Swartacus’s review published on Letterboxd:
Stayed up late watching this last night...still thinking about it on the drive to work today.
Such a haunting piece of work from Peckinpah. I read someone's LB review where it said this film is essentially about an old man who tracks down and kills his younger self.
It's so interesting to see how America goes through these cyclical "cleansing" periods where the old tries to stifle the young out of some animalistic protection impulse. We are all outlaws in some sense when we are young and we give up tiny pieces of ourselves as we mature ...until we slowly turn into versions of our parents. We become the sheriffs of our time and we all react in different ways to that responsibility.
This film came out in 1973 ...the time of Vietnam, Watergate, etc. It's amusing to see how these themes play out in this movie as Jim Coburn plays the black hat Nixon trying to snuff out the younger free-spirited Kris Kristofferson...who is a dead ringer for Jim Morrison or some other anti establishment character. Then we have Bob Dylan (who created one of the most beautiful film scores of all time for this) ...the former voice of that generation essentially playing a nameless goof who takes turns mocking and joining in like some ridiculous court jester.
What kind of art, film or music will 2016 inspire? I think we are back in one of those "cleansing" periods. What we need to keep in mind is no matter which side of the coin we are in this particular moment...we will all end up in the same place in the end. 🇺🇸