Sam Peckinpah – 1925-1984

Born David Samuel Peckinpah in Fresno, California, Peckinpah directed his first great western, Ride the High Country, in 1962. A literate take on the popular western film genre, the film featured characters in search of fortune or redemption of honor, playing out their violent stories against the backdrop of the majestic American West. These themes were developed with even greater complexity in Peckinpah’s masterpiece, The Wild Bunch (1969), which also featured intricately choreographed, beautifully filmed, and masterfully edited sequences of intense yet poetic violence—for which the director was both praised and condemned.