BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA

US, 1974, 112 minutes, Colour.
Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Gig Young, Robert Webber, Helmut Dantine, Kris Kristofferson.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a Sam Peckinpah film. In many ways, during the seventies Peckinpah's films moved away from popular tastes. The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Getaway were for large audiences. But other films like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Killer Elite were for smaller audiences. Cross of Iron (1977) was an attempt to appeal to wide audience as well as to those interested in Peckinpah films. This one is a specialist exploration of a world of brutality, lust for money and power and arbitrary death. Indeed it is excellent Peckinpah, very well constructed and photographed. It takes leisurely time in building up strong characterisation of its "hero", Ben (Warren Oates) and his relationship to Elita, his ruthless clutching at a chance of escaping from a seedy existence and his relentless taking on a world of power and violence. There is a wealth of theme, detail and power in a film of very limited popular appeal.

1. How would this film best be described? Thriller? Black ironic comment on the twentieth century?

2. The contribution of the colour. light and darkness, Mexican country backgrounds, the contrast with the Mexican cities, America? The music of the commentary, songs? How well did the film create atmosphere, sustain it, have the atmosphere influence the themes and their communication?

3. The significance and emphasis of the title? As spoken, to whom, motivations? The literal interpretation? The indication of themes?

4. The style of the director, Sam Peckinpah? The initial tableau? The portraits of society? The presentation of a hero, non-hero? A world of crime, violence, these as a basis and governing force for a society?

5. The light and darkness of the opening? Mexico and its moral and religious background: sexuality, honour, violence, vengeance? The young girl moving from light to darkness and inquisition? What kind of world was this? A world of torture? Blackness in the name of religion?

6. The contrast with the bought men: Quill and Sappensly? What kind of men were they, their individual characteristics, their capacity for violence, their greed, their lying and treachery? As representatives of modern men? Their relationship with Benny? Their greed and their saving him? Their treachery and their deaths? Comment on these two men as modern criminals?

7. The contrast with Benny as hero? What kind of man was he? Strengths and weaknesses of character, a greedy man, a weak man, a loser? His acceptance of the commission and his motivation for it? His involvement with the people concerned? How much of a loser was he? was he born to be destroyed? His ordinariness, his violence and tenderness? His relationship with Elita? And the parallel with Alfredo Garcia and his relationship to Elita? Comment on the lyrical aspects of his relationship with Elita, the tenderness, the prettiness? The contrast with the darkness, the violence, rape and murder? An atmosphere of killing? Where was Benny most at home? His involvement in his task, his investigations, the reliance on Elita? The encounter with the bikies and the killing and confrontation? The ambush and its ugliness? The importance of his burial with the corpse and with Elita? How did he become a victor with the head of Alfredo Garcia? His becoming a victim by the men in pursuit of Alfredo Garcia and the money? His status and stance when he finally confronts the authorities with the head? His almost rejection of the money and its significance? The utter futility and inevitability of his death? Its violence? How well did Benny represent modern futile man?

8. The visual portrayal of the head, its literal emphasis, in the bag, the car seat, the flies and the heat, the ice? Audience response to this? What was the head a symbol of? Power and authority, vengeance, achievement. violence, etc.?

9. The character of Elita as a woman, as a whore? Her relationship with Alfredo Garcia? Her relationship with Benny, the songs and the tenderness? The contrast with the atmosphere of fear during the journey? The intrusion of the bikies. the rape and her provocation? The fact that Benny was her saviour? The violence of her death and burial? A symbolic woman? The contrast with Theresa and her relationship with Alfredo Garcia. Theresa's violence and her wanting her father killed?

10. The film's portrayal of the big city syndicates, the types involved there, the impersonal and businesslike violence?

11. The portrayal of the Jefe? His authority in Mexico. his role over his family, his ambiguous violence and tenderness? Theresa's attitude towards him? His death?

12. The impact of Benny's death? Its motivation? Purpose?

13. The thematic vision of Peckinpah in portraying this black story? How entertaining? How significant? The ironies?

14. The purpose of the whole plot. a sense of mission, gaining meaning for life in accomplishing a mission. in relationships? The need for goals?

15. This story as portrayed in the landscapes of country and city?

16. Comment on the attention to detail of the landscapes: the Mexican house. its visual presentation, the rocks and the desert, the village with the fairground and the brass band and the child's funeral, the graveyards with the cactus, the church and the ancient aspects of religion, and the skyscrapers of the cities? How symbolic?

17. How valuable is this kind of film for exploring the modern world?