Sam Peckinpah: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers)
Words always seemed to matter less than actions to Peckinpah (1925–84), whose best-known films, The Wild Bunch and Straw Dogs, were visceral, violent delineations of masculinity and honor. Hence, a collection of interviews with the notoriously cantankerous director seems not to promise rewarding reading. But such an expectation betrays a simplistic view of the man and his films, some of the finest of which, such as Ride the High Country and The Ballad of Cable Hogue, are distinguished by a thoughtful, elegiac tone. Like them, these 15 conversations with Peckinpah bespeak an unexpectedly perceptive, articulate artist, not just a volatile grandstander prone to bluster. He talks forthrightly about his travails in the industry, including the legendary conflicts with producers that, abetted by alcohol and drugs, derailed his career. At times, the candor is too much, particularly in a lengthy 1972 Playboy interview, in which Peckinpah’s frequently alleged misogyny becomes odiously manifest. The concluding account of Peckinpah’s efforts to evade an interview in 1982 sadly correlates with the nonproductiveness of his final decade. --Gordon Flagg--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.