Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

QFS No. 170 - The invitation for March 19, 2025
Personally, I love Westerns and could’ve picked any number of them this week for our 170th (!) film. But I was recently given a Criterion Blu-Ray of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid as a gift and, consarnit, I’m going to watch it.

Sam Peckinpah is one of those filmmakers who’s beloved by a lot of people – especially filmmakers – and was known primarily for the Western genre, first as a writer then director. The Wild Bunch (1969) remains a classic (and violent) reinvention of the Western and a favorite of many. Straw Dogs (1971), The Getaway (1972), Convoy (1978), Cross of Iron (1977) are all revered in their own ways and I challenge you to find a better title than Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

This is our first Peckinpah selection and I’m excited to watch our first Western in three years (!) since The Power of the Dog (2021, QFS No. 68), and that might not be even considered a Western. We might have a few more in 2025 to balance out the scales.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Reactions and Analyses:
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) feels oddly recognizable, familiar. The criminals are now the authority, running the government and enforcing the laws. Not too long ago, they were outlaws, pariahs, deemed a menace to society. And the lawman now enlisted to bring down the most notorious lawbreaker was once his friend and partner-in-crime.

This blurring of the line between who is good, who is the one we trust and who is evil and how close they are together lie at the heart of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. Sam Peckinpah, often concerned with nihilistic violence, explores something even deeper here, something about the nature of friendship, regret, and poking in holes in the traditional good-versus-evil dynamic in the Westerns of old.

The use of “something” here is deliberate, because it feels as if Peckinpah is circling a thesis but never quite lands on it. Pat Garrett (James Coburn) as the lawman, is nominally the protagonist. But his actions are not at all laudable for much of the film. He shoots first then ask questions later, gunning down Bowdre (Charlie Martin Smith) in cold blood at a distance as they ambush Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) and ultimately capture him for hanging. Later, Garrett physically abuses women, sleeping with several prostitutes at once while he’s supposedly diligently attempting to find Billy. And he’s the “good guy” in this Western.

Billy, on the other hand is affable and clearly beloved by his crew. Though he’s not all that noble himself – he shot people in the back throughout his notorious career and also in this film – he has a more devil-may-care code of ethics. If there was a party, you’d much rather invite Billy than Pat.

One of the members of our QFS discussion group suggested the dynamic between Billy and Pat represents something of the early 1970s and the Baby Boomer generation. By the 1970s, the decade of free love, free spirited hippiedom was in decline and it was time for those kids to “grow up” and become part of the establishment.

Pat Garrett here has done that. His days as a criminal are over and he even says, “It's a job. Comes an age in a man's life when he don't wanna spend time figuring what comes next.” It’s time to become an adult – but even adults can retain the unsavory elements of the past.

And while this is the backdrop, Peckinpah also explores celebrity and notoriety. After Garrett has finally tracked down Billy to Fort Sumner and plans to shoot him at night, Garrett finds Billy in bed with his lady friend and simply waits in the night air. Garrett appears to be allowing Billy one final night of joy before he ends his life. Or perhaps Garrett feels guilt for killing someone who he once treated like a son. Billy steps out of his bungalow into the night air for a moment on the other side from where Garrett awaits, and it’s Deputy John Poe (John Beck) who suddenly has a chance to shoot him. But upon seeing the legendary Billy the Kid before him, the deputy cannot pull the trigger. He is in too much awe, blinded by Billy’s fame to pull the trigger.

It’s no surprise that Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) comes out at this same time. In it, Kit (Martin Sheen) becomes a celebrity outlaw after going on a shooting rampage with Holly (Sissy Spacek) in tow. When the state police finally catch him, they show more admiration of him than fear, impressed with a man romanticized in the newspapers. Bonnie and Clyde (1967), a few years earlier, famously explores this dynamic and became the blueprint that filmmakers continue to follow even now.

Celebrity outlaws are not uniquely American, but they are very much a part of the Old West and the portrayal of that time through the Western genre. Though not a Western technically, Badlands showcases much of the traits and features of the classic American genre. Both Malick and Peckinpah don’t say on the screen that criminal celebrity worship is a good thing. If anything, both are criticizing how much we laud the criminal, value fame above morality. And that nothing is as clear cut as good from evil.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is an imperfect film, circling ideas but not exactly landing on them. Just look at the editorial and release history of the movie and you can see why. The fabled drunken master Peckinpah battling with the studio over the cut, only years later to reclaim the cut, and only years after his death to have missing scenes – including the scene with Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” – restored at the insistence of Kristofferson, to yield the version we see now, more than 50 years later.

Speaking of Dylan, his soundtrack is perhaps what sets this film apart and makes it required viewing despite its imperfections. Dylan’s classic folk music lends itself perfectly for the film – a somber, reflective undertone for a movie that’s more meditative than action. The above- mentioned scene with “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” is the most effective moment in the film. Sheriff Cullen Baker (Slim Pickens) and Mrs. Baker (Katy Jurado) join Garrett in trying to question Billy the Kid’s old partner Black Harris (L.Q. Jones), before Baker is shot in the stomach. He slowly dies and his wife sits with him, tear-streaked, as they watch the sunset and the painted sky, Dylan’s music playing us to the end of the old cowboy’s life. The scene strikes at the heart perfectly, an unexpected mature death scene for a Peckinpah film.

How does it feel, Billy asks Garrett in one of the first scenes of the film – right after Billy’s been obliterating chickens for fun near the opening of the film.

Garrett’s answer, It feels like … times have changed.

Times maybe, but not me, Billy says.

This, perhaps, is as close as Peckinpah gets to a thesis, a central idea. What’s like to sell out, to betray yourself and those around you? Well it’s not that simple – things change and you have to change with it. But that growth can come at a cost. It’s no mistake that the mirror shatters when Garrett finally shoots and kills Billy, his own image of himself destroyed and fractured. The price of selling out is your own soul.