Macadam à deux voies

I looked up this movie because it has a very young James Taylor, about 22 during filming, in a lead role as "The Driver." He was offered the role because during casting they saw a poster of his and liked his face. With his souped up '55 Chevy and a mechanic they head East. Along the way they occasionally get spending money by setting up a drag race, and of course winning.

Of note, they actually used several cars, one of them was also used later by Harrison Ford's character in "American Graffiti."

I had only planned to watch the first 15 or 20 minutes but it is the type of movie that grabbed my attention and wouldn't let go. I don't consider it a particularly good movie, most actors are inexperienced and the dialog is often boring. Plus the cinematography is almost amateurish. But all together it became, at least for me, a compelling viewing.

Much of the filming was done with cameras in the cars, either the back seat looking towards the road, or shooting a character from the side. The effect is like you are right there with them. Many of the roads and small towns reminded me of places I knew in the 1970s.

An interesting movie, with some unusual situations and unusual interactions, many will not like it but for the curious it can be an excellent viewing. It is an interesting snapshot of that time.

On Criterion Collection DVD from my public library. The 2-DVD set has one devoted to extras, interesting original screen tests plus interviews in 2007, many discussions on the movie and its making. Some still shots, many showing how they set up the cars for filming. Overall very worthwhile for the fans of this movie. James Taylor is the only surviving member of the main cast.

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.

"Two Lane Blacktop" is plain and simple, the "2001" of both road movies and car movies. A film experience like none other that will transcend you further than anything considering you have the slightest sensitivity for driving... or for cars... or for any of the actors involved in it... which is not anyone, sure. Even though, it remains an amazing film beautifully written and shot. And when you know it started as a Disney project surfing on the "Beetle" series' success, it turns out to be a piece of history. But hell, it's so strong it doesn't even need the anecdote. What it deserves is his freaking place in cinematic heaven, and it's a shame it's not there yet and remains hard to see in a theater ! Monte Hellman never made one as strong. Rudy Wurlitzer holding the pen probably helps. Still, Hellman is a fine director to be rediscovered too. One thing is to remember : if you have never seen it and see it plays around your block, cancel any previous plan and just GO FOR IT !

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...

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.