Mountain Westerns: from Peckinpah to Altman, Trento Film Festival pays homage

Published 27/02/2025

Gervasini: “five films dedicated to epic deeds in the Far West, recalling that the most representative American film genre is not just made up of deserts, sun and prairies”.

Trento Film Festival often complements its standard sections with a special programme dedicated to a specific theme or a particular film current. This year it has decided to focus on mountain Westerns, taking its cue from the 100th anniversary of the birth of two great directors Sam Peckinpah (Fresno, 21 February 1925 – Inglewood, 28 December 1984) and Robert Altman (Kansas City, 20 February 1925 – Los Angeles, 20 November 2006), who took on this genre.

Five films have been scheduled: The Last of the Mohicans by Maurice Tourneur and Clarence Brown (USA, 1920), a masterpiece of silent film that will be accompanied by live music at Trento Film Festival; Anthony Mann’s The Far Country (USA, 1954), set in Yukon during the gold rush; Ride the High Country, Sam Peckinpah’s second work (USA,1962), which anticipates by many years the change of course definitively transforming the standards of classic Westerns; Robert Altman’s Mccabe & Mrs. Miller (USA, 1971), a sort of anti-Western pre-empting Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight by almost half a century; Sydney Pollack’s Jeremiah (USA, 1972), revolving around the figure of a trapper and veteran of the Mexican-American war, interpreted by Robert Redford.

«Five films dedicated to epic deeds in the Far West – or the North-East in the case of Canada in the Last of the Mohicans – recalling that the most representative American film genre is not just made up of deserts, sun and prairies, but also of mountains, with the snowy and harsh environment recounted by master filmmakers such as Maurice Tourneur, Anthony Mann, Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman and Sydney Pollack», explains Mauro Gervasini, in charge of Trento Film Festival’s film programme.

Photo: JeremiahJohnson_Images Courtesy of Warner Bros