SILVER

George Pelecanos Presents: Peckinpah in the ‘70s

George Pelecanos Presents: Sam Peckinpah in the '70s

January 31–April 13

Silver Spring-based author, producer and screenwriter George Pelecanos returns to present a new series dedicated to the ‘70s-era films of writer/director Sam Peckinpah (1925–1984), on the occasion of the American auteur’s centennial. Pelecanos will introduce select shows.

Peckinpah was a legendary filmmaker and is justly celebrated for his innovative, revisionist Westerns and stylized, boundary-pushing depictions of screen violence. But Peckinpah’s personal demons were all too real, and his career was marred by perennial battles with producers and studio executives, substance abuse issues and several productions that were wildly behind schedule and over budget. Peckinpah’s best work reveals him to be much more than the reductive “Bloody Sam” caricature some critics labeled him as. He was in fact a thoughtful essayist on the history of the American West, exploring evolving ways of life in the face of the corrupting effects of greed and capitalism. Violence is undeniably a mainstay in Peckinpah’s oeuvre, both as a kinetic spectacle and a psychological gauntlet, and his films remain potent in their ability to shock. But for all the nihilism and violence woven through many of Peckinpah’s western, war and crime movies, a defiant romanticism still shines through.