Extraordinary interview to "wild" Sam. He was living emotionally on the edge and expressing with passion in his work his disgust to human stupidity for wars. A real artist who never compromised. Many thanks for this!
He literally just said in the interview that war in the name of religion and all the civilian casualties is wrong, but that it is acceptable on the level of those who wish to test themselves and die in glory.
Peckinpah was an artist, yet no questions were asked about the artistry of his films. This interviewer seems to blame all the violence of the world on his films.
Well at the time , they were convinced that violence in films desensitizd children and would make them ultimately more apt to commit violent acts. At the time and since it was so few and far between, it really had no effect. Now, however that violence is so graphic in every Movie and Video game, it IS having a very real effect. The average kid , when in a fight thinks nothing of stomping the head of his opponent into the sidewalk, even though that is attempted murder. They ARE desensitized and the people that I personally balked at , were right all along.
Absolute Legend 😎✊🏼The Wild Bunch (1969) 😊is my favourite movie of all time ! Unfortunately Sam died a little before my time but Jeez I only wished I could/ve been able to just say Thankyou to the man and nothing more .
Grenadier on beans No I don/t think so. I don/t believe that would be the right approach at all or how someone ought to comport themselves public wise irrespective of what company someone happens to finds themselves in.Such petulant and ignominious behaviour would only successfully achieve telegraphing to the world one/s own complete immaturity as an individual and the overwhelming scorn that would likely ensue as a result would be totally and unequivocally warranted!
Grenadier on beans Actually I tend to believe that a lot of his personal demons stemmed from his fractured and irreconcilable relationship with his mother and the fact that she sold the family home he grew up in Fresno, Cali which he adored so very much . He was never the same after after that and often lamented about feeling completely rootless and lost!
Grenadier on beans Yes I have read published accounts of his various experiences during this time when he was stationed over there as a young marine. One incident in particular that of a soldier having being shot to death right before his eyes impacted him quite significantly. He felt like time seemingly slowed down for him and this potent memory would later inspire probably his most widely recognised storytelling technique of overcranking film or shooting in slow motion during a gunfight.
instead of making such an objective statemant as your text suggests, I really think he was much more focused in the lack of definition in our own nature.
@@gorankatic40000bc I agree with you that as anyone else he held his own opinions. What I Hope I was able to express in my commentary is that I really feel like If a movie is multidimensional enough, It captures existance, nature... In such a way one will feel unable to simplify and verbalize clearly what the piece emcompasses or not and, therefore, exposes clearly in terms of thoughts. I hope I was able to be clear enough, english isn't my mother language. Bye, thanks for posting this great video.
Thank you so much for uploading this; it's incredible to see just how introspective and insightful the man was. I was almost shocked at his demeanor...i kinda expected him to be like some over the top Yosemite Sam type figure. Thanks for the upload!
He really seems genuinely disheartened at some of the questions about his personal impact in regards to violence. You don't usually hear a director flat out say he was incorrect about the violent content of his films (specifically The Wild Bunch) and express real regret about it.
It's more an interrogation than an interview, but Peckinpah answered honestly and admirably put up with moral finger-wagging. Question: In which of these two can you see more capacity for empathy?
" that at last I have found someone who was not bullshitting..." Sadly, film, as an artistic medium, is rife with bullshit, due to the fact that the people that fund it are more concerned with profit, than reality. Especially today. Reality has a beauty, and an ugliness, that is far superior to any of the pretentious bullshit Hollywood has ever tried to sell. The fact that Hollywood chooses to pursue the pretentious bullshit they do, as opposed to reality, is why film and television alike, are a dieing medium.
The adaptation of "Noon Wine" that he directed, with Jason Robards and Olivia de Havilland, is stunning. And although it hinges on an act of violence, the violence is not graphic or pervasive. Like Scorsese with "The Age of Innocence," he proved himself more than capable of telling stories that did not rely on violence to make their point or to be effective.
Most of his films have a high degree of violence. It's nothing like what has really happened though. When I saw the Wild Bunch on television in probably 1974 I was blown away. When Ben Johnson is shooting that 50 caliber and blasting those Mexican soldiers it is unbelievable. In the Getaway when Steve McQueen starts wielding that twelve-gauge with buckshot it's in the same arena as the Wild Bunch. The Cross of Iron, in my opinion,is another masterpiece that he did.
Very surprised to see this. It has been reported that he'd bottomed out with the drinking in the Billy the Kid film which was three years earlier. There had been reported a tremendous amount of drinking by many involved with that film. But you see him drinking in this interview.
Short tempered, mean, alcoholic and very aggressive too, but (!) he sublimated and showed his less abusive intellectual side! Still, don't forget, he was a mean son of a bitch. Talented, genial, "one of the rare filmmakers that can be rightfully called an artist" (B. Norman) but a mean son of a bitch too!
Yes, the abusive, sadistic, alcoholic, irresponsible drug addict. Goodness, the man made a few truly great motion pictures, I enjoy the work on various levels, but his fans, biographers, scholars, have a very odd parasocial, sycophantic relationship to the MAN.
Peckinpah was a genius. When I first saw the wild bunch I said to myself both William Holden and Sam Peckinpah not only should have been nominated but both should have took home Oscars for best actor and director. I believe that than i believe in that now.
God the media has been trash for decades. Love how quickly the subject of violence changed when Peckinpah compared the violence in his films to the violence in the news. Sam was a Maverick, he was blackballed for calling people out on their BS. Much like Orson Welles.
The Great Master Sam Peckinpah And Sergio Leone my two favourite film directors , all his films are magnificent, a true master craftsmen, what a moron interviewer , cross of iron a war film is obviously going to have some violence in it, did he think it was going to be a musical or a romantic comedy ??.
I thought even back then that whole violence on screen causes violence in real life argument had been discredited. Sam shouldn't have been harangued about The Wild Bunch but I guess that's par for the course for so called critics. The interrogator was an idiot. Critics are still doing this crap, grilling filmmakers on the behavior of their characters as if they're a reflection of the writers actors or directors, judging movie characters as if they are real people and judging characters from movies set in the past by the standards of today. Screw critics. Sam should have socked him and walked out
He called "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Trash, yet there was no blood or gore in the entire film. meanwhile, his films at the time were the most graphic. Spoken like a Cociane and Booxze soaked know it all who has certainly never seen the film.
Sam was a con man who directed most of his movies black out drunk and/or high on cocaine, despite that he made some great films. Something like 'Alfredo Garcia' is much 'trashier' and mean spirited than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre could ever hope to be in reality (and the rare film Peckinpah had final cut on). There was something much darker and sadistic happening in the mind of Sam Peckinpah than that in Tobe Hooper's. It's really sad, Sam would take a cheap and ignorant shot at another filmmaker. Though, It was nice to hear he was excited to start shooting 'Convoy', another opportunity to get wasted and triple the budget, as Sam would say, "It's a privilege to work on films."
Wild bunch is a great movie. Fbi statistics that say friends and family on violence includes pimps and prostitues and drug dealers and users as friends.
I love Peckinpah, but I don't understand why he tries to deflect criticism away from himself by criticizing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in this interview as somehow a more offensive movie than the ones he makes (at 3:21 he says, "I am not responsible for the chainsaw whatever-its-name is, or any of the other trash that has been put forth"). This makes me wonder if Peckinpah ever even bothered to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is actually a pretty tame movie compared to The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs and Alfredo Garcia.
Sam Packinpah was a classical composer I agree that a lot of this is what makes Peckinpah great. I just think he could have used a better example for his argument than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That movie has a unique psychology of its own, regarding violence: that we are frightened primarily by the unknown, by things and people we know nothing about. I wouldn't go so far as to dumb it down as mere exploitation.
Don't forget you have the benefit of hindsight. TCM had a mixed reception on its original release; with a title like that, you can see how easy it would be to lump it in with the other exploitation films of the era. Sam probably hadn't even seen the movie, and was just using it as an example of movies that "over-indulge" in gore.
Possibly the reason is that, with a title like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you're obviously aiming to get sadistic-minded people in to see it to make money. That aspect is certainly trashy. Peckinpah never stooped that low; his titles are suggestive, but far from blatant sadism.
Peckinpah is very aggressive, short tempered, pouring whiskey while being interviewed, couple that with his unquestionable artistic genius where he is above the all encompassing cinematic mediocrity and you get a highly defensive man that isn't only defending but biting back too, often those who were "innocent" and didn't have it coming. But he is a genius of film art, of writing/rewriting, of dialogues, of casting, of on set improvisation, of inventing drama in real time or in cutting room. Above all he is one of the rare directors who is master of film form and film's visual language. All his film are both exciting, approachable, commercial and auteur pieces that are tackling the most fundamental, darkest, forever controversial themes about human nature and our violent interaction on this planet - individual, group or state to state. He was in the midst of it, it produced so immense conflict within that he couldn't "shake it off" and obsessively returned to it. Among many tackled and recurring subjects pledge of friendship and betrayal were seen in many of his films. Stab in the back by those who were trusted the most. His film oeuvre is referring to human existence, it is important oeuvre that shows to the young kids truth about human existence. It isn't sugarcoated but it's pretty brutal. And cinematically beautiful and seductive. Norman had to survive this character that tends to suck you in and annihilate you. I guess it wasn't easy. Yet Peckinpah was in the end so interested that he wanted to continue. "Don't stop". A shame BBC TV schedule stopped it - "world should stop for Sam", there's irony in that, but there's truth also. Messy human internal focal point in an uninterested universe where we are little specks.
gorankatic40000bc.artstation.com/store/art_posters
My admiration for Mr. Peckinpah grows as the interview carries on. My
Extraordinary interview to "wild" Sam. He was living emotionally on the edge and expressing with passion in his work his disgust to human stupidity for wars. A real artist who never compromised. Many thanks for this!
He literally just said in the interview that war in the name of religion and all the civilian casualties is wrong, but that it is acceptable on the level of those who wish to test themselves and die in glory.
One of my fav directors of all time
Yeah we don't have serious filmmakers of this caliber anymore.
Paul Thomas Anderson says Hello
We do you just have to look.
PTA would be a bad whore.
I see some Peckinpah in Craig Zahlers movies
You are probably right. The amount of people who want serious, thoughtful filmmakers, has declined, I think.
Peckinpah was an artist, yet no questions were asked about the artistry of his films. This interviewer seems to blame all the violence of the world on his films.
Well at the time , they were convinced that violence in films desensitizd children and would make them ultimately more apt to commit violent acts. At the time and since it was so few and far between, it really had no effect. Now, however that violence is so graphic in every Movie and Video game, it IS having a very real effect. The average kid , when in a fight thinks nothing of stomping the head of his opponent into the sidewalk, even though that is attempted murder. They ARE desensitized and the people that I personally balked at , were right all along.
@@Valkonnen👌🏻👌🏽👌
A great crotchety interview with the hydra-headed, uniquely talented SAM PECKINPAH.
I tried to see it but it says it can't be accessed from Thailand.
Absolute Legend 😎✊🏼The Wild Bunch (1969) 😊is my favourite movie of all time ! Unfortunately Sam died a little before my time but Jeez I only wished I could/ve been able to just say Thankyou to the man and nothing more .
Grenadier on beans No I don/t think so. I don/t believe that would be the right approach at all or how someone ought to comport themselves public wise irrespective of what company someone happens to finds themselves in.Such petulant and ignominious behaviour would only successfully achieve telegraphing to the world one/s own complete immaturity as an individual and the overwhelming scorn that would likely ensue as a result would be totally and unequivocally warranted!
Grenadier on beans Actually I tend to believe that a lot of his personal demons stemmed from his fractured and irreconcilable relationship with his mother and the fact that she sold the family home he grew up in Fresno, Cali which he adored so very much . He was never the same after after that and often lamented about feeling completely rootless and lost!
Grenadier on beans Yes I have read published accounts of his various experiences during this time when he was stationed over there as a young marine. One incident in particular that of a soldier having being shot to death right before his eyes impacted him quite significantly. He felt like time seemingly slowed down for him and this potent memory would later inspire probably his most widely recognised storytelling technique of overcranking film or shooting in slow motion during a gunfight.
Sam was a genius. But he was obviously moderately hammered during this interview.
He was addicted to booze and cocaine. These are not addictions where you can ever skip a day. What do you think was in that cup?
Sam was an honest man and he knew how screwed up the world is and how we humans are ruin it more and more ...
instead of making such an objective statemant as your text suggests, I really think he was much more focused in the lack of definition in our own nature.
@@gorankatic40000bc I agree with you that as anyone else he held his own opinions. What I Hope I was able to express in my commentary is that I really feel like If a movie is multidimensional enough, It captures existance, nature... In such a way one will feel unable to simplify and verbalize clearly what the piece emcompasses or not and, therefore, exposes clearly in terms of thoughts. I hope I was able to be clear enough, english isn't my mother language.
Bye, thanks for posting this great video.
Thank you so much for uploading this; it's incredible to see just how introspective and insightful the man was. I was almost shocked at his demeanor...i kinda expected him to be like some over the top Yosemite Sam type figure. Thanks for the upload!
He really seems genuinely disheartened at some of the questions about his personal impact in regards to violence. You don't usually hear a director flat out say he was incorrect about the violent content of his films (specifically The Wild Bunch) and express real regret about it.
a man of the future..
born in the past...dam
It's more an interrogation than an interview, but Peckinpah answered honestly and admirably put up with moral finger-wagging. Question: In which of these two can you see more capacity for empathy?
Interesting interview. Thanks for posting
Thanks for the upload.
" that at last I have found someone who was not bullshitting..."
Sadly, film, as an artistic medium, is rife with bullshit, due to the fact that the people that fund it are more concerned with profit, than reality. Especially today.
Reality has a beauty, and an ugliness, that is far superior to any of the pretentious bullshit Hollywood has ever tried to sell.
The fact that Hollywood chooses to pursue the pretentious bullshit they do, as opposed to reality, is why film and television alike, are a dieing medium.
That is a fantastic trio! Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Khrustalyov, My Car!, and Harakiri are some of my all-time favorite films
The adaptation of "Noon Wine" that he directed, with Jason Robards and Olivia de Havilland, is stunning. And although it hinges on an act of violence, the violence is not graphic or pervasive. Like Scorsese with "The Age of Innocence," he proved himself more than capable of telling stories that did not rely on violence to make their point or to be effective.
Most of his films have a high degree of violence. It's nothing like what has really happened though. When I saw the Wild Bunch on television in probably 1974 I was blown away. When Ben Johnson is shooting that 50 caliber and blasting those Mexican soldiers it is unbelievable. In the Getaway when Steve McQueen starts wielding that twelve-gauge with buckshot it's in the same arena as the Wild Bunch. The Cross of Iron, in my opinion,is another masterpiece that he did.
I watch the wild bunch every year. ..to remind me of proper movie making .unlike the sanitised rubbish we have today .
Very surprised to see this. It has been reported that he'd bottomed out with the drinking in the Billy the Kid film which was three years earlier. There had been reported a tremendous amount of drinking by many involved with that film. But you see him drinking in this interview.
Incredibly talented, intellectual, academic in his approach. Should have been offered an honorary doctorate. And BBC coffee! Who knew
Short tempered, mean, alcoholic and very aggressive too, but (!) he sublimated and showed his less abusive intellectual side!
Still, don't forget, he was a mean son of a bitch. Talented, genial, "one of the rare filmmakers that can be rightfully called an artist" (B. Norman) but a mean son of a bitch too!
Yes, the abusive, sadistic, alcoholic, irresponsible drug addict. Goodness, the man made a few truly great motion pictures, I enjoy the work on various levels, but his fans, biographers, scholars, have a very odd parasocial, sycophantic relationship to the MAN.
Steve McQueen,in
the Gateway",said that he
Had found a crazier man
Then himself!
Peckinpah was a genius. When I first saw the wild bunch I said to myself both William Holden and Sam Peckinpah not only should have been nominated but both should have took home Oscars for best actor and director. I believe that than i believe in that now.
Legend
Un genio Sam Peckinpah, violento y poético, el cineasta de los losers y los atardeceres crepusculares.
Sam was my favorite ...nobody close..
My man takes a cup of coffe then a cup burbon.
Then at the at the end of the interview he lights that smoke in most epic way
"BBC coffee never looked so good"
Here endeth the lesson. 😆
Wow, Peckinpah mentioned Liverpool and Arsenal!
Peckinpah was a soccer fan. He talks about the game in this audio interview from 1976: th-cam.com/video/xhXbW1SlM9U/w-d-xo.html
Interesting Man.
he would time period put you there.
Back again. Love the whisky at 13:00.
God the media has been trash for decades.
Love how quickly the subject of violence changed when Peckinpah compared the violence in his films to the violence in the news.
Sam was a Maverick, he was blackballed for calling people out on their BS. Much like Orson Welles.
The Great Master Sam Peckinpah And Sergio Leone my two favourite film directors , all his films are magnificent, a true master craftsmen, what a moron interviewer , cross of iron a war film is obviously going to have some violence in it, did he think it was going to be a musical or a romantic comedy ??.
He did say some crazy things in interviews, sometimes he was frank, but sometimes he'd just make things up and throw a joke in.
I thought even back then that whole violence on screen causes violence in real life argument had been discredited. Sam shouldn't have been harangued about The Wild Bunch but I guess that's par for the course for so called critics. The interrogator was an idiot. Critics are still doing this crap, grilling filmmakers on the behavior of their characters as if they're a reflection of the writers actors or directors, judging movie characters as if they are real people and judging characters from movies set in the past by the standards of today. Screw critics. Sam should have socked him and walked out
He called "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Trash, yet there was no blood or gore in the entire film. meanwhile, his films at the time were the most graphic. Spoken like a Cociane and Booxze soaked know it all who has certainly never seen the film.
Sam was a con man who directed most of his movies black out drunk and/or high on cocaine, despite that he made some great films. Something like 'Alfredo Garcia' is much 'trashier' and mean spirited than the Texas Chainsaw Massacre could ever hope to be in reality (and the rare film Peckinpah had final cut on). There was something much darker and sadistic happening in the mind of Sam Peckinpah than that in Tobe Hooper's. It's really sad, Sam would take a cheap and ignorant shot at another filmmaker. Though, It was nice to hear he was excited to start shooting 'Convoy', another opportunity to get wasted and triple the budget, as Sam would say, "It's a privilege to work on films."
viva il "maledetto SAM"!❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Wild bunch is a great movie. Fbi statistics that say friends and family on violence includes pimps and prostitues and drug dealers and users as friends.
Ride The High Country
I love Peckinpah, but I don't understand why he tries to deflect criticism away from himself by criticizing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in this interview as somehow a more offensive movie than the ones he makes (at 3:21 he says, "I am not responsible for the chainsaw whatever-its-name is, or any of the other trash that has been put forth"). This makes me wonder if Peckinpah ever even bothered to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is actually a pretty tame movie compared to The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs and Alfredo Garcia.
Sam Packinpah was a classical composer I agree that a lot of this is what makes Peckinpah great. I just think he could have used a better example for his argument than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That movie has a unique psychology of its own, regarding violence: that we are frightened primarily by the unknown, by things and people we know nothing about. I wouldn't go so far as to dumb it down as mere exploitation.
Don't forget you have the benefit of hindsight. TCM had a mixed reception on its original release; with a title like that, you can see how easy it would be to lump it in with the other exploitation films of the era. Sam probably hadn't even seen the movie, and was just using it as an example of movies that "over-indulge" in gore.
Possibly the reason is that, with a title like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you're obviously aiming to get sadistic-minded people in to see it to make money. That aspect is certainly trashy. Peckinpah never stooped that low; his titles are suggestive, but far from blatant sadism.
there was nothing tame about the TCM if you were at an impression able age. It gave me nightmares for months.
you forget alot of children got dragged into these gruesome exploitation films. it is surely (zionist) child abuse.
I was rather fearful for Barry Norman in tackling to interview such an enigmatic and complex and forbidding person as filmmaker Sam Peckinpah....
Peckinpah is very aggressive, short tempered, pouring whiskey while being interviewed, couple that with his unquestionable artistic genius where he is above the all encompassing cinematic mediocrity and you get a highly defensive man that isn't only defending but biting back too, often those who were "innocent" and didn't have it coming.
But he is a genius of film art, of writing/rewriting, of dialogues, of casting, of on set improvisation, of inventing drama in real time or in cutting room.
Above all he is one of the rare directors who is master of film form and film's visual language.
All his film are both exciting, approachable, commercial and auteur pieces that are tackling the most fundamental, darkest, forever controversial themes about human nature and our violent interaction on this planet - individual, group or state to state.
He was in the midst of it, it produced so immense conflict within that he couldn't "shake it off" and obsessively returned to it.
Among many tackled and recurring subjects pledge of friendship and betrayal were seen in many of his films. Stab in the back by those who were trusted the most.
His film oeuvre is referring to human existence, it is important oeuvre that shows to the young kids truth about human existence. It isn't sugarcoated but it's pretty brutal.
And cinematically beautiful and seductive.
Norman had to survive this character that tends to suck you in and annihilate you. I guess it wasn't easy. Yet Peckinpah was in the end so interested that he wanted to continue.
"Don't stop". A shame BBC TV schedule stopped it - "world should stop for Sam", there's irony in that, but there's truth also.
Messy human internal focal point in an uninterested universe where we are little specks.
boozing at 13
ya baby..
He was good but treated alot of actors like crap.
The interviewer gave it his best shot, but Sam was never a very accommodating subject.
I CALL TOUPEE
He died too soon. Way too soon.
funny how Sam would argue that by making films based on violence and the undervalued he was taking a stand against it when he was only promoting it