Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia

[poliphilo]

There are times in this movie when Warren Oates looks too weary and out of it to put one foot in front of another. He was, by all accounts, impersonating his director, Sam Peckinpah. I don't know if it's homage or satire or an affectionate in-joke, but whatever it is, it's so real it hardly looks like acting. 

If Peckinpah was as battered and freaked out and coked to death as Oates's imitation implies it's a wonder the movie ever got made. And yet it's not a tired film. It's delirious, head-banging, totally in your face.  I guess that's the coke.

The critics hated it when it first came out. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the way Oates talks to the severed head. Yes, it's preposterous, but, but, but...

...I nearly said, "so is Hamlet" but choked myself off. OK, let's not be silly. Still, there are parallels. They're both revenge dramas that transcend their genre. And both feature conversations with a death's head. A tighter fit might be Middleton's Revenger's Tragedy or Webster's Duchess of Malfi. 

This was the only one of Peckinpah's movies the suits didn't mangle. I guess they kept their hands off because it's so thoroughly broke (in commercial terms) it couldn't be fixed.  Thematically It's very like the Wild Bunch: a man's got to do what a man's got to do even though he's a sewer rat. It's the cheaper version. But  also the deeper version. There's less blood and more psychosis.  When Peckinpah was asked if he'd was ever going to make a film that preserved his vision entire, he replied, "Well, I made Alfredo Garcia."

Comments

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

Parts of that very weird, very compelling film are definitely a satire on machismo--such as that bit where Kris Kristofferson and his friend take Oates' wife off to be raped and the best Oates can do is tell them "You guys are definitely on my shitlist." Perhaps the world's most pathetically funny retort.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a very sharp script.

Peckinpah was so macho it hurt, but also- at some level- aware of just how ridiculous he was.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

I especially loved the gay subtext with the two heavies (Gig Young and Robert Webber). You're right: Peckinpah must have been aware of the ridiculousness of certain aspects of his persona.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The gay subtext is fun- and gives those otherwise repugnant characters a certain humanity.