Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

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Drucker
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974

#51 Post by Drucker » Thu Mar 02, 2017 12:01 am

This is my second time watching the film, and definitely first time giving it my true undivided attention. I've really loved all three Peckinpah films I've seen (this, Straw Dogs, Wild Bunch) and I'm really impressed with just how personal this film is. Before I saw this film, the impression I got was a rowdy, shoot-em-up film, driven by a passionate protagonist. This film helps to clarify, however, the inner demons haunting the protagonists in those other films. Bennie is a bit of a has been and a loser. The happiest he ever seems in the movie is right at the beginning, before revelations about an affair and a hunt for money take over the remaining time of his life. Very similarly to Dustin Hoffman's character in Straw Dogs, he's doing what he thinks he is supposed to be doing. Yet whereas that film, from what I remember, is at least partially a comment on marriage and the impossibilities of truly "starting over," this film feels more autobiographical.

I have to say, I hate to read films that way, but it feels apt here. What it feels like is a director who wants his protagonist to demand perfection on his behalf. He wants everything (full creative control) and $10k, or "most of the cut" is not good enough. I'm not an expert on Peckinpah, but he obviously felt he was victim of studio interference on many of his films. Here he demands perfection, he demands to do things his way, like the character in his film who will stop at nothing to get everything he is after...even if it costs him dearly in the end and throughout. And what makes the film better is that this isn't done through some macho protagonist, but done with a character who is clearly damaged. He wears a hard outer shell but inside he's got such a fragile ego.

Two things I noticed I would love some help discussing: it seems that all of the violence is happening away from the public. From the rape to the tour bus incident, to the final shoot-out, there is no big public dust-up in the film, but instead everything violent seems to happen tucked away from public places. Does this hint of secrecy have anything to do with Nixon? At the piano at the outset there is Nixon graffiti on the wall behind Bennie, and near the end when he goes into the hotel room, someone is reading a Time Magazine with Nixon and Impeach? written on the cover. Is it covered in the new deluxe edition's extras? What is the relationship of the movie to the politics of its era?

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ando
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974

#52 Post by ando » Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:42 pm

Frankly, I take the Nixon digs for what they are. The film reads more like an artistic allegory than a pointedly political one to me, anyway; particularly with regard to Peckinpah and his inimical relationship with Hollywood producers and executives. It's probably not necessary for the audience to have knowledge of Peckinpah's professional history but if you consider Peckinpah as Warren Oates' Benny it may make the character a more sympathetic figure and the overall narrative far more cathartic than receiving it with only the diagesis as information.

At my first viewing I thought, "What's this dude's problem" after he lost his "fiancé" and got immediate revenge in the murder of the Garcia clan - and the gay assassins that were after him. There was no indication that the go-betweens that actually hired him WOULD NOT give him the ten thousand for Garcia's head, was there? He had to go directly to El Jefe not only for a proper film closure and some kind of poetic closer to Garcia's life, but as an ultimate closure for Sam Peckinpah's career. My contention is that to properly understand all this you need some familiarity with Peckinpah as an artist and filmmaker otherwise Benny can come off as some kind of arch-delusional - and I don't believe Peckinpah intended that.
Last edited by ando on Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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knives
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974

#53 Post by knives » Fri Mar 03, 2017 7:54 pm

Which seems a reoccurring thing for late Peckinpah. Convoy also plays out as a pretty blatant author insert metaphor.

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ando
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974

#54 Post by ando » Fri Mar 03, 2017 8:00 pm

Yes, now that I think about it. In the case of Alfredo I think the initial critical reception was far less sympathetic with Peckinpah than, what, fourtysomething years after its release.

What is it about Mexico and disgruntled genius filmmakers - Eisenstein, Welles, Peckinpah, Buñuel... It seems to be a great place to work out demons of all sorts. (Not to mention Americans and The Mexican Reflex: Let"s Go To Mexico! Don't Let The Mexicans In! Let's Go To Mexico!...)

I must say, if there's anything that must be said, that the film is lifted to a level beyond "artistry" with the contribution of Isela Vega as Elita. An interviewer once remarked to James Baldwin that her impression of one of the writer's novels was that the price of love is the price of life. "Yes", Baldwin retorted, "but people don't seem to realize that!" What's amazing about Vega's Elita is that she sees it very clearly and is willing to give her life for Benny. She knows his obsession will require her ultimate sacrifice - and though she protests initially about going through with the entire head snatching business she relents. Her resignation is silent so that the audience - and Benny - are left to question the nature of her participation. It's in many ways a lot heavier a weight to carry than what Benny has to endure. And it's heartbreaking to watch.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974

#55 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:09 am

I just rewatched this for the first time in years, and more than anything, I was struck by how... touching it is, most of it- Benny is a man committed to a suicidal course, but his relationship with Elita is genuinely real and touching, even when Benny is trying halfassedly to rouse himself to jealousy or patriarchal furor. It takes a long time before the imagery I remembered, Warren Oates in a horrible, rumpled, dirty suit, driving into hell, ever shows up, but knowing it's coming gives a pall to the first two thirds- and even so, there are scenes like Elita's very real and very funny naked tumble out of bed that reflect something sweeter, less vicious, than anything else I can remember from Peckinpah.

Stephen Prince identifies Benny as a man we can't identify with, one who is driven only by money, and it's hard for me to agree- maybe it's just how much I like Oates as an actor, but he feels more like something out of a noir- he's broken down and falling apart, but both his commitment to self destruction and his revenant-like drive to destroy after he rises out of the grave have a relatable quality, to me at least. It's hard to see this as being as objectionable as Straw Dogs, which is hard to take even if you buy Prince's read- though Peckinpah can't resist a (near) rape scene here, Elina's motivation when she she goes to Kristofferson and begins kissing him seems to be pretty straightforward in attempting to protect herself and Bennie, and he allows, Elena, El Jefe's daughter, and her mother each a moment of well-deserved viciousness (Elena reacting to Bennie's intimidation of the hotel owner after the owner's cruel dismissal of her as a sex worker, the daughter's moment of revenge, and the mother's inward smile in seeing it) moves away from the duller, more traditional women-as-civilizing-elements that Peckinpah sometimes falls into, while also reflecting a rage on Peckinpah's part at the larger patriarchal world. I'm not sure how much I have to say about it, really, and that might be why the conversation dried up- but it's a movie that feels like it has some of the best of what Peckinpah does without the stomach churning questions about where he stands about the ugliness he shows.

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hearthesilence
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#56 Post by hearthesilence » Mon Apr 17, 2017 10:38 pm

U.S residents interested in Arrow's BD set should check out eBay - I picked up an open but "like new" condition copy for about $12 shipped, and I think there were a few others I could have snagged for close to the same price. (My guess is that it takes a sizable hit as a secondhand purchase in the U.S. due to the Region B encoding.)

The transfer is stunning. I posted about this elsewhere but I caught a 35mm screening at Lincoln Center (from the only good 35mm print they could find) and this BD actually looks BETTER. Grain's completely there but having been harvested from the OCN, it looks cleaner, and the colors really pop. (That print I saw definitely didn't look like this - it looked its age, from the faded colors down to the knicks and wear all over the print.) Honestly, you can't do better than this, so I can't recommend this enough, and I haven't even waded through the bonuses.

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Morbii
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#57 Post by Morbii » Tue Apr 18, 2017 2:03 am

amazon.co.uk price wasn't too bad, but certainly $12.00 shipped is cheaper (I paid about $20 shipped from amazon.co.uk).

I'm glad you revived this topic as I made me go and check how much I paid. I realized I'd pre-ordered the LE Phenomena set twice (one month apart)! You saved me like $35!

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hearthesilence
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#58 Post by hearthesilence » Tue Apr 18, 2017 10:43 am

Hah, I've actually done something like that before! Glad I helped!

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zedz
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#59 Post by zedz » Fri Jun 23, 2017 12:50 am

MichaelB wrote:Disc two of the Alfredo Garcia set is still being authored, but anyone mad enough to click on "play all" and watch the entire thing will currently get ten hours 43 minutes and 52 seconds of video.
That'd be me - though I'm not watching it all in one sitting!

And I have to say, the quality of the interviews, given that we're watching what was left on the cutting room floor, is absolutely superb. Everybody's got their own perspective on Peckinpah, and nobody so far (I'm about halfway through) has bitten their tongue about his less lovable tendencies (when Kristofferson is asked the standard question about Peckinpah's treatment of women in his movies he shoots back that we should be more concerned about Sam's treatment of women in real life). The format is succinct and sensible (brief contextualizing intro from Katherine Haber; intro title and Peckinpah filmography for subject; interview) and the SD footage looks very nice. It's a surprisingly enlightening and entertaining watch, with much less redundancy and waffling than I expected.

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Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#60 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jun 23, 2017 6:53 am

I've been at pains to correct people who use phrases like "raw footage", because this was all edited as well. Admittedly, I didn't cut much out, and certainly nothing of any substance, but I did want it to be halfway watchable.

See also the Tom Baker interview on Indicator's upcoming The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (I didn't edit this one myself, but I was involved with the disc). This was supposed to be a featurette running about 15 mins or so, in line with the Caroline Munro and Jane Seymour pieces elsewhere, but in the event Baker was so rivetingly mental that the editor was under strict instructions to lose as little as was humanly possible. The raw footage was 41 mins, the final edit 37 mins, and pretty much all that got cut was the interviewer's questions and some technical kerfuffle.

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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#61 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Fri Jun 23, 2017 7:06 am

I have RG Armstrong on a loop piped into every room 24/7

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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#62 Post by MichaelB » Fri Jun 23, 2017 7:07 am

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:I have RG Armstrong on a loop piped into every room 24/7
That one needed quite a bit of work on the sound. In the raw footage, the first time he really erupted I leaped out of my seat!

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DeprongMori
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#63 Post by DeprongMori » Fri Jul 03, 2020 7:56 pm

For those kicking themselves that they missed the Limited Edition of this one, RAREWAVES seems to have some copies in stock at $26.99.

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feihong
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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974

#64 Post by feihong » Sat Jul 04, 2020 5:49 pm

matrixschmatrix wrote:
Sat Mar 18, 2017 2:09 am
Stephen Prince identifies Benny as a man we can't identify with, one who is driven only by money, and it's hard for me to agree- maybe it's just how much I like Oates as an actor, but he feels more like something out of a noir- he's broken down and falling apart, but both his commitment to self destruction and his revenant-like drive to destroy after he rises out of the grave have a relatable quality, to me at least.
Picking up on this post three years after it was made, I think Benny is the Peckinpah protagonist we can most identify with. It's not really that he wants money. He wants what he thinks will come with the money––social respect, self-regard, a kind of uprightness and a sort of elevated sense of romance––with Elita or with someone else––that will vindicate his suffering as he's been slumming for so long. He disparages the wealthy people who flash their cash at him throughout the movie, but it's interesting to see that in reflection against them Benny is clearly a disappointed dreamer, who wearily hopes that money can solve all his problems.

When Elita dies I think Benny recognizes that her love for him––which he disparaged as part of his contempt for poverty––was real. But Benny is ultimately stuck with his diminished sense of self-worth, and so he can hardly admit the importance of her death. The line that moves me the most in this film is the one he says right before he starts shooting in El Jefe's mansion, when he says a lot of people died on the way to get this head: "...and one of 'em...was a friend of mine!" Oates grinds the line out, almost too embarrassed to admit it; even as the line stands, it means much more, and it isn't adequate to embody his feelings––so the gun speaks his grief from that point on. He's lost his chance at love, at dignity, at self-respect––and now he realizes he already had it all to begin with, with Elita––he'll never recapture it, and it's his own fault. His drive away from the compound is like Ferdinand's self-immolation at the end of Pierrot Le Fou; he has nowhere left to go, and he is already, in some small way, resigned to the fire. He is a far sadder character than any of the Wild Bunch, or the hypocrite Pat Garrett, or the old men of Ride the High Country, precisely because he hurts himself by wallowing in misery. There isn't anything wrong with Benny per se, save for what he thinks of himself and his situation. Elita's love and respect for him isn't anything but unconditional––Alfredo isn't really a rival for Benny, and Benny's obvious jealousy is pointless. It's his own self-doubt that leads him astray, compromises him morally and sets in motion the tragic events of the movie. He should have left Alfredo's head alone, but he can't help but try for his ideal, and in the process, he mortgages every last ounce of decency, until his last remaining ounce of it can only be spent on revenge. He's almost the only Peckinpah hero I really do identify with, though I like Pat Garrett, too. For some reason I like Rubber Duck, too, though he's hardly much of a character. But Benny wants and needs and seethes for justice in a way most Peckinpah characters would never own up to. Most of them don't seem to have this much pathos in them. With Benny it's clear that he feels hurt, and it's relatively clear how hurt he is. I think much of this is Oates being simply great, and better than any of the more famous stars of these movies at filling out his characters with raw, exposed humanity, but I also think that the story of the film is so much more fixated upon Benny's feelings, so it's much easier to find that humanity in him than it is in, say, Billy the Kid, or Rutger Hauer in The Ostermann Weekend, or Pike in The Wild Bunch. Getting old and being a bastard just isn't as identifiable for most of us as wanting and needing love and respect, never feeling like it is enough when it is there. Pike regrets very little about his past, whereas in the end of Alfredo Garcia, Benny's screw-up glares him in the face, dementing him to the point that he talks to a disembodied head in the later portion of the movie, trying to get the head to identify with him and understand his pain. One gets the sense that in the end, Benny would gladly go back in time and reject the Alfredo Garcia job, in order to have his "friend," Elita, alive again.

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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#65 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Jul 04, 2020 7:17 pm

Great reading, feihong, I couldn't agree more. While self-respect is clearly a steadfast need, I always see more of that inherent desire to be loved driving Benny. That ache is transcribed by social comparison and ideology, as most everyone's are, and translated into self-respect via individualistic action- a safer avenue in not relying on another person to fill one's emotional hole. So he follows a tangible lead that focuses on an iteration of the American Dream to find what appears to be missing. Oates' performance is so honest and desperate that he breathes authenticity. We know he was basing his perf on Sam Peckinpah, who under the guise of brashness had a vulnerable side of deep pain showing through the cracks. This is a portrait, a confession even, of male sensitivity - and its incongruous place in our society, which breeds a loneliness that does not discriminate across demographics to the point of sparing anyone.

It's no wonder Peckinpah felt this was his one pure film, as it's essentially a self-portrait of how he sees himself, and by extension mankind, in an unforgiving world. The emotional expression is exhaustive, transparently admitting even the experience of emasculation, as oppressed by the overbearing system and the weaknesses in the self. The fear that governs Peckinpah is unleashed without glamor, and his offering allows the audience to recognize the grimy truths that validate our fatigue, all affirmed by a courageously candid disclosure.

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Re: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

#66 Post by colinr0380 » Sun Jul 05, 2020 6:01 pm

We could also add the Dustin Hoffman character in Straw Dogs to feihong's excellent description of flawed Peckinpah protagonists who let violence speak for them at a certain point (although David Sumner is another of the more unsympathetic, hard to identify with Peckinpah figures, intellectualising to a fault and even then failing to grasp the situation correctly) even if the reasons for the violence are rather hollow by then because the worst has happened and can never be undone, or return to the way things once were. Although there the character never really understands (or more importantly cares to understand) his wife and ends up leaving her alone to drive off into the darkness perhaps never to return, as he cracks a smile that he has 'won' the battle on his own terms.

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