TWO LANE BLACKTOP (1971)

CRITERION TOP TEN

Just for fun.  I included discs from all formats I've collected over the years and have included sentimental choices even though the quality may have been subsequently surpassed.  I wrote these down as they came to me and did not adjust rankings afterward.

08.  TWO LANE BLACKTOP (1971) - Blu-Ray (and DVD)

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP
Directed by Monte Hellman.  Written by Rudy Wurlitzer and Will Cory.
Starring Warren Oates, James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird
1971, 102 minutes, Color, Rated R, 2.35:1

I saw this on television back in the 80's, or rather, since this is a widescreen film and it was shown panned and scanned, I only saw about half of it.  This is an elliptical movie that I find endlessly fascinating, for reasons I am usually unable to communicate.  Not much happens in the traditional movie story sense--it's about a cross-country race between rival drivers, which sounds like it should be reasonably exciting.  However, the film ignores the obvious and ultimately drops the race aspect completely to instead focus on the characters.  There are four characters in the film, and nowhere in the film is anyone named.  James Taylor plays the Driver, Dennis Wilson is the Mechanic, Warren Oates is GTO and Laurie Bird is the Girl.  Are they symbols, or is their anonymity an intentional statement by the writers on the universality of their experiences?   The film ostensibly ends like it begins with Taylor doing what he is best at--the only thing he is good at, perhaps.  Except whereas the race at the start opens up the possibilities of the characters and story, the race at the close ends with a freeze frame that then warps and distorts until the image burns away.  Just what in the hell is that supposed to mean?  For a film I love I am distressingly short on theories.

Monte Hellman made this film largely in order, only giving his non-actors a few pages of the script at a time.  He says he did this to try and preserve spontaneity with the largely untrained cast--Taylor, Wilson and Bird had never made a film before.  I haven't seen all of Hellman's films--and there really are not that many of them.  Aside from RIDE THE WHIRLWIND (1966) and THE SHOOTING (1966) I don't think I've seen any of his other films.  Both RIDE and THE SHOOTING are superior works and BLACKTOP feels like a natural progression.  Oates and Hellman worked together a total of 4 times together--this, THE SHOOTING, COCKFIGHTER (1974), and CHINA 9, LIBERTY 37 (1978).

Wilson was in The Beach Boys when he made this film, and Taylor was just about to release the album that would make him a superstar, SWEET BABY JAMES.  Taylor has gone on record saying that he hated Hellman's approach to making the movie and even wrote a song about it.¹  For someone who hated the experience, Taylor ultimately delivers a good performance.  What he may lack in technique he more than makes up for with charisma--he just looks good on screen and has a certain undefinable something that makes him consistently interesting to watch.  Bird was a model prior to this and subsequently acted in only two other films.²  She likewise gives a moving and effective performance.   Warren Oates is simply magnificent as GTO.  Truly, his performance is a thing of beauty, alternating between manic machismo and world-wearied self-reflection.  His nuanced, complicated performance contains much to study and ponder, just like the film overall.

I find myself playing the "guess the damage" game with the characters.  They are all reasonably damaged and none of it is explained so one is left to their own devices to try and determine motivation and history.  At one point, Oates' character tries to open up to Taylor's character, but he is cut off abruptly by Taylor.  "I don't want to hear about it", he says.  The audience may well be muttering to themselves, "well, I wanted to hear about it."  Oates comes the closest to being someone the audience can fully relate to.  Wilson, Bird and especially Taylor not so much.  This isn't to say that there aren't riches to mined in their performances.  Taylor vividly portrays a man not quite in touch with his feelings desperately trying to express something to Bird's character.  Bird is an enigma--does she care about anyone in the film or was it all simply a way to hitch a ride?

Released on DVD first by Anchor Bay in an edition that featured a 5.1 remix and a commentary by director Monte Hellman and Producer Gary Kurtz.  It also came in a spiffy tin box with an oversize booklet of groovy pictures of an impossibly young and coifed James Taylor.  That commentary was actually very good.  When Criterion released the film on DVD it featured the same 5.1 remix but dropped the commentary in favor of an all-new commentary by Hellman alone.  I've still never listened to it.  The Criterion DVD release also featured the original shooting script as a DVD-sized book.  (Some of Criterion's more recent releases have also included books like this, namely PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and RED RIVER.) The Blu-Ray release features a noticeably improved image transfer, lossless sound, and new supplements including a great hour long conversation between James Taylor and Hellman.  The screenplay was not included with the Blu-Ray, which is a shame because it is fascinating.  Hellman claims in the intro for it that he shot the entire script and that seems accurate, as everything in the film is there in the script.   There is more detail in the script, but it tells the same story, so it doesn't change the story as much as make it somewhat clearer what is happening..

1. "Riding On a Railroad", Mud Slide Slim and Blue Horizon, 1971, Warner Records.

There's a man up here who claims to have his hands upon the reins.
There are chains upon his hands and he's riding upon a train.
We are riding on a railroad, singing some else's song

EDIT:  It's since been clarified that Taylor had written this song prior to his experience making the film.  Still, the lyrics parallel the filmmaking experience pretty closely.

2. Bird had a reasonably unhappy life.  She died in 1979 while romantically involved with Art Garfunkel, possibly as a suicide, possibly accidentally.

THE HOSPITAL (1971)

Directed by Arthur Hiller.  Written by Paddy Chayefsky

Starring George C. Scott, Diana Rigg, Barnard Hughes, Richard Dysart, Katherine Helmond, Frances Sternhagen,
1971, 103 minutes, Color, Rated R, 1.85:1

Spoiler Alert!

George C. Scott is great in this, and any movie that features a young(ish) Diana Rigg is good with me.  This movie is about bureaucracy and the cheapening of human life inherent when hospitals become more concerned about profits than saving lives.  Although now more than 40 years old it hasn't lost any of its punch.  Actually, it may be more relevant than ever, which is a testament to the writing and our dysfunctional United States health care system.   It is a DARK movie, with dark grungy visuals and an even darker sense of humor.

The film is rated PG, but ideally should have been an 'R' as it is too constrained by having to hold back at various points. There's an obvious re-looping of the word 'fuck' at one point by a VERY young Stockard Channing, for instance, and some optical zooming to avoid nudity in another.  Do either of these things cause irreparable harm to the story?  Not at all, but the optical zooming occurs on Diana Rigg so the logical conclusion is that if the movie was rated 'R' we would have seen her or parts of her naked.  Case closed.

The movie ends with Scott's character not running away with Rigg, choosing to stay to try and fix the system. That ending wouldn't happen today.  Today, it simply wouldn't be believable that some would believe in the system that much so as to deny themselves the pleasure of being with a young Diana Rigg.  For that matter, the film's casting wouldn't happen today--just look at ARTICLE 99 (1992) which aspires to be similar in tone and concept but is populated by actors in their early 30's instead of their 50's.  THE HOSPITAL is staffed realistically and this ultimately dates it more than anything else in the movie.