☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Two-Lane
Blacktop (1971) – M. Hellman
I’m not a gearhead by any stretch of the
imagination, so a flick about two dudes travelling cross-country in a hopped-up
’55 Chevy, engaging in drag racing to make money, isn’t something to which I
was intrinsically drawn. But this film
(by Monte Hellman) exists in its own reality, with an aimless pace, numerous
moments of quiet idleness (that some may find languorous), and the repetitive
purr and whine of engines. Warren Oates,
in his yellow G.T.O. and smart cashmere sweaters (with ascot), steals the show
with his cocky but somehow vulnerable older gent who agrees to race the boys to
D.C. Incidentally, the central
characters are played by James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, non-actors to be sure,
but evocative of a time and place now gone.
Possibly a key existential film (as so many road movies tend to be), if
you choose to read it that way.
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