Michael Goldfarb remembers the political and social mise-en-scène films from the 1960s and 1970s, including work by Sam Peckinpah, Sidney Lumet and Derek Jarman. "Mise-en-scène" means the arrangement of the scenery, props, on the set of a film or, more broadly, the social setting or surroundings of an event.

Sam Peckinpah films nowadays are almost always discussed in terms of their artistically depicted violence, where they fit in the Western genre, and the director's self-destructive alcoholism. But they are much, much more than that.

They are profound meditations on history. In this essay, Michael talks about his masterpieces, Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Aside from their cinematic virtues, these are films about men who outlive their historical times and how they respond to that displacement.
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