Pub Date : 2019-01-21DOI: 10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0009
Sylvia Townsend
In this chapter, Monte Hellman goes to Seattle for a retrospective of his films, mounted by Scarecrow Video. The store draws up a petition, ultimately with more than 2,000 signatures, to request Universal to put Two-Lane Blacktop out on video, but it is not until several years later, in 1999, that Anchor Bay Entertainment releases the film for home viewing, and the videos sell many copies. New Hollywood, the ear in the late ‘60s to early ‘80s when studios empowered auteur directors, has now gained cachet and is regarded nostalgically, and the reviews for the video are much more favourable than those for the theatrical release years earlier. The film’s timelessness due to its lack of trendy clothes, hairstyles and set dressing, or prominent musical score that would date the film, add to its appeal.
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Pub Date : 2019-01-21DOI: 10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0010
Sylvia Townsend
Two-Lane Blacktop becomes a cult classic, honoured with inclusion in the National Film Registry and released by the prestigious Criterion Collection. This chapter features interviews with some directors who say Monte Hellman and his most famous movie influenced their work – Kelly Reichardt, Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson. Reichardt says she admires the film’s rigor, construction and realism. Linklater says he likes the movie because it defies expectations, and he has paid tribute to it in some of his films by featuring a GTO. Anderson says he admires the film because it is like a genre movie with the genre taken out. This chapter also features interviews with musicians who have paid tribute to the film, one with a mock soundtrack album, and the other with a video remake. Many hip young people think Two-Lane Blacktop is cool.
{"title":"The Finish Line: The Film Catches Fire","authors":"Sylvia Townsend","doi":"10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Two-Lane Blacktop becomes a cult classic, honoured with inclusion in the National Film Registry and released by the prestigious Criterion Collection. This chapter features interviews with some directors who say Monte Hellman and his most famous movie influenced their work – Kelly Reichardt, Richard Linklater and Wes Anderson. Reichardt says she admires the film’s rigor, construction and realism. Linklater says he likes the movie because it defies expectations, and he has paid tribute to it in some of his films by featuring a GTO. Anderson says he admires the film because it is like a genre movie with the genre taken out. This chapter also features interviews with musicians who have paid tribute to the film, one with a mock soundtrack album, and the other with a video remake. Many hip young people think Two-Lane Blacktop is cool.","PeriodicalId":111405,"journal":{"name":"Bumpy Road","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127988002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-21DOI: 10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0005
Sylvia Townsend
In this chapter, the film company arrives in Tucumcari, New Mexico to shoot the gas station scene where the race is set up – a tour de force of cinematography. Jaclyn Hellman blows up at her husband, Monte, over his affair with the leading lady, 17-year-old Laurie Bird. Some of the cast and filmmakers indulge in drugs, but they don’t hinder the filmmaking much except for Dennis Wilson, who is stoned nearly all the time and can’t remember his lines. But he and the amateur, off-balance Laurie Bird cause Hellman to call for 10, 15 and even 25 takes when they blow their lines. Joni Mitchell visits her boyfriend, James Taylor, and the actor Harry Dean Stanton arrives for his scene, in which he plays a gay cowboy hitchhiker.
{"title":"The Fast Lane: Sex, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll Stars","authors":"Sylvia Townsend","doi":"10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14325/mississippi/9781496804143.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"In this chapter, the film company arrives in Tucumcari, New Mexico to shoot the gas station scene where the race is set up – a tour de force of cinematography. Jaclyn Hellman blows up at her husband, Monte, over his affair with the leading lady, 17-year-old Laurie Bird. Some of the cast and filmmakers indulge in drugs, but they don’t hinder the filmmaking much except for Dennis Wilson, who is stoned nearly all the time and can’t remember his lines. But he and the amateur, off-balance Laurie Bird cause Hellman to call for 10, 15 and even 25 takes when they blow their lines. Joni Mitchell visits her boyfriend, James Taylor, and the actor Harry Dean Stanton arrives for his scene, in which he plays a gay cowboy hitchhiker.","PeriodicalId":111405,"journal":{"name":"Bumpy Road","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126648667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This chapter tells how Two-Lane Blacktop gained recognition years after its release.Warren Oates and two other lead actors die, giving the film an aura of poignancy—Laurie Bird from a drug overdose and Dennis Wilson from drowning while drunk. The movie becomes an example of the risk of profit-driven studios empowering auteur directors. As years pass, Monte Hellman gains accolades and esteem, and Two-Lane is considered his masterpiece. The movie has several themes in common with his other films, such as a voyage, references to death, and outsiders in an unpopulated area and living on the fringes of society. Like his other works it ignores genre conventions. It also exhibits his visual style, most notably in the gas station scene, with the camera focusing on one spot as characters come and go, with simultaneous action in the background, and not much camera movement.
{"title":"A Restoration","authors":"Sylvia Townsend","doi":"10.2307/j.ctvbj7gpk.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvbj7gpk.12","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter tells how Two-Lane Blacktop gained recognition years after its release.Warren Oates and two other lead actors die, giving the film an aura of poignancy—Laurie Bird from a drug overdose and Dennis Wilson from drowning while drunk. The movie becomes an example of the risk of profit-driven studios empowering auteur directors. As years pass, Monte Hellman gains accolades and esteem, and Two-Lane is considered his masterpiece. The movie has several themes in common with his other films, such as a voyage, references to death, and outsiders in an unpopulated area and living on the fringes of society. Like his other works it ignores genre conventions. It also exhibits his visual style, most notably in the gas station scene, with the camera focusing on one spot as characters come and go, with simultaneous action in the background, and not much camera movement.","PeriodicalId":111405,"journal":{"name":"Bumpy Road","volume":"79 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126242997","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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