MovieChat Forums > Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) Discussion > Why did she want to sleep with the rapis...

Why did she want to sleep with the rapist?


When those two biker guys showed up at their campsite, and the one pulled her off to the bushes, why did she all of a sudden have the hots for this would be rapist? They never really explained that part in the movie.

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I think that scene is a strange one alright. I think however that it may be set up to show how imperfect a world the characters live in, one that isn't ruled by what is right or good, but is characterised by people who just do what they got to to get through. You could say that she seems to warm to the biker (an icy perfomance from good old Kris by the way) to make it easier for herself and for Bernie and to keep them from further danger. As she says herself, 'I've been here before'.

The following scene in the hotel where she crying in the shower and Bernie tells her he loves her, I tihnk is one of the most tender moments in the movie.

One of the major themes of the film is that Bernie always wants something more for them, whereas she is pleading with him to let the fact that they love each other be enough.

I think the scene is an early sign as well for them to turn back and to protect what they have - one that Bernie ignores.

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Yeah. She agrees to more or less give in and consent because she knows the alternative - brutal sexual assault - as it's apparently happened to her before. Sad stuff.

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I think this scene demonstrates Peckinpah's paranoia around his own relationships with women. I think he see's all woman as potential cheats, that they might enjoy sex with a stranger. Similar theme in Straw Dogs. Great provocative film making though. I think this is a very personal film for the director.The film is 32 years old and people still talk about it.GREAT

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Definitely, but look at the difference between Elita in ALFREDO GARCIA and Susan George's character in STRAW DOGS, who was all over the place, never really sympathetic, suspicious and a catalyst - a portrayal probably much more in line with Peckinpah's general view of women than Elita - who is a whore, no bones about it, but she's also the most fully realized, poetic, romantic, likeable and ultimately tragic female character in Peckinpah's body of work.

It's no secret that Sam had many hang-ups regarding infidelity and misogyny, but it almost seems like he was working some of that out through his doppelganger Bennie because it's not Elita who's truly punished in this film, it's Bennie and it's through guilt.

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Agree completely. Sam Must have been a schizophrenic though. When I watch interviews, Ali MacGraw goes on about how brutal he was with women. Susan George talks about how nice he was with her. Hard man to work out. What do you think to the rape scene in Cross of Iron? I love the castration metaphore. Many people don't like Cross of Iron, but I rate it as his second best film.

"WAR IS A CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY, BY OTHER MEANS" James Coburn, Cross of Iron

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You need to watch some good films my friend.

"WAR IS A CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY, BY OTHER MEANS" James Coburn, Cross of Iron

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What I also didn't get in that scene was that the biker/rapist/Kris actually seemed to relent when he walked away from her and sat under a tree. He seemed to have a change of heart and showed mercy, and then she approached him willingly.

You look like the kind of girl who won't press charges

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I also just can't imagine Kris Kristofferson as a rapist. I know at that point he was an unknown, but maybe he had something to do with the way that scene went.

You look like the kind of girl who won't press charges

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It's was her profession to feel empathy towards men, even cruel and bad men (which Bennie sort of is) and overlook their faults. Also, like Bennie, Kristoferson's character (possibly a Vietnam vet, though not explicitly stated) is clearly in some sort of inner turmoil, plus he does pull away from her and sit under a tree. She was a very compassionate and sensitive person and felt pity for the biker, perhaps. Not that that it necessarily excuses Peckinpah, but I don't think her looking back at the biker's body was from sexual desire as in the "Straw Dogs" rape scene. Peckinpah, in his twisted way, did portray her in a positive light in that sense. Her disgust with Bennie when he informs her that he is making a trophy of Garcia's head, but then also her decision to stick by her man and help him in the graveyard to accomplish the ghoulish task, is proof of this. Perhaps Bennie was her project for "salvation". What a loser she picked! Poor lost lady, she deserved beter.

Her character is closer to sympathetic than many of the female characters in his post "Wild Bunch" period. Still, women weren't all bad in his films, either. Women in earlier films like Mariette Hartley in "Ride the High Country" and Senta Berger in "Major Dundee" were sympathetic, and was Ida Lupino in the later "Junior Bonner". None of these women was negatively portrayed, nor where they ever abused or slapped around. What about "the ladiest damened lady" Stella Stevens in "The Ballad of Cable Hogue"? Peckinpah had serious probelms with women in his films, but he wasn't as consistently ogrish as some would have it. Actually women were treated much more complexly by Peckinpah than the great Kurosawa, who had almost no time whatsoever for women in his films, and what few there were usually were very bad or very weak. Few think to fault Kurosawa for this blind spot, though perhaps they should.

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He walks off and slumps down in a somewhat frustration, because in the commentary it's alluded to he's impotent, and she has to do her best to stimulate him.. She is after all a hooker, and those rapists did learn that part earlier.
She is doing all she can to play the fake lover part so the screwing is done, and everybody gets out alive

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>>> "WAR IS A CONTINUATION OF STATE POLICY, BY OTHER MEANS" James Coburn, Cross of Iron

You attribute a quote to its author, not the puppet who parrotted the line.

It should be against the law to use "LOL" unless you really did LOL!

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When I think of Straw Dogs and this movie it is pretty obvious that Peckinpah has a complicated relationship with women and rape. In Straw Dogs there is the idea that she may be enjoying it to some degree before the other guy jumps in, and in this one I viewed it differently, but that was my interpretation, not Peckinpah's. I felt much more like she knew she was going to be raped, and as a whore she knew how to deal with it. It seemed to me her aim was to calm him down, turn it from a violent rape to a more coerced sexual situation, which would be easier on her and her guy. As others have said, she had been there before, and was trying to minimize the damage done. Of course, maybe Peckinpah only wanted her raped and the scene to be confusing, we will never know. In fact, maybe he didn't even know. Many directors add in scenes and don't think about the hows and whys. All you have to do is attend a Q&A or read an interview to see how little definitive knowledge directors have on their own motives.

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She agrees to more or less give in and consent because she knows the alternative - brutal sexual assault - as it's apparently happened to her before.
I think that's basically it, but I think it's even more complicated than that. Her line to Bennie, "You don't know the way," is her way of telling him that she knows how badly this might end up if she doesn't go and still thinks of Bennie as a sort of innocent. (He won't be for long.)

Even more telling is when she approaches Kristofferson and says, "Please don't." I interpreted that as meaning she's asking him not to kill Bennie, and is willing to give "herself up" so to speak to save Bennie's life. (And the look back mentioned in other posts, I think, is just a reponse to the violence she's witnessed, and the surprise that Bennie has become a killer. Moments later, she recognizes what Bennie means to do with Alfredo Garcia's grave, and asks to leave. In fact, she's never the same after that.)

I'll admit it's not Peckinpah's clearest sequence in terms of logic, and it would have helped if Kristofferson were a more expressive actor so we could read what he really intended to do.

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Even on the commentary, the Peckinpah scholars have a hard time explaining the scene.

I think the best explanation is that Elita's a prostitute -- she's used to strange men having their way with her. There's no point in fighting since it'll only get her hurt.

And since in the previous scene, Benny couldn't tell her he loves her, she feels that she has no chance to be anything more than a prostitute, so she might as well show Kristofersen a good time.

*/\*Goonies never say die!*/\*

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When she looks back mournfully it could also be for the fact that Bernie has just shot a man. More sorrow for what he has done than for who he has done it to.

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What seemed funny to me was that Kristofferson seemed to have a change of heart and was suddenly nice to her. He sat under a tree and it looked like he would have let her go.

You look like the kind of girl who won't press charges

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"What possessed her to feel sorry for the now dead biker?"

It's another reason why her character was so dynamic and the best female character Peckinpah ever put on film. She's affected by the loss of life, of any life. She's not as simple as to revel in something as big as death because the guy tried to rape her. It shows both her desensitization to sexual assault and how attuned she is to the tragedy of death that, from that moment, becomes inherent in her journey with Bennie.

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It's true that she is desensitized to rape and sees it as a pure survival tactic—at first.

But once the biker actually gets romantic with her, cutting her blouse (brutal but kinky) and caressing her face instead of hitting her (after an initial slap) when she has hit him multiple times, then he goes off to wait for her and see if she will be a willing partner . . . THAT IS WHEN Cupid's arrow strikes her and they are actually beginning to fall in love. By the time he is shot, she is well on the way to making love with full desire.

Why?

1) It says something about love in a chaotic world: love can overtake you at any time, under the most unlikely circumstances. There is no rhyme or reason to it. Passionate love can come over a person suddenly, like a wave, even if they felt they were in love with someone else.

2) It says something about women, too. Unfortunately it relies on the old sexist cliché that women deep down want to be raped and will only respect a man who truly dominates them in every way. However, it's important to note that she only falls for him after his initial brutality has turned to tenderness.

3) Also, it says once a whore, always a whore. Since making love to strangers is part of her past, she will always do it, and perhaps like it more than with her stable partner.

I'm more partial to the first reason than to the second and third, but they are all in the mix. Great scene.


"I told you I was sick." — Oscar Levant

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I agree with those points except for the assertion that she was "falling in love" with him, however temporarily, however tender he became. But the "once a whore, always a whore" argument is valid considering Peckinpah's opinion of women on film and the struggles with fidelity he faced - despite Elita being the most well drawn and loved female character he ever created, as well as ultimately the most innocent and tragic.

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No there was no love; she was playing her "fake love" part as a hooker to save Benny's life. He walks away because he is impotent and needs stimulation which she gives him.. remember her and Benny's life are on the line.

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Good point. I don't find this scene to be difficult to understand at all,this is a woman if the night after all. She wanted to avoid violence.

Also, she clearly got off on the violence and threat of that biker, and wanted to finish it off. She "wanted it" in the same way a skydiver is grtti a thrill frm jumping to death onlynto pull the trigger.

She had her parachute,the biker wasn't a muderer, and she wanted to get off.

Her relationship with Oates' character was one of love over lust,and also pity(both ways). She wanted to escape her roots and past with Oates,who also says he wants to go someplace new.

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When KK walks away I don't think he's had a change of heart at all. He's still playing with her. After the exchange of slaps he's seeing if she'll follow him. Part of his "get off" is to try and turn the woman into a willing partner. If she hadn't followed him he probably would have taken her by force. She was just doing as others have stated, surviving, using what she knew from her experience.

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I was thinking, that maybe she was thinking, that she could get the gun from the back of his his pants. The real gun that is, not the metaphorical one.

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I think it was to protect Bennie. If she put out for the rapist, they wouldn't bear violence against him. Its been awhile since I've seen it, but thats how I thought it happened.

Last film seen: Triumph of the Will 8/10

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Lots of good reasoning in the thread. I do not know myself but I know for me it broke my heart.

"What does it do?" Do? "It doesn't do anything. That's the beauty of it." Bobby Oppenheimer

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It's the same way in "Straw Dogs" where Susan George is sort of being forced, but is sort of consenting too, with her ex boyfriend. She doesn't really respect Dustin Hoffman until he smacks her near the end. I think Peckinpah felt that women are ultimately more attracted to a man who is dominant. In "Garcia" Oates girlfriend is enjoying the sex with Kristofferson, but when Oates shoots him she instantly goes into Oates arms and acts like a victim. Even though she was enjoying it with Kristofferson, she doesn't blame Oates because she knows his manliness called for revenge in that situation. I think Peckinpah had certain macho ideas about women, but that doesn't mean they are entirely untrue.

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premont:
If you're read anything about Peckinpah, he was a bastard to most of the women in his life, and he basically hated women because he had some major unresolved issues with his own mother. That's why he treated the female characters in his films like s***, and had them do some real stupid things as far as men were concerned. And, uh, sorry, but most women don't like to be smacked around---that's just some sexist macho bull**** right there. And all women aren't attracted to dominate men either, because some of them tend to controlling and abusive to some extent. Granted, there are some women who prefer dominant men, but you can't generalize and claim that all women like that, because that isn't even true.

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Why did she want to sleep with the rapist?

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Its a Peckinpah movie. Nuff said.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtYpLV4EPo

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"why did she all of a sudden have the hots for this would be rapist?"

I don't think she did. She probably wanted to avoid more violence/death.

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I don't think it had anything to do with avoiding more violence. She really felt a connection with him, in a lost soul sort of way. My view anway.

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Is nearly everyone crazy here, or blinded by sexism and ignorance? she did so, to defuse violence and lethal danger, and so that they wouldn't kill them. It's actually how REAL women did manage to escape rapists/serial killers, by not freaking out and by playing their pervert game as if it was voluntary and even pleasurable, up to the point where the pervert let his guard down and even sometime let them go (even though he killed many women already.) Incredible that so many people don't know that, and can't see through that scene.

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Someone posted a thread regarding this. It came directly from an interview with the actor playing the rapist. He basically said that he had hesitations on playing such a foul character, and he was also friends with Peckinpah, so Peckinpah shot the scene in such a way that you don't hate the character, as a favour to him. He made it look like it was almost consensual. He then said that he hoped it didn't ruin the scene/film. Well I think it clearly made everyone go "uhh WTF".

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That scene honestly didn't make any real damn sense, that's why it looked so awkward and contrived (and dumb and sexist,too.) europ36 made some good points about why the woman did what she did, but they weren't conveyed very well in that scene, which is why it didn't come off looking very well at all.

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