Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Directed by George Roy Hill
Written by William Goldman
Starring Robert Redford, Paul Newman
Release Date September 23rd, 1969
Published February 14th, 2023
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid arrived at the height of a movie world renaissance. In 1969 filmmakers as varied as Sam Fuller, Sam Peckinpah, Dennis Hopper, and Arthur Penn were riding a creative high fueled by the demise of the studio system and the excitement of the free love generation who were eager to embrace these new and daring filmmakers. It was a heady moment that was met with some of the best American cinema of the century.
The western was also in a renaissance at the time with films like True Grit, which earned John Wayne an academy award for best actor, Sam Peckinpah’s shocking, violent, and unforgettable, The Wild Bunch, and Arthur Penn’s Bonnie & Clyde, which embraced western themes, despite not being a traditional western, all achieving monumental success. Westerns reflected the rebelliousness of the time. It celebrated mavericks and outlaws who defied authority to become icons of the American dream, bathed in blood.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.
