The Wild Bunch

[Peckinpah] got so wound up in the aesthetics of violence that what had begun as a realistic treatment — a deglamorization of warfare that would show how horribly gruesome killing really is — became instead an almost abstract fantasy about violence. Pauline Kael, New Yorker, April 4, 2016

Artist Stephen Lapthisophon introduces The Wild Bunch, a 1969 film by Sam Peckinpah on its 50th anniversary. As a meditation on masculinity, history, pastness, regret, and violence set on the US/Mexico border, this classic western film is looking over its shoulder at the Vietnam War. Described in a New Yorker review as “a traumatic poem of violence, with imagery as ambivalent as Goya’s,” the actors include William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Ben Johnson, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Bo Hopkins, L. Q. Jones, Strother Martin, Jaime Sanchez, Emilio Fernandez, Albert Dekker, and Dub Taylor.

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Tuesday Evenings at the Modern: Films this summer focuses on filmmakers and films that have some direct or indirect relationship with the issues and circumstances of time, philosophy, and/or form found in Disappearing—California, c. 1970: Bas Jan Ader, Chris Burden, Jack Goldstein. To create a full experience, these presentations include a brief introduction and opportunity for discussion following the films when time allows. As a special addition, this summer some of the films will be selected and introduced by guest presenters.

This program begins at 7 pm. Seating is available in the Modern’s auditorium at 6:30 pm. The museum’s galleries are open until 7 pm on Tuesdays during the run of Tuesday Evenings at the Modern: Films. This program is free and open to the public. Up to two free tickets can be obtained at the admission desk beginning at 5 pm the day of the screening.