I got to see this, I think in 35mm but I could be mistaken, at a revival house in LA called Cinefamily, not sure if its still open. The only other Peckinpah I've seen is The Getaway, which I didn't like nearly as much as Alfedo Garcia.
I've only read his short works, like The Pearl, Mice & Men, Tortilla Flat, Cannery Row, some of his short stories. I really liked Tortilla Flat. I grew up near Monterey and really appreciate the world he built/described along the wharfs. I also really like his fascination with the natural world. So many metaphors of tide pools and marine life. The Pearl feels like a Mexican fairy tale told by a pagan ecologist.
I must have said this before, but I guess that period films tend to have hair styled by adding a period cut on top of a "basic, neutral" look. The problem is that if the film itself is made in the 80s then what the stylist thinks of as neutral look is likely to in fact be an 80s style. And probably the same is true for clothes and so on. The peculiar thing is that, to the average viewer, at the time the film is made this won't be visible, but a few years later as fashions change, this will become more and more apparent.
Theres a chapter in east of eden where he pauses the narration to declare his willingness to fight communism and preserve american individuality. Doesnt really relate to anything else going on. And supposedly he worked for the CIA. I imagine his conservative streak also left him outside the intellegentsia
