Violence Patterns in Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969): Critical Reading

Baker Bani-Khair,Nisreen Al-Khawaldeh,Nayef M H Alshboul,Imad Al-Khawaldeh,Mohammad Ababneh

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.3p.210

Baker Bani-Khair, Nisreen Al-Khawaldeh + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijalel.v.6n.3p.210

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Abstract

This paper focuses on the issue of violence in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) through explaining some of the cultural and historical implications of violence in the 1960s such as Vietnam War, the Mexican war and also the explosion of the feminist movement and some other important social and political upheavals that shaped the cultural context of the 1960s in America. It also sheds light on Sam Peckinpah’s approach of violence screen and stylizing violence and the representations of violence as a tormenting and brutalizing reality that matches the spirit of the age in addition to the social, political, and colonial conflicts of the 1960s. Violence and the implications of violence in The Wild Bunch whether social , cultural, psychological, or humanistic have been discussed in brief in order to show the critical approach of the film as being a rich and didactic film to watch, especially in terms of its rich cultural and historical contexts.

Highlights

Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is one of the films that primarily deal with violence and its representation within the framework of the social, historical, and cultural aspects of the society in the 1960’s in America
This paper focuses on the issue of violence in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) through explaining some of the cultural and historical implications of violence in the 1960s such as Vietnam War, the Mexican war and the explosion of the feminist movement and some other important social and political upheavals that shaped the cultural context of the 1960s in America
Violence as we found out in the film represents historical, contextual, social, and psychological dimensions which all convey a realistic dilemma during that era

Summary

Introduction

Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is one of the films that primarily deal with violence and its representation within the framework of the social, historical, and cultural aspects of the society in the 1960’s in America. Despite the fact that film was directed in 1969, it still carries some essential points that need to be studied and analyzed, those which concern with violence as a realistic problem. Having seen this film more than once, we started to realize the importance of connecting the issue of stylizing violence with the 1960's cultural and historical implications that were associated with war as well as domestic violence which the whole movie revolves around. Stephen Prince in Classical Film Violence states that "violence in The Wild Bunch reflects the savagery of the Vietnam War." (3) Societal issues and dilemmas are represented

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