Peckinpah Suite

This is a visually beautiful film with a small narrative vista. It's Peckinpah's daughter, visiting the Boseman, Montana homes of Peckinpah. It's a slice of life resident-driven description of what Boseman is like, and how they view Peckinpah's relationship with Boseman. A chunk of Peckinpah's life history is thrown in. What you see very little of, are any revelations of Peckinpah's film work. It does feel very real, with zero artifice nor attempts to slap a veneer of glamor on it. His daughter is Mexican, and she narrates it in Spanish, with English subtitles. The rest of the featured talking heads are American residents, so they speak English.

This Spanish and original TCM documentary examines the life and career of the celebrated director from the point of view of his daughter, costume designer Lupita Peckinpah. Thirty-five years after her father's death, she travels for the first time to his last home in Livingston, Montana, and Hotel Murray, to look for clues about his life and work. Thus the film is developed with Lupita's interviews with people who knew her father.

A peculiar biography about this great director through the eyes of his daughter Lupita, whose mother, Begoña Palacios, was Peckinpah's third wife for a few years. Peckinpah was born in Fresno (California) and was married to Begoña Palacios, Joie Gould and Marie Selland. He died on December 28, 1984 in Inglewood, California. An intensely original journey in which unknown aspects of the personality and life of Lupita's father, the notorious director of cinema, voted the 32nd Greatest Director of all time by Entertainment Weekly and creator of good movies and some masterpieces, such as "Ride the High County", ¨The ballad of Cable Hogue¨, ¨Cross Iron¨,¨Wild bunch¨, ¨Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia¨, ¨Straw Dogs¨, ¨The Getaway¨, ¨Omega Code¨, among others. Thus we found out that he bought a cabin in Montana where he lived the happiest years of his life and that he also lived in the Murray Hotel, in Livingston, where he had a suite, called the "Peckinpah Suite", that's why the film title, where he wrote and planned his successful films. Peckinpah appears as a dejected and frustrated director especially when the production manipulated his film 'Major Dundee', being strongly cut by producers. After the success of Sam Peckinpah's later Wild Bunch (1969), Columbia Pictures told him they would allow him to re-shoot parts of this film that had been cut from the released version , Peckinpah, eventually, declined the offer .

There are also frames and pictures of his regular actors, such as: Jason Robards, James Coburn, Emilio Fernández, Kris Kristofferson, Ben Johnson, David Warner, Slim Pickens, L. Q. Jones, R. G. Armstrong and especially his fetish actor and best friend Warren Oates with whom he bought a huge estate in Montana to build their houses in order to live alone in the style of the Old West .

This is a bad home movie, a very bad home movie! And a very boring one. The clueless film students who actually don't know what they are saying are talking about Sam Peckinpah. The local real estate agent, the local this, the local that, none of them have no right or purpose in appearing in the film about Sam Peckinpah speak in this film! The driver who introduces himself - I am driver, I drive people around. Waste of time and energy. Music is empty , shallow. Such an upsetting experience to anybody who cares about the art and craft of filmmaking. On a top of everything, the obvious, naive, boring narration duplicates everything we see on screen adds injury to a wound. Being a daughter of somebody doesn't give the right to soils the memory of your father by making a criminally bad movie.

Lupita Peckinpah has come to Montana. It's been 35 years since the death of her legendary director father Sam Peckinpah. For the last 5 years of his life, he lived in the Murray Hotel in Livingston, Montana.

It's a TCM original documentary. It looks like everybody is trying to do their own original material. It's nice to have the daughter walk the town but any ghost is long gone. Other than one fun story about Japanese tourists, this does not have the drinking stories that I expected. There are no big revelations. Even the room has been refurbished. The bullet holes are just memories now. I am surprised that she insists that her parents stay together despite being apart. It's hard to learn the truth of such matters from the child. This is sweet but it's only like looking through an old family album with your grandmother. It probably means more to her than it is for you.

Okay, but really more of a personal story than a look at the director as a whole. It focuses on his daughter's quest to go back to where he loved to stay and see the places he loved. It barely touches on the man as a director, instead focusing on his relationship with Montana. It's ok, but if you want a look at the director as director look elsewhere, and there are many options.