas in it. Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw (who in real life hooked up on the film) play a couple of outlaws with some pretty dark dynamics between them.

For a mainstream studio movie it's remarkably edgy and dark, yet never less than fun to watch.

If I had to pick a favorite though, it might just be the aforementioned Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, which may be one of the craziest films of my favorite movie decade: the 1970s.

Although Peckinpah was known to exaggerate, he was often quoted as saying that Alfredo Garcia was the one film of his that had no studio interference and turned out just as he intended. It's an oddly personal film about a loser with loose morals (played by Oates) who agrees to procure a gruesome bounty and loses his soul in the process.

Like a lot of Peckinpah's work, this film was largely reviled when it was first released -- and it's still not for everyone's tastes -- but I find it endlessly fascinating. It works as a subtle (ok not all that subtle) commentary on the darkness of the Watergate era. The film came out in 1974, the year Nixon would finally resign from office.

Peckinpah, who reviled Nixon, apparently wrote the president a letter to chew him out for pardoning the perpetrator of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. I love that he was the kind of person who would want to let the president know personally how mad he was even if the commander-in-chief likely didn't give a damn.

So that't my take on Peckinpah. A hell of a director -- although he doesn't crack my personal favorite five (Scorsese, Kubrick, De Palma, Coppola and Tarantino) -- but he's rising in the ranks. Check out his stuff and expect a lot of gunfire.