
The Wild Bunch, still, opening scene, credit Wikipedia
Shooting Turkeys, by Bill Hartley
Kris Kristofferson, who died last year aged 88, never wanted to be an actor. Indeed, his legacy rests chiefly on his song writing compositions which have been performed by more than 500 artists. Besides being a singer-songwriter, he had a varied and interesting career: Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, boxing blue, a useful rugby player, he went on to become a soldier and helicopter pilot. His forays into film saw him star in Westerns made by two of Hollywood’s more eccentric directors, Sam Peckinpah and Michael Cimino. Both can be described as political Westerns and the second of these destroyed the career of its director and bankrupted the studio United Artists. Critical and commercial failures on release, both have since undergone a reappraisal.
Following the release of The Wild Bunch in 1969, Pekinpah began to be viewed by some critics as the heir to John Ford. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, with Kristofferson as the eponymous hero, came four years later. The end of an era feel to the film is personified by the casting of many ageing Western stalwarts such as Jack Elam, Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado.
Kristofferson portrays The Kid in an engaging style. Times are changing but he refuses to accept this. Garrett, played in laconic fashion by James Coburn, recognises that the old ways are now coming to an end and has entered the employ of a group of corrupt businessmen. Their dominance of local politics became known as Santa Fe Ring Law, something which actually persisted in New Mexico until 1912. Garrett, The Kid’s former friend and compatriot in outlawry, is there to tell him that he must leave or else.
Pekinpah was a troubled individual with drug and alcohol problems. He quarrelled with the studio, causing MGM to take the picture away from him. Subsequently they released a significantly reedited and truncated version which was disowned by the director and many of those involved. It took until 1988 before the original was released on video, which lead to a re-evaluation and overdue critical acclaim. This is a film about sorrow and regret. The audience know what is going to happen and so do the characters. Only one man is going to be left standing. Kristofferson gives a swaggering performance as the young man who likes the freewheeling life and won’t change his ways. The photography adds to the sense of melancholy with shots of desert sunsets and silhouetted riders moving towards their destination. Bob Dylan (who had a minor role in the film) created the soundtrack and it is the origin of his famous song Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. This dovetails perfectly with one of the most tragic and poignant scenes in the film.
As the story moves towards the inevitable climax, Garrett, the weary realist, seems to be almost dragging his feet. The ending comes on a New Mexico night, rather than via the more familiar frantic shootout. People watch from cover saying nothing as Garrett moves in on The Kid’s hideout. He emerges and Garrett shoots him then symbolically fires at his own image in a large mirror. In killing The Kid it is as if he has destroyed something of himself. Pekinpah, a firearms enthusiast, was prone to doing the same thing. In contrast to the bloodiness of the director’s previous Western, Kristofferson lies stripped to the waist on the ground, completely intact. Unrealistic perhaps but in death he is forever frozen in youth. For Kristofferson, then a relative newcomer to screen acting, the film is an accomplished piece of work.
In contrast Heaven’s Gate, made in1980, might be seen as a film which was beyond Kristofferson. But this was hardly his fault; the obsessive attention to detail brought to the picture by director Michael Cimino saw it run wildly over budget. It was the last gasp of an era in which the director had complete control and the film ran four times over budget. Previously as maker of the hugely successful The Deer Hunter, Cimino was seen as a man on the rise and this appears to have caused the studio to grant him considerable latitude. The picture was subsequently described as ‘an unqualified disaster’ by one critic. Vanity Fair included it in their list of the worst films ever made.
Ostensibly it wasn’t a picture that could go so far wrong. Set in 1890s Wyoming, the story carries an echo of Kristofferson’s previous Western. The Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association had become a political force described by one historian as the ‘de facto territorial government’. They plan to kill homesteaders who have encroached into the territory. Kristofferson plays Averill an idealistic Harvard educated federal marshal, who breaks away from his privileged east coast background to protect the settlers. There is a lengthy introduction in which we see the young Averill as he graduates. Apparently the university refused to allow their premises to be used for shooting due to Cimino’s excessive demands. Because of this he decamped to Oxford. Little wonder that his approach to film making was costing the studio $200,000 per day. He was capable of delaying filming until a cloud he liked came into view and once ordered the dismantling of an entire street set so it could be made a few feet wider.
Kristofferson went on be nominated for the Golden Raspberry award for worst actor in 1982, which seems a little unfair. Even the young Paul Newman would have struggled with the task of carrying a picture of such sprawling magnitude. The film consists of some highly detailed set pieces with what has been described as pretentious dialogue: a case perhaps of ambience over plot. It is one of those pictures worth watching to try and decide why it failed. Certainly it is hampered by the leisurely pace, which leaves the viewer frustrated, waiting for the next scene to come along and take the story forwards.
Typically it has in recent years undergone something of a revision and is now seen as the last epic Western. The New York Times reversed its earlier decision calling the director’s version a ‘modern masterpiece’ and the 1980 cut one of the ‘greatest injustices in cinema history’. Even with the new version expectations are not met: this picture drags. Kristofferson does his best, but the task seems overwhelming. Despite this he continued as a quiet and effective screen presence, who, as they used to say, looked good in the saddle. Kristofferson had the questionable distinction of working with two of the most idiosyncratic directors in the history of Hollywood.

Kris Kristofferson, 1978, credit Wikipedia
William Hartley is a social historian and film buff