Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Infobox Film | name =Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
caption =Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia movie poster


director = Sam Peckinpah
producer = Martin Baum
writer =
starring =Warren Oates
Isela Vega
Robert Webber
Gig Young
Helmut Dantine
cinematography =
music =
editing =
distributor = United Artists
released = August 14, 1974 U.S. release
runtime = 112 min
language = English
budget = $1,500,000 (estimated)
imdb_id = 0071249

"Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" ("Tráiganme la cabeza de Alfredo García") (1974) is a film directed by Sam Peckinpah and featuring Warren Oates, made in Mexico on low budget after the commercial failure of "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973). Peckinpah claimed that, of all his films, "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García", his most personal, was the only one released as he had intended, including having Bennie, a gringo pianist, live the full, low life in a Mexican brothel. Bennie stakes everything on the bounty, set by a Mexican cacique, on the head of Alfredo García (who dishonoured the family by seducing and abandoning his daughter).

On its release in 1974, "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García" was universally disapproved by viewers and critics, and failed at the box office. Moreover, in the interregnum, the film has accreted a contemporary cult, maintaining a 77 per-cent-fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, with an 82 per cent-fresh user-rating. [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bring_me_the_head_of_alfredo_garcia/reviews_users.php Alfredo Garcia at Rotten Tomatoes] ] Some film critics (including Michael Medved) argue that "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García" is a "worst-film-ever-made," while others (among them Roger Ebert) consider it a "greatest-film-of-all-time." cite web |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19740801/REVIEWS/401010307/1023 |title=Review of "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" |accessdate=2007-03-12 |author=Ebert, Roger |authorlink= |coauthors= |date=1974-08-01 |year= |month= |format= |work= |publisher=Chicago Sun-Times |pages= |language= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= ]

The dark humor and satirical interpretation of the cinematic clichés of the seventies' road-movie and of the buddy film (Bennie drives around Mexico talking to a severed head; a pair of homosexual hitmen in business suits travel the rural Mexican badlands in a suburban station wagon) identify "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García" as an anticipatory film of the surreal, violent, black humour of directors David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. "Bennie" was Warren Oates's interpretation of Peckinpah, donning the director's clothes and sunglasses for the part. Moreover, co-writer Gordon Dawson admitted basing "Bennie" on Peckinpah. "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo García" is a running joke on the BBC Radio 4 programme "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", and a pun on its name will invariably be given by Graeme Garden during a themed film club round.

Plot

Theresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of the cacique El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez) is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she admits that the father is Alfredo Garcia, a lothario whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe announces that he will offer a $1 million reward to whomever brings him Garcia's severed head. News of the bounty spreads quickly, and, in addition to El Jefe's own henchmen, dozens of freelance bounty hunters, bandits and gangsters set about scouring Mexico and the United States border for Garcia.

The search progresses for two months, with no sign of Garcia. In Tijuana, two of El Jefe's personal henchmen, a pair of business-suit clad gay hitmen, Sappensly (Robert Webber) and Quill (Gig Young), encounter Bennie (Warren Oates), a retired United States Army officer who makes a meager living as a piano player and bar manager. The two men ask Bennie about Garcia, believing that they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow American. Bennie demurs, saying that the name is familiar but that he doesn't know who Garcia is. After the men leave, the audience learns that, in fact, everyone in Bennie's bar, including Bennie, knows who Garcia is, they simply don't know where he is. After closing down his bar, Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita (Isela Vega), who earns her living working as a prostitute at a bordello near Bennie's bar. After a confrontation, Elita admits to having cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses to do. When Bennie asks where Garcia is, Elita informs him that Garcia died in a drunk driving accident the previous week.

Excited by the possibility of making money by technically not having to do anything terribly wrong (Bennie sees nothing particularly immoral with desecrating a grave, as its occupant is already dead), Bennie finds Sappensly and Quill, who have set up an "office" in a nearby hotel along with other businessmen who comprise the legitimate "face" of El Jefe's criminal endeavors. Max (Helmut Dantine), Garcia's right-hand-man, agrees to give Bennie $10,000 for Garcia's head, and gives him a few hundred dollars to pay for expenses.

Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave, claiming initially that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to his relationship with Elita. En route, the two work out their personal issues, and Bennie proposes to Elita, promising that their future will soon be changing, and that he can stop working in a bar and she can retire from prostitution. Elita is cautious, and warns Bennie against trying to upset their status quo, nevertheless offering to leave the bordello and try to get work in local commercials if he'll agree to give up whatever he is planning and return to Tijuana. Bennie refuses, insisting that the money he plans on collecting into will change everything.

One night on the road, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers (including Kris Kristofferson), who pull guns on them and announce their intentions to rape Elita. Bennie, who has never killed anyone before and has never been faced with such a situation, is unsure how to react. Elita, assuring Bennie that she will see them through it, offers to willingly have sex with the bikers if they will spare Bennie's life. The bikers seem to initially agree, and one of them takes Elita into a nearby field, where he strips her naked but then demurs. Elita approaches the biker and begs him, "Please don't" before beginning to have sex with him.

Meanwhile, Bennie tries to psych out the other biker while at the same time trying to build up his own nerve to kill, a tactic which succeeds in allowing Bennie to get his hands on an iron skillet and knock the biker unconscious. He steals the biker's gun and enters the field where the first biker is having sex with Elita. Bennie shoots the biker to death, then waits for the other biker to wake up and kills him, too. Afterwards, Bennie tells Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and effectively sell it for money. Elita is disgusted and, still shaken from the attack by the bikers, begs Bennie to give up his quest and return with her to Tijuana, where they can be married and live a life of relative peace. Bennie again refuses, but does agree to marry Elita in the church of the town where Garcia is buried.

Bennie and Elita find Garcia's grave, which Bennie promptly sets about exhuming. As soon as Bennie opens the coffin, he and Elita are ambushed by two bounty hunters, who beat Bennie unconscious, decapitate Garcia, and bury Bennie and Elita alive in Garcia's grave. Bennie wakes up in time to dig his way out, but Elita dies in the process. Bennie suffers a nervous breakdown and swears vengeance; he takes some townspeople hostage and forces them to give him information about people who have recently left town, and learns that the bounty hunters are driving a station wagon. Bennie sets off in pursuit, catching up to the men after they blow out one of the tires on their car. Bennie fatally shoots one but only mortally wounds the other; hovering over the wounded man, Bennie explains that he is killing them not for Garcia's head, but "because it feels so damn good," and then blows the man's brains out. Bennie searches the men's car and claims Garcia's head, which he takes to a nearby gas station to pack in ice for the journey back home. Suffering delusions following Elita's death, Bennie begins addressing the head as if Garcia were still alive, first blaming it for Elita's death and then conceding that they both probably loved her equally.

Bennie almost makes it back to Tijuana when he is ambushed by a posse composed of members of Garcia's family and the townspeople he took hostage. Garcia's family re-claims the head and are about to kill Bennie when Sappensly and Quill arrive. Quill produces a sub-machine gun and murders most of Garcia's family and the posse, but is fatally shot by one of the townspeople, who himself is killed in the ensuing carnage. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at his lover's corpse, Bennie crassly asks, "Do I still get paid?" to which the heartbroken Sappensly replies by pulling out a gun and trying to kill Bennie. Bennie shoots him to death, takes Garcia's head, and returns to his apartment in Tijuana, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while about the consequences of their actions.

At his apartment, Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower, and then takes it to Quill and Sappensly's apartment to speak with their remaining business associates. Garcia initially agrees to give the head over for $10,000, but then relents, revealing that he no longer motivated by money; rather, he blames Elita's death on whoever ordered the bounty, and intends to kill everyone involved. Several men in the apartment pull out guns, but the army-trained Bennie manages to evade fire and murders everyone. In his death throes, Max gives Bennie a business card with El Jefe's address on it.

Bennie goes to El Jefe's house, where El Jefe greets him as a hero and gives him a briefcase containing the promised million dollar bounty. Bennie explains to El Jefe how many people died in order for Garcia's head to be brought to him, including his beloved. El Jefe responds apathetically, telling Bennie to take his money and throw Garcia's head in the trash on the way out. Infuriated that the object for which Elita died is now viewed as nothing more than garbage by the man who wanted it so badly, Bennie first wounds El Jefe and then guns down all of his bodyguards. Pointing his gun at El Jefe's head, Teresa--holding her newborn son--approaches Bennie and urges him to kill her father for what he has done. Bennie obliges, and shoots El Jefe to death. He then promises Teresa to return Garcia's head to its grave as long as she promises to care for Garcia's son. Bennie makes a mad dash for escape, but El Jefe's family, alerted by the gunfire, come rushing in and find his body. His surviving henchmen are alerted, and they ambush Bennie at the gates to El Jefe's house. Bennie manages to make it some distance beyond the gates before gunfire forces his car into a cactus, where he is surrounded and machine-gunned to death.

Cast

*Warren Oates as Bennie
*Isela Vega as Elita
*Robert Webber as Sappensly
*Gig Young as Johnny Quill
*Helmut Dantine as Max
*Emilio Fernández as El Jefe
*Kris Kristofferson as the biker
*Chano Urueta as Manchot (the bartender)

Reception

"Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" was savaged upon release by critics and ignored by audiences. Vincent Canby felt the film was "witless" and found it hard to believe that it was made by the same director as "The Wild Bunch". [Medved, Harry, and Randy Dreyfuss. "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way)". 1978, Warner Books. ISBN 0-445-04139-0.] Most viewers found the film's bleak worldview and constant violence difficult to take, and Bennie's elevating psychosis throughout the film, expressed through his macabre relationship with the severed head of the title, led many critics to see the film as proof of Peckinpah's declining mental state.

Peckinpah himself was deeply proud of the film. Never apologizing for it, he often cited it as his purest and most personal work, and the only one of his films which was completed without any compromises to studio or audience, precisely as he had intended it.

After Peckinpah's death, the film began to be reevaluted by critics and audiences. Many critics came to praise the film's uncompromising vision and the film has begun to be seen as the consummation of the themes present in all of Peckinpah's films – the conflict between honor and the necessity of survival in a dishonorable world, the dangers of vengeance and greed, the nature of human violence, and the self-destructive tendencies of modern masculinity. Some have gone so far as to compare it to the films of John Huston such as "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", which Peckinpah had cited as an inspiration. (The bounty hunter played by Gig Young actually gives his name as "Fred C. Dobbs" at one point – the name of Bogart's character in the Huston film.) Others consider it to be one of the worst films ever made. [* Medved, Harry, and Randy Dreyfuss. "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way)". 1978, Warner Books. ISBN 0-445-04139-0.]

The film remains a cult favorite, and has never found a wide audience. It tends to polarize critics and viewers, some claiming that it is the beginning of Peckinpah's descent into mediocrity and self-parody, while others declare it to be Peckinpah's last true masterpiece (though some would reserve that accolade for "Cross of Iron"). Critic Roger Ebert has included the film in his "Great Movies" list, alongside Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch".

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0071249|title=Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

Films influenced by "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia"

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118541/ 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997)]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089155/ Fletch (1985)] quote: "And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia, while you're out there."
*Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown (1986)
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221034/ Bring Me the Head of Geraldo Rivera (1989)]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118778/ Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis (1997)]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278/ Hostel (2005)]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/ Sin City (2005)]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419294/ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем написать курсовую

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia —    Voir Apportez moi la tête d Alfredo Garcia …   Dictionnaire mondial des Films

  • Bring mir den Kopf von Alfredo Garcia — Filmdaten Deutscher Titel Bring mir den Kopf von Alfredo Garcia Originaltitel Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown — is an animated short directed and animated by Jim Reardon, who would later become director and storyboard consultant for The Simpsons . The cartoon was made in 1986 while he was at CalArts. Synopsis The Great Pumpkin puts a bounty on Charlie… …   Wikipedia

  • Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis — Título Traedme la cabeza de Mavis Davis Ficha técnica Dirección John Henderson Guion Joanne Reay Craig Strachan …   Wikipedia Español

  • Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis — is a British comedy film directed by John Henderson, originally released in 1997.The film stars Rik Mayall as a rock manager who recruits Jane Horrocks (playing the title character). The film also features Danny Aiello and Ross Boatman.Music… …   Wikipedia

  • Apportez-moi la tête d'Alfredo Garcia — Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia    Film d aventures de Sam Peckinpah, avec Warren Oates, Isela Vega, Gig Young, Robert Webber, Emilio Fernández.   Pays: États Unis   Date de sortie: 1974   Technique: couleurs   Durée: 1 h 42    Résumé    Un… …   Dictionnaire mondial des Films

  • Apportez-moi La Tête D'Alfredo Garcia — Titre original Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Réalisation Sam Peckinpah Acteurs principaux Warren Oates Isela Vega Robert Webber Gig Young Helmut Dantine Production Martin Baum Société de distribution …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Apportez-moi la tete d'Alfredo Garcia — Apportez moi la tête d Alfredo Garcia Apportez moi la tête d Alfredo Garcia Titre original Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Réalisation Sam Peckinpah Acteurs principaux Warren Oates Isela Vega Robert Webber Gig Young Helmut Dantine Production… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Apportez-moi la tête d'alfredo garcia — Titre original Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Réalisation Sam Peckinpah Acteurs principaux Warren Oates Isela Vega Robert Webber Gig Young Helmut Dantine Production Martin Baum Société de distribution …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Apportez-moi la tête d'Alfredo Garcia — Données clés Titre original Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Réalisation Sam Peckinpah Acteurs principaux Warren Oates Isela Vega Robert Webber Gig Young Helmut Dantine Sortie …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”