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MOVIE REVIEW

AMERICA-THE BEAUTIFUL?

THE WILD BUNCH (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O'Brien).
A Warner Brothers, Seven Arts production.

THERE IS no longer any doubt in my mind as to the meaning of "bourgeois capitalist decadence."  The reality of this phenomenon which that term describes explodes in every gun-blast, every fountain of blood, every warped ethic, every false show of heroism, every racist vision that combine to make up The Wild Bunch, a movie now packing them in at first-run theaters.  Remarkable, this film truly is-not for its refinement of the "Western" idiom, which it has not accomplished; not for its cinematography, which is outdone by several predecessors; not for its jazzy direction which is, at bottom, banal and derivative; not for its characterizations, which are phony and plagiaristic.  It is remarkable for its patent, unabashed celebration of all the foulness and depravity that make America a perennial bad trip.  It has cannonized, for our enjoyment and monstrous edification, the freak-out.  Speed can sing a smug swan song, we've got something better now, something respectable and artistic, something "beyond good and evil" (how desperately Westerners strive to go beyond good and evil), something that will make you come like a stallion and blow your natural mind.

Turn on.  The Mexicans (read niggers) grovel and bleat, play the savage and the fool, treat their women like expendable cupie dolls, die like mindless cockroaches.  So much for the Mexicans.  Move over ye legendary Greeks, make room for the latter-day Great White Heroes of the New Tragedy.  These are men.  They know that manhood is about making paid-for love with strung-out amoral Mexican chicks-two at a time if you're in the mood; and about sticking together through thick and thin, except when a non-white member of the club goofs up (with your foreknowledge and agreement)-him you sell out.  It's about blasting your wounded buddy into that great Shoot-Out-In-The-Sky to end his misery and, unsentimentally, leaving him to rot in the sun.  Most of all, it's about seeing your essence-indeed, your humanity-in the barrel of a gun, and doing the thing that you do best; about being unimaginative and unresourceful to find another gig even when the one you're in is bound to swallow you whole; it's about gassing Jews with brilliant efficiency and gracefully

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Transcription Notes:
---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-15 12:42:59