This is the definitive biography of the world's most hard-hitting filmmaker. Lauded and vilified in equal measure for his naturalistic approach to movie violence, Peckinpah attracted extreme responses throughout his career. Sam Peckinpah was one of the most controversial figures in modern cinema. Cited as a major influence by Brian DePalma, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino, he created a subgenre with his unflinching approach to onscreen violence, which uses a combination of graphic close-ups and the now-standard slow motion sequence to capture the real effects of bullets and blows on the human body. For every critic who hailed his visual brilliance and narrative daring, another condemned his work as a glorification of violence: hence his nickname, "Bloody Sam". Marshall Fine takes an in-depth look at Peckinpah's tumultuous life, both on and off the set. Infamously possessing a personality not dissimilar from those of the intense anti-heroes he created on screen, hard-drinking Bloody Sam attacked his projects without compromise, often falling into vicious battles with his producers over their creative control.

Every producer he worked with attempted to get him to tone down his content to appeal to a wider audience: each attempt was met with fury and uncompromising disbelief. Production meetings for "Straw Dogs", "The Wild Bunch" and "The Getaway" actually culminated in fistfights. Despite these prominent clashes with industry stalwarts, Peckinpah remained a figure who commanded immense respect for his singularity of purpose and the passion and skill with which he rendered his vision. Fine's biography delves into the legend with an unflinching honesty and intensity as inspired as that of Bloody Sam himself.