A Quote by Sam Peckinpah

I want to be able to make westerns like Akira Kurosawa makes westerns. — © Sam Peckinpah
I want to be able to make westerns like Akira Kurosawa makes westerns.
I actually don't like westerns much. I like good westerns, but it isn't my preferred genre. There are all kinds of westerns: acid westerns, '70s westerns, Nicholas Ray's neurotic westerns. The ones I tend to like are nutso westerns.
I would very much like to make Westerns. I love Westerns. I've worked on many Westerns in my youth, in Spain and here, and I love working on them.
I watched westerns when I was a kid, like everybody else, but I wasn't a total nerd or geek about it. I kind of fell in love with westerns heavily when I started watching Sergio Leone's westerns.
I've always been a fan of Westerns, but my favorite kind of Westerns mostly were Sam Peckinpah's Westerns, and they mainly took place in the West that was changing.
I am inspired by both Japanese Samurai films, in particular the films of Kurosawa, and how they share the spirit of American Westerns, with the influences running in both directions, and including the 'Spaghetti Westerns' and films of Sam Peckinpah.
I decided to write Westerns because there was a terrific market for Westerns in the '50s. There were a lot of pulp magazines, like 'Dime Western' and '10 Story Western' that were still being published. The better ones paid two cents a word. And I thought, 'I like Westerns.'
Don't ever for a minute make the mistake of looking down your nose at westerns. They're art - the good ones, I mean. They deal in life and sudden death and primitive struggle, and with the basic emotions - love, hate, and anger - thrown in. We'll have westerns films as long as the cameras keep turning. The fascination that the Old West has will never die. And as long as people want to pay money to see me act, I'll keep on making westerns until the day I die.
There is no other genre that deals with America better, in a subtextual way, than the Westerns being made in the different decades. The '50s Westerns very much put forth an Eisenhower idea of America, whereas the Westerns of the '70s were very cynical about America.
Westerns are a type of picture which everybody can see and enjoy. Westerns always make money. And they always increase a star's fan following.
Westerns are cool, man. I'm big on Westerns. I just love the grittiness.
The Westerns have probably affected me more than any one thing, Western-related material. I love Westerns.
I never got in this business, in cinema, to make horror movies. They arrived on my doorstep and I got typecast. Which was fine, I enjoy it, but I got into this business to make westerns. And the kind of westerns I used to see, they died. So that didn't work out.
I've never been specifically attached to westerns, but there are those I like - one of the best westerns I've seen is 'Unforgiven.' I think the genre has something extremely powerful that can allow them to talk about good and evil in a very straight way.
There was that last blast of Westerns that came out in the Seventies, those Vietnam/Watergate Westerns where everything was about demystification. And I like that about those movies.
I admire Akira Kurosawa. I have a deep admiration for him and I would love to make films like that.
I do love Westerns. But, in a way, traditional Westerns, for me, have been hard to love viscerally and personally.
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