STACK #186 Apr 2020

EXTRAS FEATURE

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“The Battleof BloodyPorch“ from SamPeckinpah‘s TheWild Bunch (1969)

interjected a stalemate that the cast would describe as “pre-empting Judgement Day“. With guns drawn, the bunch await a violent reprisal. But Mapache‘s troops, now leaderless, are frozen in shock at what has just happened. The bunch smile knowingly at one another, Bishop then turns and shoots Mapache‘s German military advisor with a single shot. All hell breaks loose after that. The five-minute battle scene took eleven days to shoot. Peckinpah used five cameras operating at variable frame rates from 24 to120 Peckinpah sets his cameras up to shoot “The Battle of Bloody Porch“

frames per second. When cut and edited together the action consistently shifts from normal speed to slow-motion and back again, capturing a choreography of carnage that relentlessly assaults the senses of the audience. The battle was extremely complex to shoot owing to its violent action and a continuous demand for a large number of extras. Peckinpah relied heavily upon his special effects team and his head of wardrobe, Gordon Dawson. Dawson would later state, “We had only a specified amount of Mexican army uniforms and when you take into account the total number of takes - we must have “killed“ over 5,000 people. To compensate, I had to set up a goddamn assembly line to keep up with the filming“. As the extras were quickly “shot“ or “blown up“, their uniforms were stripped off them, the fake blood washed off and dried with electric heaters,“bullet“ holes were swiftly sewn up and re-fitted with blood squibs then put back on the next group of extras to continue the scene. Furthermore, it has been estimated that Peckinpah‘s production discharged more blank rounds of ammunition than live rounds were fired during the whole

S am Peckinpah‘s The shootout scenes that open and close his violent western. Even before filming began, he told his cast and crew that he intended to bury Arthur Penn‘s blood-splattered finale to Bonnie and Clyde (1967) with a more graphic portrayal of gun violence. With his cameras, Peckinpah sought to portray the primitive violence and abject horror of a real shootout. The initial scenes of members of the eponymous bunch disguised as cavalry soldiers who, after robbing a bank in the South Texas town of Starbuck, are ambushed and have to blast their way out of town, were the first to be filmed. Peckinpah realised that opening his film with such audacious and savage scenes of innocent townsfolk trampled Wild Bunch is renowned for the two explosive

Peckinpah‘s “walk thing“ with actors Ben Johnson;Warren Oates; William Holden; Ernest Borgnine

FACT: Peckinpah was

horrified to learn that Warner Bros. sound department gunshot effects were the same they had used since Errol Flynn made Dodge City in 1939. Every rifle and six-gun shot sounded exactly the same. Subsequently, he ordered new gunshots be recorded so that each of the guns he used in the production had its own individual sound.

All hell breaks loose

every weapon they carry, whilst one of them gives out a nervous pre-battle chuckle. Filmed with all the dramatic flair of the archetypal Western showdown, they walk four abreast with a determined and reckless purpose toward the central plaza where Mapache and his army are congregated. Following the deaths of Angel and Mapache, Peckinpah decided

under horses‘ hooves and mown down in the murderous crossfire would show moviegoers a West never seen before on a cinema screen. The opening and closing scenes of The Wild Bunch would change movies forever. For the second and climactic shootout, Peckinpah‘s script consisted of just three lines. It called for a brutal fight to begin with General Mapache‘s killing of bunch member, Angel - swiftly followed by the bunch‘s leader, Pike Bishop, shooting Mapache in retribution. The battle would then rage until the bunch and most of Mapache‘s 200 Mexican soldiers have been killed. As the crew began to set up the Agua Verde location for the final shootout, Peckinpah said, “Wait, I want to do a walk thing first“. This scene begins with the four remaining members of the bunch arming themselves with

to make yet another key change. Instead of an immediate uninterrupted bloodbath, he

Mexican Revolution, around which the film is loosely based.

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18 APRIL 2020

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