Hollywood and...er hair pulling?

Sam Peckinpah's 1970s western which features a hair tugging scene

Noted for his aesthetic of violence, hard drinking and not too gentle use of actors and animals, the movies of Sam Peckinpah are some of my personal favourites. The depiction of men struggling to survive in harsh landscapes, of males co-operating as well as competing and a whole catalogue of  characters from the low down and mean to the brave and stoically noble make his films a rich experience.

A friend bought me a DVD copy of Pat Garret And Billy The Kid a while ago and this week I got to watch it...it had been a long time since I had last seen it (VHS era). One hour and 20 minutes in I was really amazed by the use of hair tugging in one particular scene which perfectly fitted with the notion of this behaviour as a displacement action.

The plot leading up to the hair tugging is briefly this...A big landowner called Chisholm is buying up whole swathes of land to graze his cattle. It is the beginning of a new capitalist era in America – the big money is moving in and turning everyone who once lived freely on the land into salary men and tenants. A few men refuse to be reined in and aim to keep to the old way of life – which consists of living off the land (i.e. killing animals to eat), wandering freely without heed of fences and generally having a grand ol' time. Once such man is Billy The Kid. However, his former friend and mentor Pat Garret, has decided to give up the old life and for the sake of financial security has signed up to be a law man - paid to bring in outlaws and generally tame the west.

Pat Garret travels around in search of Billy. And one hour 20 minutes into the film is in a bar when three of Billy's associates enter (one of whom is Bob Dylan, or Alias). He commands Alias to knock out one of his colleagues with the butt of a rifle before ordering him (he calls Alias 'boy') to read from a shelf of canned food labels (it is one of the the most famous scenes of the film, with Bob Dylan reading out, 'beans', 'quality plums' and 'finest quality...beans' in the background). Pat Garret is then left to sit down and play a few 'friendly' hands of cards with the remaining cowboy, who hequestions about Billy's whereabouts.

As the situation gets more intense and the tension rises Billy's associate itches to go for his knife (Garret has already confiscated his gun). And yet he knows he must bide his time. This sets up an inner conflict whereby he wishes to kill Garret but must also oppose this impulse until the moment is right. At this point he begins to play with his hair, gently tugging at strands in a way that people diagnosed with trichotillomania might recognise. Pat Garret clearly understands human body language because as soon as he sees the displacement behaviour emerge he instantly knows that his opponent is caught in two minds. Being a natural dislacement behaviour, as opposed to a stereotypical behaviour Garret also realises that the hair pulling marks a temporary transitional state and is a precursor to the cowboy making his move. The eyes of Garret (played by James Coburn) widen as he watches intensely, waiting for the slightest sign that a move will be made – and soon it comes. The hair tugger suddenly goes for his knife but no sooner than it is drawn Garret shoots his opponent down. From a psychological perspective it is a brilliant scene and the only one I have ever seen where hair pulling features in a meaningful way.

Coburn, Dylan, Kristofferson, Peckinpah...displacement behaviour...wonderful! It is just a shame that they don't make them like that any more.