STRAW DOGS Retrospective: Sam Peckinpah’s Masterful Character Study On One Of Cinema’s Unlikeliest Heroes
It remains one of my favourite films, and made me a fan of Sam Peckinpah, prompting that sudden realisation as to why his work is so highly acclaimed in modern cinema. And yet it wasn’t his more famous ‘The Wild Bunch’ that courted my fascination with his work. Rather it was this psychological thriller from 1971 that made me pursue more of his catalogue, and fully realise the extent of his genius. Straw Dogs is an uncompromisingly violent tale of a meek American mathematician named David Sumner, played by the ever reliable, Dustin Hoffman. Sumner and his attractive wife Amy (played by Susan George) relocate to a sleepy English village, where Amy is originally from. Immediately, this sets up a conflict where the locals take a disliking to David and make no secret of their resentment of him. A class structure is established, pitting the more masculine yet boorish locals […]
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