Peckinpah's final, haunting eulogy to the West and Westerns
Author: j_beaudine from Lake Park, Minnesota
10 March 2005
Simply put, Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is one of the last great Westerns ever made. Like most of 'Bloody' Sam's films, "Pat Garrett" was molested and cut by the studio, MGM upon its release. The film would be panned by audiences and critics. It's a shame that Peckinpah never lived to see the longer cut of the film finally released to a wider audience on VHS. It would become a cult hit and is now known as one of the best Westerns and one of Peckinpah's best.
The film depicts the final days of Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) before he was killed by his friend Pat Garrett (James Coburn), the newly appointed sheriff of the territory. Other than the fine performances of Coburn and Kristofferson, the film also features excellent supporting roles from famous Western regulars and members of Peckinpah's stock of actors. The long list of players include Jason Robards, Bob Dylan (also the film's music composer), Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, L.Q. Jones, Katy Jurado, Paul Fix, Chill Wills, Jack Elam, Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Jaeckel, and Dub Taylor. Most of the characters are killed off in the film, violently evoking both the death of the West and Westerns.
Peckinpah's two regular themes are here: the death of the West, and men living past their time and deciding whether or not they should accept change. My favorite scene in the film takes place about halfway through the film. Pat Garrett, isolated and alone, is sitting by his fire near a river bank. He sees a man about his age and his family sailing on a raft down the river. The man is shooting bottles for target practice. Garrett takes a shot at a bottle. The man sees Garrett and shoots back. Garrett then takes cover behind the nearby tree. They both are aiming at each, but just lower their guns are stare at each other.
The raft continues to flow down the river. The scene, which was the reason why Peckinpah, Coburn, and almost everyone wanted to take part in the film, has so much meaning to it. 1. It references an earlier scene with Garrett and Sheriff Baker (Slim Pickens). Baker was building a boat so he could drift out of territory because of how awful it has become. Tragicaly, Baker does not get a chance to see this dream. The scene also references the shoot-out between Garrett and Black Harris (L.Q. Jones). Before his death, Harris yells to Garrett "Us old boys shouldn't be doing this to each other." The same thing happens between Garrrett and the man on the raft.
Other than the performances, the film also features some good musical pieces by Dylan. John Coquillon's cinematography is also very beautiful and haunting at the same time. Peckinpah, as always, was able to get period detail down correctly. Rudy Wurlitzer also did a fine job at the screenplay, despite Peckinpah improving most of it himself. Coburn's performance was possibly his best ever. The idea of Garrett having a lot of inner conflict was good. Garrett knew that he had a job to do, but just could not handle the fact it was his friend that he had to kill. Maybe he was the one who put the gun in the outhouse for Billy to use. It was also great to see the myth and actual facts of the last days of this incident played out.
Although this film may have a few faults (some of Dylan's music and a few of his scenes), "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is really worth the time to view now that a DVD will be released on January 10th, 2006. The Two-Disc set will feature two versions of the film. The first one is a 115 min. version editied by Peckinpah biographers Nick Redman and Paul Seydor. The second disc will feature the 122 min. version assembled in 1988. According to both men, there was no final cut to "Pat Garrett." The version that Peckinpah screeded for the MGM heads was just a rough cut.
Either way, the DVD will now a new generation of film lovers to be able to view how costly it is when an artist cannot complete his work. Peckinpah and editiors originally had six months to edit, but the idiots from the studio cut it down to two months. I guess the new 115 minute version of the film is closer to Peckinpah's vision because of notes and interviews with the filmmaker's colleagues. No matter which version you will watch, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is a sad but magnificent Western made by one of the last great storytellers of the Western genre.
Billy: Old Pat...Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Sana Fe ring. How does it feel?
Pat: It feels like...that times have changed.
Billy: Times maybe. Not me.
On the surface, a film about the doomed friendship between the two title characters, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is really a film about the death of a way of American life. Death is omni-present in this film, and the compelling aspect of it is that so many of the characters are completely prepared to accept it and deal it out. The best and saddest moments in the film involve characters who know they are going to die and accept it. And the performances are all remarkable. Kristofferson's easygoing and charismatic portrayal of Billy is the best work of his career, as is Coburn's sad-eyed interpretation of Pat Garrett. A wonderful film, almost as good as Peckinpah's masterpiece The Wild Bunch.
Especially the director's cut, this is one of the finest Westerns ever made. Yes, Bob Dylan didn't make the best soundtrack (with the exception with the beginning music and the river music), and the studio version lacks quality, this is Sam Peckinpah at his finest since "The Wild Bunch".
Peckinaph is one of my all time favorite directors because most of his movies are great, and this one is no different. James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles are excellent, especially the always great Coburn (R.I.P.). What is also great is most of the Peckinpah regulars and recognizable Western characters making a great support cast, including Chill Wills, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Matt Clark, Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, Jack Elam, Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Fernandez, Richard Jaeckel, Barry Sullivan, Dub Taylor, Elisha Cook Jr., and John Beck.
Even Peckinaph has a great cameo. Bob Dylan isn't the best actor, but his character plays an important part. He represents the story teller that passes down the legend of this story to all generations. This is a film that all Peckinpah and Western fans can't miss. It's a shame Sam never lived to make another Western like this.
Author: saustin-5 from United States
24 March 2006
After waiting for years for this movie to come out on DVD, I was thrilled when this and three other Peckipah westerns were recently released on DVD. I had seen this movie many times over the years, but recently watched a new version of the movie on the disc that was supposedly edited based upon Peckinpah's original (or final?) notes on the film. I saw this difference immediately and knew that I was in for a fresh ride. This is really a great movie (even with a couple scenes that still feel weird to me) that, like THE WILD BUNCH, really captures a changing time in American history (the end of the Old West) through the eyes of men who have a difficult time changing. The acting is terrific -- especially Coburn -- and features many great little (but memorable) character performances. And Bob Dylan's music really works here (which helps me to overlook his funky jittery performance.) This isn't a fun movie, and it's not on a par with THE WILD BUNCH, but it is an important one.
Author: freedomFrog from United States
12 July 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Sam Peckinpah's elegiac western "Pat Garrett & Billy the kid" tells the familiar story of sheriff Pat Garrett (a great performance by James Coburn), forced to track down and kill his friend the outlaw Billy the kid (Kris Kristofferson).As many westerns before, "Pat Garrett & Billy the kid" deals with the end of the West, replaced by a more civilized order. In earlier movies, such as John Ford's "My darling Clementine", civilization would be virtuous pioneers, embodying American values and the American way of life. In 1973, after the Vietnam war, Peckinpah's vision is much more cynic: civilization is the Sante Fe ring, a corrupt cartel of politicians and business men, just as rough less and violent than the outlaws they're trying to get rid of.
Faced with this changing world, Garrett and Billy, two figures of the old west, follow different paths. Despite the fact that he despises them and that his sympathy clearly lies with Billy, Garrett joins the Sante Fe ring. Peckinpah makes clear that this puts Garrett on the wrong side of morality, no where stronger than in one of the final scenes, where, after Billy's death, Garrett rides into the sunset, a child following him. The scene echoes the final from "Shane" except that, instead of pleading for the rider's return, the child throws rocks at him. Garrett's choice is also killing him deep down inside: in a scene, after killing Billy, Garrett shoots at his own reflection in the mirror, shattering it to pieces. An awkward scene with his wife shows how unnatural and unfit domestic life is for him.
Yet Peckinpah also makes it clear that Garrett made the only viable choice by depicting Billy and his gang as a dying breed, almost like a moribund patient in the last stage of a debilitating decease: lacking motivation and energy, they're always on the fringe of doing something but ultimately just stay there, hanging round, getting drunk, sleeping with women or shooting at chicken. They seem strangely disconnected from reality, playing poker in the middle of a gunfight, not because they're reckless but because they don't seem to compute clearly what's going on around them. In Peckipah's vision, the old west disappears not because it is replaced by civilization but because it is dying its own slow and painful death. In this view, Garrett shooting Billy is almost a mercy killing! (Billy's bunch looks so much like a proto-hippy community with most members of his gang played by rock musicians including Bob Dylan himself that it almost feels like a critic of the counter-culture movement that, by 1973, was just a caricature of the idealism of the sixties). There is no future in this way of life.
This refusal to portray Billy as a traditional hero corresponds to the unromantic version of the West shown in the movie. This is not the West of John Ford or Sergio Leone or of "The wild bunch", with its heroes larger than life. This is a dreadful place, dirty, empty, the desolation of the landscape echoing the boredom and the existential void of the life of the characters. No Sergio Leone-like heroic showdown here: people are shot in the back, before they have any chance to reach for their gun. The pace of the movie fits this theme: it is slow, almost contemplative, Bob Dylan's soulful acoustic soundtrack (including the famous song "Knockin' on heaven's door" played during one of the most beautiful and poetic scene in the whole movie) reinforcing the sweet melancholy that runs through the all picture.
A final theme of "Pat Garrett & Billy the kid" is the one of fate. The characters believe they are free and in charge of their destiny. During the whole movie, Garrett slowly circles around Billy, hoping to the last moment that he won't have to kill him, that Billy will understand and flee to Mexico. But this is just an illusion: everything is predetermined and nobody can escape his fate. This is illustrated most beautifully in the prologue which cuts back and forth between Garrett's assassination by the Sante Fe ring killers and his last friendly encounter with Billy. Garrett's death, set many years after Billy's killing, clearly establishes that the dice have been cast and nothing can be changed: Garrett killed Billy and no matter what he will do in the movie, this cannot be changed. Emphasizing this, a beautiful scene shows Billy in the flashback sequence shooting at a target with Garrett in the flash-forward segment on the receiving end.
Fate is also at the core of the most celebrated raft scene. While resting on the bank of a river, Garrett spies a raft with a whole family on it, drifting along the river without any control over where they're going, the father shooting at bottles thrown in the river. This puts them on a collision course with Garrett and the outcome should be the father being killed by the sheriff. This seems to be exactly what will happen as the two men aimed at each other but they finally lower their guns. For just an moment there, they were able to avoid fate and to escape their fatal destiny.
Butchered by MGM at the time of its release, the movie exists in at least 3 forms and we will never have Peckinpah's definitive version of "Pat Garret & Billy the kid". Yet maybe it does not matter. Even in this unfinished form, "Pat Garrett & Billy the kid" is a unique movie, an absolute masterpiece, Sam Peckinpah's greatest achievement, second only to "The wild bunch"
Author: winter_light-1 from Edinburgh
15 August 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is the most lyrical western ever made, its beauty pours off the screen. Sam Peckinpah shot the film with a great traditional feel that counterpoints the modernist dialogue superbly. Basically the story is the usual Pat Garrett Billy the Kid fare, they used to ride together now Garrett is hunting him after he turned sheriff. The picture focuses on the end of their relationship, and it is great credit to both Coburn and Kristofferson that the dying friendship shines throughout.
This film is filled with great scenes punctuated by evocative hardboiled dialogue, to name a few: the bar scene where Garrett kills Holly; Slim Pickens death; the trading of shots between Garrett and the Steamer; the first shoot out between Billy and Pat, Billy's escape from jail etc etc. The dialogue is the best in a western outside of Deadwood or perhaps The Outlaw Josey Wales, too illustrate: Pat Garrett: You owe it to me. Kip McKinney: I do? For *what*? Pat Garrett: For not killing at over at rosewater, for getting' you this job, and not seein' run you outta this territory, for pulling' you outta that snow drift up at Shamus, and for cold cockin' you over at Stillwater Saloon last fall, and savin' you from Rabbit Owens from bitin' off your ear, and from just puttin' up with you for a hell of a lot longer than I oughta... Kip McKinney: Yeah... Well I hope they spell my name right in the paper. Genius.
What else makes this film great.James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson give there finest performances as the respective title characters. The supporting actors peppered throughout the film are actors of the highest order, most with a history in Westerns' giving the film a feel of one the first "Death of the West" westerns. Plus any film that has Slim Pickens dying to the strains (or vocals depending on the version) of Knockin on Heavens Door has at least one of the great moments in World Cinema. Moving nicely onto Bob Dylan. The soundtrack without question is possibly the greatest ever composed for a Western (pushed close by Ennio Morricone, obviously and Nick Cave for Proposition), however I reckon that his acting is also of the highest quality. It has a chaplinesque playfulness to it that I found very charming. I disagree with many of the reviewers here and believe that Dylan adds inordinately to the film, with exquisite comedy timing and general lightness of touch which adds a great feel to the film.
What can be said about Sam Peckinpah that has not already been said. The man made great films about men.To answer my question is it the best Western ever. Any film with the line as good as "Wont some of you people get him up off the ground and into it?" has got to be up there with the best, if not the best.
Author: ereinion from Lemuria
28 February 2008
I consider this '73 version of the cycle about the famous outlaw a masterpiece. I can't believe that some think this to be Peckinpah's worst picture. This is one of the few films which remain equally great each time I watch them. It is a sepia-toned picture of the last glory days of Old West and as such a really sad and melancholic film. As Pat Garrett in James Coburn's magnificent incarnation puts it: "This country is getting old and I'm getting old along with it" It is a poignant message.
The cast is excellent and the best thing about it is that everyone is so believable in their part. Except for Bob Dylan that is, who really looks out of place, but even he doesn't spoil the pleasure for me. He almost makes it in his part, but just pales in comparison to Coburn and Kristofferson. Kris gives his first strong performance here and is very well matched against Coburn and both are cool in their own way. Jack Elam is another surprise as Alamosa Bill and gives a quite moving performance, especially in his last scene. And last but not least, Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado provide perhaps the most memorable scene with "Knocking at Heaven's Door" playing in the background.
I can see why some think this is not an enjoyable film. There is a lot of killing and too little humor in it. But Peckinpah really has turned this old story into an epic wild west picture and for that he deserved to be awarded, which he never did unfortunately. This is a really touching and unforgettable film and everyone should watch it and learn.
Author: clntndlp from United States
23 April 2007
I have seen all three versions so far and even though this might be in the minority, I have to say the original is the best. It is for the very reason many knock it, the use of Bob Dylan's excellent soundtrack. To think the other two versions gave short shift to the wonderful Slim Pickens haunting death, with the visual of a widows grief set against a sunset sky with Dylan's Knocking on Heavens Door being allowed to play out more fully gives the movie it's vivid emotional counterpoint. Slim's character dies with the tears of a heart broken wife; Pat and Billy die essentially alone. Bob's music sets the proper mood right from the start when Billy finishes saying "He's my friend," and continues to add depth with it's minimalistic tones and underplayed delivery. It is the perfect counterpoint to the exceptional photography and embracing dialog found thru ought. The studio was right to highlight it, and the other versions are poorer for not continuing in that vein.
Author: tsf-1962 from United States
7 December 2006
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This movie is one of my personal favorites. Where do I begin? There's the beautiful Bob Dylan score (especially "Knocking on Heaven's Door"), great performances by Kris Kristofferson and James Coburn, a supporting cast of western veterans, a literate script, and the direction of Sam Peckinpah in his last great film. Though not the masterpiece "The Wild Bunch" is, it's still a beautiful film; aside from "El Topo," it's the best of the revisionist westerns of the 1970s, a time when old myths and values were being questioned. Peckinpah, at heart a romantic conservative, somehow caught the Zeitgeist of the era.
"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" gives us a grainier, more realistic view of the Old West than we're used to seeing; it predated Clint Eastwood's "The Unforgiven" by twenty years in its unflinching portrait of frontier violence. There are no good guys or bad guys, rather two morally ambiguous men, friends in an earlier life, who find themselves on the opposite side of what's basically a political argument. James Coburn is appropriately gruff as Sheriff Pat Garrett, a man who just wants to settle down and who knows the time for guns is over; Kristofferson makes a charismatic Billy, the embodiment of lawless individualism.
The excellent supporting cast includes such old pros as Jack Elam, Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, Richard Jaekel and (in some prints) Elisha Cook Jr.; but the best performance comes from the late Jason Robards Jr. as the tragically muddle-headed Governor Lew Wallace (best known for writing "Ben Hur.") For those wanting a different perspective on some of the same characters I recommend the 1970 John Wayne vehicle "Chisum," with Glenn Corbett as Pat Garrett and Geoffrey Deuel (Peter Deuel's younger brother) as a young William Bonney.
Author: John Parker from London, England
1 February 1999
I first saw this movie back in the early eighties, but only when I saw the restored 'director's cut' a few years ago did I realise what a true masterpiece Pat Garrett is. Elegiac, wistful, philosophical, beautifully photographed, and with some of the coolest, funniest elliptical dialogue ever committed to celluloid. Check out Billy's monologue about the old man they call US Christmas, which he delivers as the preamble to the gunfight in which Alias is introduced to the film. And Dylan's performance is just great. A true classic from the late, great Uncle Sam himself.
