Two-Lane Blacktop

The people who love this movie seem to love it for that certain feeling that it gives them. Reminiscent of an era they lived personally, the film evokes their own past experiences, or at least past experiences they wish they had had, that enhances the craft and lax storytelling of the picture into something else entirely. I do like the film. I think it's an interesting film with a worthwhile story to tell and that it does it well, but there does seem to be that sort of disconnect because I was never a child of the 60s learning to say goodbye to the hippie era.

It's a road trip movie without a real destination. It's a race movie where everyone stops for coffee so the other guys can catch up. There's no real destination. There's no real purpose to the journey, and that's the purpose of the film. Of the four main characters (you could say six if you include the two cars), only the Mechanic seems to know exactly what he wants, and that's to wander from race to race with his car, fixing it when it breaks and fine-tuning it before every showing. The other three, the Driver, the Girl, and G.T.O are almost completely defined by their purposelessness that manifests in different ways.

The Driver starts the film like the Mechanic, only out for the next race, but it's the introduction of the Girl that upends everything. Not immediately, of course, but steadily, the Driver seems less concerned with his core purpose as the Girl gets closer and then pulls away, undermining the relationship between Driver and Mechanic. The girl is purely a drifter. She jumps into their car at a roadside restaurant after collecting her things from a rundown van and just accepts their destination as her own. She's never gone east, you see, and going east sounds cool so she's on board. She doesn't seem to understand the effect she has on people, blind to how they see her, and in a complete haze. She's disengaged from everything save what's in her own head. The last character is G.T.O., played wonderfully by Warren Oates, and he's a motormouth who's constantly changing his story about where he's going and where he's from. His shifting tales tell us his uncomfortableness in any one spot, and he's the perfect guy to simply take up a random challenge for a cross country race.

As mentioned earlier, the other two characters are the cars themselves. The Driver and Mechanic drive a 55 Chevy that they've souped up lovingly, and G.T.O. drives a, well, a G.T.O., fresh off the assembly line. The people jump into and out of each car almost randomly. G.T.O. picks up hitchhikers as often as he can, giving them a new version of his life story, and the Girl slides into the passenger seat before the occupants of the two cars have even really introduced each other. Quickly follows the challenge to go from Arizona to D.C., and the movie feels like it's going to be an actual race for about five minutes until G.T.O. gets pulled over by the cops and the Driver stops to tease him. They stop a bit further up again where the Mechanic looks at the G.T.O.'s engine and tells him he needs a new part within fifty miles, but sure, they'll wait until G.T.O. has taken care of the issue. By the end of the film, the race has been completely forgotten as the Driver tries to get the Girl back from G.T.O. at a roadside diner, and then she just jumps onto the back of a motorcycle and drives off away from both of them. The race is over before they get past North Carolina, and they all go their separate ways, the Driver and the Mechanic to find another race, and G.T.O. to find another hitchhiker to tell another story to.

The point of the film then becomes obvious. None of these people have a real purpose. Even purposes that they define for themselves are tossed off without a second thought. They have no place in society, and they can't seem to make one for themselves out of it. It's an interesting portrait done well, but, as I said earlier, I think the real connective tissue between the film and the audience is the era, that space between the 60s and the 70s where the hippie movement died and those who could have been part of that were still searching for something to latch onto. It's a feeling thing that doesn't really translate across generations, but I can understand it intellectually if not emotionally.

In terms of the actual craft of the film, it's really well made. Monte Hellman is incredibly precise with his camera, coming up with surprisingly striking compositions to capture action and movement across all three dimensions of space. I love Warren Oates as G.T.O., but I find James Taylor a stilted performer as the Driver. He's often called introverted by those who love the film, and while that's true, he's also not great at actually delivering dialogue.

The much better version of Easy Rider, Two-Lane Blacktop is a loving look at the hole between generations. It's well made and largely well-acted, but it really does seem to require a personal connection to the era in order to work as well as it can. Maybe further viewings will help bridge that gap. I'm perfectly willing to give it multiple viewings, though. It's definitely worth the time.

As an admirer of Monte Hellman's superb 1960s westerns 'Ride In The Whirlwind' and 'The Shooting' I had been dying to see 'Two-Lane Blacktop' for many years as most people who have seen it regard it as Hellman's best movie, and one of the greatest road movies ever made. Impossible to find on video, and rarely (if ever) screened on TV here in Australia, I finally managed to get hold of it on DVD, and boy, does this movie REALLY live up to its reputation! I think if it had have been more easy to see over the last thirty years it would be spoken of in the same breath as 'Easy Rider'. Both movies are landmarks. Existential road movies that really capture a lost slice of Americana. Hellman, like so many other talented directors, got his first breaks from b-grade legend Roger Corman. But Hellman's unwillingness to compromise, and a lot of bad luck, sadly meant that he never crossed over into the mainstream like other Corman proteges like Coppola and Demme. Too bad, because 'The Shooting' and 'Two-Lane Blacktop' showed he had talent and originality to burn. Both movies feature the legendary character actor Warren Oates ('The Wild Bunch', 'Dillinger', 'Race With The Devil', 'Drum', 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia'), and Oates fans MUST see this movie as his performance is simply superb. Oates plays G.T.O. a drifter and dreamer who challenges two young revheads (played by James Taylor and The Beach Boys' Dennis Wilson) to a cross country car race. The winner gets the other drivers pink slip and (possibly) the affections of "The Girl", played by the late Laurie Bird (who only made two movies after this one and who tragically suicided in her mid twenties). Taylor, Wilson and Bird all give low key, almost non-performances. None were actors before they filmed this, but their minimalistic styles suit the material wonderfully. By contrast Oates is just dynamite and dominates every scene he appears in. I'd say this, and Peckinpah's cult classic 'Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia', are his two most impressive performances. It's worth watching this movie just to see Oates, but there's a lot more going for it. It is however an acquired taste, and if you aren't a fan of 1970s movies you may find it hard going. Please persevere, it's really worth it! Also keep an eye out for Harry Dean Stanton's unforgettable cameo as a lonely hitchhiker. Stanton had previously worked with Hellman in 'Ride In The Whirlwind' alongside Jack Nicholson and Cameron Mitchell, and would go on to appear with Oates and Laurie Bird in Hellman's next movie, the controversial 'Cockfighter', another difficult one to get hold of (until now). 'Two-Lane Blactop' is one of the best movies I've ever seen, and I can't recommend it highly enough! An American classic. It's pure magic!

This is either the best film I've ever seen, or just an interesting exercise in film-making that is ultimately of little value. The problem is that I can't decide which! No film has ever given me as much trouble in terms of my deciding where to place it in my personal Top 250 list. I mean, I know it's difficult to compare the relative merits of movies from different genres (e.g. "Schindler's List" vs "Monty Python And The Holy Grail"), but this movie is so unlike almost any others that I still don't know what to make of it.

I tried listening to the DVD commentary for some help, but Monte Hellman and Gary Kurtz had obviously pre-decided that they wouldn't talk about any aspect of the "meaning" or intent of the movie, preferring to concentrate on technical aspects such as pre-production, casting, locations, logistics, acting, lighting, sound, camera-work etc. I kind of respect them for this - leaving Joe Public to use his/her own brain in order to decide what the movie is all about.

One of the people in a featurette on the DVD said that "people haven't begun to realise how good Two-Lane Blacktop is" and I think that's right - the more I think about it, the better this film becomes in my estimation.

My take on the movie is that it's basically a contrast of the two extremes of human behaviour, as characterised by the brash, noisy "GTO" played by Warren Oates and the quiet, understated-to-the-point-of-lifelessness "Driver" and "Mechanic" - their personalities perfectly mirrored in their choice of cars. Most people's personalities lie somewhere in between, but by juxtaposing the extremes it forces one to think about one's place in that spectrum. "The Girl" is mainly a plot device to create a little bit of dramatic tension, as blokes left to themselves tend to go with the status quo. But we only want a little bit of drama, because that's not really the point, and too much drama would distract from the underlying theme.

I really love the "space" in this movie: the long takes, the long silences, the wide-open scenery, the fact that nobody SAYS anything (Warren Oates talks a lot, but never SAYS much). In modern life in general, I think people talk too much - try sitting still and shutting up for 103 minutes while watching this movie.

Not that I suppose anyone is interested, but I eventually rated this at about #70 in my Top 250, but next time I watch it I may move it up to #1 or drop it out of the 250 entirely...

Two Lane Blacktop is, together with Red Line 7000, perhaps the best film about car racing ever made.

The absence of plot and the minimal characterization reminds of another american film of the 70's, Walter Hill's `The Driver. What that film was for the noir genre this one is for the road-movie, a type of picture that was reaching its height around the time.

Monte Hellman, a crafted director that got his apprentice under the wings of Roger Corman, presents an empty world of wasted landscapes, forgotten towns and sleepy gas stations populated by ghostly and vanishing archetypes. They appear whenever they are needed, perform their actions and disappear immediately, as those hitchhikers picked up by G.T.O. that work as samples of possibilities of America.

Car racing is reputed to be a passion, but the people over here is deprived of feelings. They drive continually, there where the wind blows or whenever there's a chance to make money to keep-on going. They hardly talk with each other, and when they do it seems that they are not listening. The impressive cast is led by two rock stars (James Taylor and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys) and the icon Warren Oates. Despite their apparent differences they all constitute a single and exchangeable character, shown by a number of movements taking place throughout the film -driving each other's cars, behind the wheel or at the front seat, competing against each other or together performing a task.

This is an exercise of form, a raw vision of a country falling into pieces with nowhere to go, lost in cyclical repetition and in the eve of self-destruction, as the outstanding last frame of the film burning the screen poetically concludes.

Nostalgic of late 60s and early 70s American culture, this film is hard to come to grips with. At face value it's nothing more than a poorly plotted road trip across the U.S. Southwest, as two guys and a girl, in a 1950's hotrod, race a guy named G.T.O (Warren Oates) in his yellow muscle car.

The film's concept is a little like that of the early 1960's TV series "Route 66". But the approach here is totally different. Director Monte Hellman designed "Two-Lane Blacktop" as if it were a docudrama. Dialogue is minimal and not canned, camera work is unobtrusive with very long camera "takes", none of the actors wear makeup, non-actors play bit parts, there are minimal plot contrivances, and so far as I could determine there are no indoor movie sets. As such, the film reminds me of "Woodstock" (1970).

That's both good and bad. Lack of acting experience renders James Taylor and Dennis Wilson more natural than what could be expected with trained actors. It's bad because neither Dennis Wilson nor James Taylor could act, and their entertainment quotient is zilch. In performances, the film thus bears a striking resemblance to "Zabriskie Point" (1970).

For the above reasons, a lot of viewers will not like this film. The plot, such as it is, is super slow and the performances are drab. And there are no special effects to function as distractions. So ...

What you have in "Two-Lane Blacktop" is a 1970's art-house film. What it lacks in entertainment value the film makes up for with its heavy-duty philosophical and existential themes. An economy of language wherein nothing in the film is "explained", the tacit praise of the prosaic, and the almost stifling trust in the present moment, all speak to the human heart, as the voice of nihilistic romanticism. There is no freedom here, no escape, no change, nor redemption. The landscape horizon never gets closer. It's the myth of freedom and the embrace of alienation. No matter how far you travel, you never actually arrive. It's the journey that matters, on the devil's highway. But that's life.