For movie fans lucky enough to live in Southern California, there’s no end to the film societies, screenings and lecture series devoted to All Things Cinema.

One example would be the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s sporadic series, The Movie That Inspired Me, wherein working directors, writers, actors and other filmmakers screen and talk about films that have influenced their life and inspired their creativity. The Movie That Inspired Me is hosted by the Film & Television Archive’s Honorary Chairman and series curator Curtis Hanson (director of L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys, 8 Mile).

This Friday (January 22), Hanson’s guest will be director Kathryn Bigelow, whose most recent film, The Hurt Locker, was one of the best reviewed American films of 2009, just the latest in a career making innovative films like Near Dark, Blue Steel, Point Break and Strange Days.

For Friday evening’s film screening and discussion, Bigelow has selected 1969’s The Wild Bunch, directed by Sam Peckinpah.

The story is a simple one: In the weeks prior to World War I, a band of aging Western outlaws led by Pike Bishop (William Holden) attempt to rob a Texas bank, with the idea of using the money for retirement. When the robbery goes wrong, this wild bunch runs to Mexico with Bishop’s reformed ex-partner, Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) on their trail. There they meet a violent Mexican general who wants them to rob a U.S. train carrying arms. They take the mission, but it leads to a violent final battle in which their lawless pasts finally catch up to them.

Teamed with cinematographer Lucien Ballard, film editor Louis Lombardo and a cast that included Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson and other familiar Western faces, Sam Peckinpah ushered in a new style of cinematic violence that blew up Hollywood’s romantic notion of the Old West even as it rejuvenated the Western genre.

The Wild Bunch was shot in 81 days, on a budget of six million dollars. The climatic gun battle sequence itself took 12 days to stage and shoot. The film is reportedly made up of roughly 3000 edits in about 138 minutes of action. John Wayne may have complained that The Wild Bunch shattered the myth of the Old West, but in 2007, the American Film Institute ranked Peckinpah’s masterpiece as the #79 Greatest Movie of All Time.

I’m sure all of that and more will be discussed this Friday night when, thanks to the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Kathryn Bigelow and Curtis Hanson deconstruct the most famous of all deconstructionist Westerns, The Wild Bunch.

For tickets and info, go here.