[quote=“Richard–W, post:16, topic:2760”]On the contrary, I have done exactly that, but you give no valuable argument why your personal view is more reasonable than mine.
Yes. It is impossible to accept.
I hesitate to explain why because I’m afraid you’ll misconstrue and have hurt feelings.
A Sam Peckinpah western is something unique and special, and truly alone.
Peckinpah has no peers when it comes to the western. The more westerns I see, and the more I learn about the west in a lifetime of study, the more impressive Peckinpah’s westerns become. A Sam Peckinpah western is the American west. It has details and layers and dimensions most filmmakers don’t have within themselves to express.
I share your admiration for Ford, Leone, Fellini, Chaplin and Tati.
They are certainly in company with Sam Peckinpah.
Richard[/quote]
I don’t think this makes any sense
If you cannot accept any opinion other than your own, like you say, why discuss in the first place?
“Tricky, aren’t you?” to paraphrase Henry Fonda to Brain Donlevy in Jesse James (1939).
So you’re talking about opinions now, and not absolutes?
I thought we were discussing.
I’ve read a good many of your posts here in the backfiles and appreciate everything that you have contributed.
I accept other people’s opinions all the time, but I reject the idea that Sam Peckinpah is a “limited director” because I know better.
[quote=“Richard–W, post:18, topic:2760”]“Tricky, aren’t you?” to paraphrase Henry Fonda to Brain Donlevy in Jesse James (1939).
So you’re talking about opinions now, and not absolutes?
I thought we were discussing.
I’ve read a good many of your posts here in the backfiles and appreciate everything that you have contributed.
I accept other people’s opinions all the time, but I reject the idea that Sam Peckinpah is a “limited director” because I know better.
Richard[/quote]
We’re inevitably talking about opinions here, there are no absolutes in art. The point is that you still seem to think otherwise when you say you know better.
How would you know? I’d like to hear some good arguments. You keep saying things like ‘Peckinpah is the West’. That’s still the authenticity argument, and like I said in my first post: I thought we were passed this.
[quote=“scherpschutter, post:20, topic:2760”]We’re inevitably talking about opinions here, there are no absolutes in art. The point is that you still seem to think otherwise when you say you know better.
How would you know? I’d like to hear some good arguments. You keep saying things like ‘Peckinpah is the West’. That’s still the authenticity argument, and like I said in my first post: I thought we were passed this.[/quote]
I know otherwise, and I know better.
I suggest you go back and re-read my post in its entirety instead of taking one sentence out of context.
Of course there are absolutes in art, if you are the artist.
An artist is what he is; but few western directors in the USA considered themselves artists.
As for “the authenticity argument,” obviously, you are the one who is not "past it."
Sounds like you are using “the authenticity argument” to cut Peckinpah out, to belittle him, to render a value judgment that his westerns are not as good or not as legitimate as spaghetti westerns. It that’s what you are doing, it’s rubbish.
Richard I’m with you about Peckinpah being as important for the western genre as Ford and Leone. And also being in the same league artistically as those 2. And I set these 3 directors above the other important western directors (Hawks, Mann, Daves, Boetticher, Sturges, Corbucci). Peckinpah made not as much westerns as Ford, but Leone also didn’t, but he made just like these a milestone film which influenced the genre for many years (Stagecoach, Ride the High Country, Fistful of dollars). And he made with The Wild Bunch one of the great masterpieces of the genre which stands artistically above the rest, and is the same level as OuTW. (I personally think that Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is another similar masterpiece, but it is not as accepted by the majority)
Peckinpah’s talent was a bit diminished in later years by his excessive lifestyle and his unwillingness to make compromises. But still you see even in his weaker films that he still was a gifted director.
But Ford made also a lot of weak and forgettable films in his long career, and Leone wasted his talent after OuTW by doing only a few more films.
In the end every great director has also his limitations, he has a certain gift for a certain kind of film, and if he is clever and assertive enough he does this kind of film, develops it and if he is really good than he is able to bring it to perfection. But most fail if they try to do something very different from the things they are good in.
But Richard I’m not with you in your way of reasoning. There are no absolutes in art (neither in anything else) and what you say is an opinion, just like Scherps, just like mine, just like from one of these Criterion fellows.
We can share our opinions, and that’s why a forum can be fun.
McCabe & Mrs Miller at number one … won’t please many people here, I suppose
I always thought it was more interesting than fascinating (let alone entertaining)
Remarkably that Eastwood (as director) scores much higher here than at Criterion
Some of the choices are strange in this more revisionist orientated list. Decision at Sundown is an interesting and underrated western, but a top 10 film? Never
And Requiescant as the only non Sergio SW? Hmm …
The Criterion list was only made by 16 members, still it shows a trend.
But Fassbinder’s Whity or Buck and the Preacher are also odd choices.
Gave a quick look at the Time Out list and as a major Leone fanboy, I’m disappointed to see that only two of his films made the list and where they rank (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly before OUATW by a fairly large margin and Once Upon a Time in the West at 26 while Django is at 25?). Also, never understood the appeal of Blazing Saddles.
GB&U and OUATITW at number 10 and 26 respectively are inexcusable. Requiscant higher than Great Silence is just Weird…I wonder how many of the people voting for that poll actually saw it (or many SWs other than the Leone ones for that matter) Josey Wales and Dead Man in the top 10 are a joke.
To me Blazing Saddles may be an all time top 10 comedy
It has more voters than any other list, so it’s probably the most representative list of them all
It’s often said that the IMDB lists are dominated by the preferences of young voters, but with films like The Wind, The Gold Rush, The Ox-Bow Incident and The treasure of the Sierra Madre in the top of the list, you wouldn’t say that is the case here.
It has more voters than any other list, so it’s probably the most representative list of them all
It’s often said that the IMDB lists are dominated by the preferences of young voters, but with films like The Wind, The Gold Rush, The Ox-Bow Incident and The treasure of the Sierra Madre in the top of the list, you wouldn’t say that is the case here.[/quote]
Agreed the western TOP 50 at IMDB is reasonable, but as I indicated the same is hardly the case with their top 250 all time greatest film list.
Personally there are only about 5 films in the top 50 of it I would have in my own top 50.
