Peckinpah revisited

Mention iconoclastic director Sam Peckinpah’s name and immediately the bloody, violent images of “The Wild Bunch” come to mind. A new documentary produced by Encore, “Sam Peckinpah’s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade,” looks at the controversial filmmaker’s eight feature westerns, plus the short-lived 1960 television series “The Westerner.”

Part of the American Cinematheque’s retrospective “Bloody Sam: The Films of Legendary Director Sam Peckinpah,” the documentary underlines his effect on the genre through interviews with actors, critics and friends and family.

The director’s penchant for violence in the context of the Vietnam era and the expansive themes he brought to the work not only changed the genre but also helped bring about its end in a classic sense.

“Sam’s contribution to the western was probably like Orson Welles’ contribution to film noir,” says critic-turned-filmmaker Paul Schrader, “which is that he chiseled the gravestone.”

Director Tom Thurman, writer Tom Marksbury and Peckinpah expert Paul Seydor will discuss the film after the screening.

Riveting documentary

The frequent reports of suicide bombings in Israel can be numbing, with the death tolls becoming simple statistics on the nightly news. “No. 17,” a documentary inspired by a June 2002 attack that killed 17 people on a bus traveling to Tiberius from Tel Aviv, burrows beneath the cable news crawl to give life-affirming meaning to a tragic event.

“No. 17” is among the highlights of the second week of the Israel Film Festival.

When police were unable to identify one of the victims of the blast, filmmaker David Ofek became fixated on finding the answer and, in the process, opened a window on life in contemporary Israel.

Rather than merely collecting the facts of the case, Ofek profiles the people involved, from the forensic lab that handled the autopsies to the police investigating the case, the survivors of the incident and the victims’ families. Each has a compelling story and distinctive perspective.

“No. 17” is also a riveting mystery as Ofek tracks leads with a doggedness worthy of “CSI.” The drama accelerates when Ofek engages Gil Gibli, a newspaper sketch artist, to create possible likenesses of the unidentified victim. Gibli’s masterful method of interviewing witnesses -- stoking their memories, producing character traits that go far beyond physical description -- is worth the price of admission alone.

A lens on women

Mixing narrative and documentary styles with theory and portraiture, experimental film and video maker Peggy Ahwesh focuses her lens on women alone and in groups addressing their interactions and individual expression with both compassion and detachment.

“Certain Women,” co-directed with Bobby Abate, takes Erskine Caldwell’s 1950s novel and places it in the context of a small town where four women strive to carve out their lives. Their psychosexual struggles amid hypocrisy and low expectations fuel their encounters with the town’s denizens. The use of low-end video formats gives the piece a horror movie aesthetic that turns the conventions of melodrama inside out.

Ahwesh screens “Certain Women” plus a digital video short, “The Star Eaters,” which follows a middle-aged woman’s rambling excesses through the tawdriness of Atlantic City, at REDCAT’s Monday Night series.

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Screenings

American Cinematheque

“Bloody Sam: The Films of Legendary Director Sam Peckinpah” series

* “Sam Peckinpah’s West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade,” 5 p.m. Saturday. Lloyd E. Rigler Theatre at the Egyptian, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 466-FILM. www.americancinematheque.com.

Israel Film Festival selections

* “No. 17,” 9:45 p.m. Tuesday, Fairfax; 5:30 p.m. next Thursday, Encino. Laemmle’s Fairfax, 7907 Beverly Blvd., L.A.; Laemmle’s Town Center 5, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino. (877) 966-5566 or www.israelfilmfestival.com.

REDCAT Film and Video Series

* Two New Films by Peggy Ahwesh, 8 p.m. Monday. REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. (213) 237-2800 or www.redcat.org.

Screening Room columnist Kevin Thomas is on leave.