CINEMATINEE, MAY 2008
A potpourri of movies, past and present, often with an emphasis on life in the west- which could mean the new west, the old west, or anything in between-the CineMatinee series is designed to show area residents that film is a form of art as well as entertainment! At least one film a month for this series has a ‘New Mexico Connection’, drawing from the vast pool of movies made in the state or perhaps featuring a star/story from New Mexico talent.
Unless otherwise noted, screening time is 1.30 PM, and admission is $4 for everyone except film society members who are admitted for $1. The theatre is located one half block of the Mesilla Plaza. For more information, please call (575) 524-8287 or 522-0286.
May 10- Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973, 122 minutes-director’s cut, rated R & featuring live music by James Michael before the screening, beginning at approximately 1 PM) Mr. Garrett was killed 100 years ago this year, and to denote that very historic local event, we offer a special screening of this film, directed by Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch, Ballad of Cable Hogue).
A former friend betrays a legendary outlaw in Peckinpah's final Western. Holed up in Fort Sumner with his gang between cattle rustlings, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) ignores the advice of comrade-turned-lawman Pat Garrett (James Coburn) to escape to Mexico, and he winds up in jail in Lincoln, New Mexico.
After Billy theatrically escapes, inspiring enigmatic Lincoln resident Alias (Bob Dylan) to join him, the governor and cattle baron John Chisum requisition Garrett to form a posse and hunt him down. Rather than flee to Mexico when he can, Billy heads back to Fort Sumner, meeting his final destiny at the hands of his friend Pat, who, two decades later, is forced to face the consequences of his own Faustian pact with progress.
With a script by Rudolph Wurlitzer, Peckinpah uses the historical basis of Billy's death to eulogize the West dreamily yet violently, as it is desecrated by corrupt capitalists. Both Pat and Billy know that their time is passing, as surely as Garrett's posse knows that they are participating in a legend. Using familiar Western players like Jack Elam, L Q Jones, Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado, Peckinpah underscores the West's existence as a media myth, and he even appears himself as a coffin maker.
Just as Peckinpah's earlier The Wild Bunch (1969) invoked the Vietnam War, the casting of Kristofferson and Dylan alluded to the chaotic late '60s/early '70s present. Also like The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett was truncated by its studio; the cuts did nothing to help its box office. Key scenes, particularly the framing story of Garrett's fate, have since been restored to this pristine DVD version. In this director's cut, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid stands as one of Peckinpah's most beautiful and complex films, killing the Western myth even as he salutes it.
