Movie – Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

We meet Pat and Billy at the beginning of the film. They’re old friends and partners.  Outlaws.  But times are changing fast and things aren’t what they used to be.  They talk about old times.  Pat then tells Billy that he’s working for the law now.  Newly elected sheriff.  He tells Billy he has five days to get out or he’s coming for him.  Five days later, true to his word, Billy is caught and brought in to hang.  Billy escapes, killing a couple of men in the process.  Pat reluctantly goes after him.  Along the way we follow both men as they run into old friends, acquaintances on their game of catch  and elude.  We see how everyone feels about Billy and Pat.  Pat’s conscience is already bothering him about working for the cattle people and chasing his old friend.  The chase doesn’t help that frame of mind.  Billy makes it to Mexico but decides to come back and let things play out with Pat.

CB wasn’t only getting a western but he was getting a Sam Peckinpah western.  Off kilter, messy, violent, indulgent , raw, rough and beautiful.  Sam doesn’t pretty his films up.  This one holds to that style.  He takes a legendary old west story and puts his spin on it.  His cinematographer, John Coquillon captures this world in all it’s rough beauty.  Sam also casts every great character actor he could get and had worked with before.  There is a sense that all the characters in the film have a history with each other.  This comes across and CB liked that touch.  The leads are good casting.  Kris Kristofferson brings a low key, subtle presence to Billy.  He just kind of accepts the way he is and the way things are.  Why change.  James Coburn as Pat Garrett pulls off a great performance of a man torn between old friendships and loyalties and the changes that are coming in his world.  Progress.  There wasn’t much difference between the law and outlaws in those days and Coburn nails it.

There are so many great scenes ( CB did an earlier take on one of them. “Repent you SOB’).  Some seem to pop up out of nowhere but that’s Sam’s style.  One of the best and just a great piece of film making is when Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado play out a scene with Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heavens Door’ providing the soundtrack.  Peckinpah at his best.  Worth the price of admission.  A scene where Garrett is camped by the side of a river and exchanges gun fire with a passing raft floating by.  Casual as hell and another Sam touch.  There are beautiful and rough images alike that stick with you.  Another great choice is Bob Dylan’s soundtrack.  It fits perfectly.  Bob even has a role.

So if you like your film making a little rough, dirty and raw the way CB thinks a western should be, catch ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’.