Editing Sam Peckinpah (section)

===''The Wild Bunch''===
{{main|The Wild Bunch}}
The surprising success of ''Noon Wine'' laid the groundwork for one of the most explosive comebacks in film history. In 1967, [[Warner Bros.-Seven Arts]] producers Kenneth Hyman and Phil Feldman were interested in having Peckinpah rewrite and direct an adventure film, ''The Diamond Story''. An alternative screenplay written by [[Roy N. Sickner]] and [[Walon Green]] was the Western ''The Wild Bunch''. At the time, [[William Goldman]]'s screenplay ''[[Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid]]'' had recently been purchased by [[20th Century Studios]].

It was quickly decided that ''The Wild Bunch'', which had several similarities to Goldman's work, would be produced in order to beat ''Butch Cassidy'' to the theaters.{{sfn|Weddle|pp=307–309}} By the fall of 1967, Peckinpah was rewriting the screenplay into what became ''The Wild Bunch''. Filmed on location in Mexico, Peckinpah's epic work was inspired by a number of forces—his hunger to return to films, the violence seen in [[Arthur Penn]]'s ''[[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|Bonnie and Clyde]]'', America's growing frustration with the [[Vietnam War]], and what he perceived to be the utter lack of reality seen in Westerns up to that time. He set out to make a film which portrayed not only the vicious violence of the period, but the crude men attempting to survive the era. During this period, Peckinpah said that his life was changed by seeing [[Carlos Saura]]'s ''[[La Caza]]'' (1966), which profoundly influenced his subsequent oeuvre.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-bfis-spain-un-censored-season-1 |title=The BFI's Spain (Un)censored Season |access-date=August 7, 2018 |journal=[[Time Out London]] |archive-date=August 7, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807220537/https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-bfis-spain-un-censored-season-1 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=http://www.marshakinder.com/pdf/e13.pdf |format=PDF |title=Violence and American Cinema |editor-last=Slocum |editor-first=John David |pages=64–100 |last=Kinder |first=Marsha |access-date=August 7, 2018 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oq_-6PFYQN0C |chapter=the Cultural Reinscription of The Wild Bunch |year=2001 |publisher=[[Psychology Press]] |isbn=9780415928106 |issn=2577-7610}}</ref>

The film detailed a gang of veteran outlaws on the Texas/Mexico border in 1913 trying to survive within a rapidly approaching modern world. ''The Wild Bunch'' is framed by two ferocious and infamous gunfights, beginning with a failed robbery of the railway company office and concluding with the outlaws battling the Mexican army in suicidal vengeance prompted by the brutal torture and murder of one of their members.{{sfn|Weddle|pp=310–31}}

Irreverent and unprecedented in its explicit detail, the 1969 film was an instant success. Multiple scenes attempted in ''Major Dundee'', including [[slow motion]] action sequences, characters leaving a village as if in a funeral procession and the use of inexperienced locals as extras, were perfected in ''The Wild Bunch''. Many critics denounced its violence as sadistic and exploitative. Other critics and filmmakers hailed the originality of its unique rapid [[film editing|editing]] style, created for the first time in this film and ultimately becoming a Peckinpah trademark, and praised the reworking of traditional Western themes. It was the beginning of Peckinpah's international fame, and he and his work remained controversial for the rest of his life.{{sfn|Weddle|pp=376–377}} The film was ranked [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies|No. 80]] on the [[American Film Institute]]'s top 100 list of the greatest American films ever made and [[AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills|No. 69]] as the most thrilling, but the controversy has not diminished.{{sfn|AFI|100}}

''The Wild Bunch'' was re-released for its 25th anniversary, and received an [[MPAA film rating system|NC-17]] rating from the [[MPAA]].{{sfn|Wild Bunch Trivia|IMDB}} Peckinpah received his only [[Academy Award]] nomination (for [[Best Original Screenplay]]) for this film.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1970 |title=The 42nd Academy Awards |date=April 7, 1970 |access-date=August 7, 2018 |work=[[Academy Awards]] |publisher=[[Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]]}}</ref>