"What's behind me is not important." - Franco (Raul Julia) explains the first rule of Italian
driving, whilst tearing off his rear view mirror in The Gumball Rally (1978)
 |
Gene Hackman behind the scenes shooting the
groundbreaking car chase in William Friedkin's
The French Connection (1971) |
Hollywood has been burning rubber almost as long as it has
been burning celluloid. Cars and car
chases not only provide a fundamental cinematic ingredient for thrillseeking
moviegoers, but also represent one of the most culturally significant tropes of
the medium.
To understand this significance, we must first recognise the
specific cultural shift that is marked by the appearance of this supercharged,
automotive brand of cinematic carnage.
Retrospectively, all creative art forms undergo a similar
series of cultural transitions and the movies are no exception. Broadly, we can group broad social and ideological
transitions through our history, each of these reflected by a dominant Cultural
phase. These phases are identified as Primitivism, Classicism, Modernism and Post-Modernism. Whilst historians often apply these as a clear linear progression, all four phases are occurring simultaneously on a smaller scale all the time, both socially in
different geographical regions and formally through different media. It is by applying this model to cinema that we uncover the
startling and pivotal cultural role taken by the
Car Chase within this bubbling cultural soup.
 |
The Lumiere Brothers thrill audiences
with their amazing train |
The infancy of any new medium first begins with a Primitive
period. Primitivism is generally
identified with the discovery of a particular medium. This is a phase of formal development, when
work is generally sensualist or decorative, designed to demonstrate the potential
of that medium. In the fine arts, this is
often related to cave-painting and other ancient decorative crafts. The pioneering moving pictures of the
Lumière Brothers
mark
the Primitive period of cinema, when the simple thrill of seeing short moving images
was enough to pack theatres night after night.
As technical skills improve in a medium, we enter a
Classical period. This is where a craft
is developed and refined. In many ways
the utilisation of the medium stays similar to the Primitive period, but the
Classical period marks a peak of technical excellence.
To again use the fine arts as an analogue, the most obvious
and recognisable example of this would be the 16th century Renaissance. This period marked the beginning of the
modern age. In painting and sculpture of
this time, artists began using perspective and proportion to achieve
increasingly lifelike effects. The
achievements of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giorgione and Titian
mark a peak of painterly craftsmanship still unparalleled in our time.
In long established formal media, it would appear each
cultural shift occurred simultaneously in reaction to a contemporary social
shift. However, every formal medium
still passes through all prior phases of development until it reaches the
dominant social phase of its time. Thus,
in a much more recent medium - developed at a more culturally sophisticated
time - the speed of these transitions is
accelerated accordingly, as the form needs to catch up with its audience. This is the case with cinema.
The established Classical period of
Cultural development extends roughly from the 16th century until the late 19th
century. It was during the latter point
that the exploration of Modernism was just beginning across the fields of the
established arts and literature. It is
also around this time that cinema was first developed: a newborn Primitive
artform in a Modernist world. One may
surmise that the development of photography, then cinematography, at this point
also played a role in rendering the major Classical purposes of art
obsolete.
Nevertheless, as Modernism
began in earnest, Cinema was just starting out on its Cultural journey and, through necessity, quickly
evolved into its Classical phase. No matter how ground breaking the experience
might initially be, audiences soon tired of seeing the same silent scene of a
steam train leaving its station. Within just a few years, Méliès set up the first film studio
and began to further exploit this fledgling medium, drawing from the language
of the existing structures of its nearest formal relatives – those of
photography, literature and theatre.
 |
| The Keystone Kops (circa 1915) |
Forerunners of the action sequence can be found in many
genres of the 1920's, 30's and 40's, from film-noir to westerns and
early serial pictures. These sequences,
however, were rooted in drama rather than spectacle and still took their
dramatic conventions from other media - in particular, drawing their
inspiration from pulp literature and comic books. Interestingly, the
clearest silent movie antecedents can be found in slapstick shorts, like
the anarchic shenanigans of the Keystone Kops. These prototype
action set pieces were an extension of Vaudville performance acts and restrained in length, scope and quality by technical limitations, but
this very physical comedy provided inspiration for what could be
accomplished with the medium.
As the Classical period marks the greatest period of
refinement in craft and technique, it is not surprising that all media are
dominated by a cadre of revered individuals from their Classical periods. From Shakespeare, to Mozart, to Carravaggio –
the Classical exponents of a media set the standard by which all those who follow
will be judged. In cinema, the
Classical period of technical development stretches from Méliès through to such
diverse figures as Hitchcock, Welles, Eisenstein, Kurosawa, even extending into
the 70s with the work of directors such as Altman and Scorcese.
As with any Classical period of formal
development, these achievements establish the critical and formal language for a
medium, yet once a peak of excellence has been achieved, it cannot by
definition be excelled. Thus a medium needs to expand into new territory to continue
to survive. We identify this next shift
as Modernism. The Modernist period
occurs where a medium appears to have been formally fully formed. The shift to Modernism is often - but not
always - marked by an initial fear of redundancy, since the medium appears to
have exhausted its potential. It is following this transition that the formal
medium now advances contextually as new and unique applications are discovered
and the medium can be finally established as an independent art form.
In conventional Art History, this phase is more commonly
associated with the post-war shift from figurative painting and sculpture to
abstraction and conceptual art, although this transition really begun in early
19th Century Europe as Classical Art and Culture searched for a new purpose as
the Classical social structure collapsed.
The Modernist shift in cinema actually overlaps the
critically acclaimed work of these Classicists and spans from the late 50s,
peaking in the mid-70s, continuing on into the present day. This is a shift that properly consolidates
with the groundbreaking formal development of the Car Chase.
 |
Cinema had been embraced
as a new art of a new world and
the automobile was naturally the most
appropriate of subjects.
Representing freedom and modernity, the car
chase (in fiction
and reality) is at it's heart a most American art form |
From this point, North American cinema dominates and it should be noted that this gearshift into Modernism was first initiated by a number of
domestic social factors.
It is during the
1950's, that we find a new breed of affluent, post-war youth, eager to assert a
distinct and individual cultural identity.
It is in this era that the Rock and Roll counterculture would be born
and many of the foundations were being laid for the later social and political
upheavals of the 1960s. The effect on
cinema was to be equally dramatic.
This audience was eager for excitement and thrills and demanded
a constant stream of new movies to satisfy them. Chase scenes were already a staple of the Classical period of cinema, but in order to fill out the
running time of these B-grade productions they were drawn out to become the focus
of the movie.
With improved equipment, but working with relatively small
budgets, B-movie filmmakers recognised the potential for placing the actual
focus of a movie on its spectacle. This would
mean that the plot became subordinate to providing a constant stream of action
and thrills. This astute decision would
later lead to exploitation filmmaking – a cinema of excess – which relied on
the unholy trinity of sex, violence and action, designed to stir up thrills,
teenage libidos and wallets in equal measure.
However, at this point in history, strict codes of guidance still restricted
what could be shown onscreen in mainstream features. This effectively meant that the filmmaker
could only tease with hints of violence and allusions to sex.
With their options limited, filmmakers had to concentrate on
action sequences to provide mass entertainment.
This new youthful audience demanded contemporary movies that they could
identify with and so the earliest manifestations of the classic action sequence
centred around the popular sport of illegal hot rodding with crazy young hipsters racing '32 Ford Highboys and '29 Track Ts with flat head V8s.
 |
Hot Rod Girl (1956) offered "speed crazy thrills
as wild youths tear up the streets!" |
|
As a result, 50s films such as Teenage Thunder, Hot Rod
Gang, Thunder Road and Devil on Wheels were amongst the slew of low-budget
movies churned out by studios to satisfy the demands of the youthful drive-in
movies audiences.
These particular movies still only featured Car-Chase scenes
as a modest part of a loose narrative still rooted in a Classical cinematic
structure, but the emphasis on the extended chase scenes was beginning to
explore a new language unique to cinema.
The visceral thrills of these action sequences could not have existed in
any previous storytelling medium.
In a sense, the compostion of these films is comparable to
the early Modernist compositions of Futurism.
As with Futurism, there is a similar immediacy and an obsession with
modern images and narrative. These
movies retain the framing of classical composition, yet techniques unique to
the medium were being emphasised within this structure. This leads to a subtle,
but noticeable, abstraction of form. More importantly, with this change in
attitude towards filmmaking, cinema was evolving again and - despite the
existing formal arts having more than a 500 year head start – making its first
tentative steps towards Modernism a mere 60 years after its invention.
By the time the chequered flag of 1960s was waved, an
increasing liberalisation of the industry allowed more exploitative B-movies,
opening the floodgates for studios to attract their audiences with the much
cheaper thrills of sex and violence.
Thus, the cycle of 50s Car-Chase movies were no longer
necessary in their original context – slowly being replaced by a greater
variety of extreme content. Nevertheless,
this was not enough to stop the rise of the seemingly unstoppable Car-Chase
phenomenon. As Modernism is generally
marked by a change in the context of a media and a deconstruction of its
fundamental qualities, a key component is a medium drawing its formal and
contextual language from its own history rather than from other media. This leads to an increasing process of
self-referentiality. As the popularity
of the Car-Chase made it a common and recognisable cinematic archetype, it was
now increasingly visible in more mainstream films.
 |
Steve McQueen catches some 'lift' on the mean
streets of San Fransisco in Bullitt (1968) |
During that decade, increasingly elaborate Car
Chases began appearing in every possible genre; from popular horror flicks, such
as The Spider and The Giant Gila Monster, to the centrepiece of big budget
thrillers. The most notable of these later entries including Bullitt (1968) and The French
Connection (1971).
Despite being of only moderate
significance to the narrative of these movies, it is worth recognising
that the Car Chase sequences form perhaps the most iconic and enduring images
of these productions. The climactic chase scene of Bullitt is a deft mix of some exquisite on-location stunt driving, dramatic cinematography and subtle effects work that result in what is often considered to be the first true car chase sequence in modern cinema. A few years later, William Friedkin's The French
Connection would raise the stakes again with a wild supersonic, pedestrian
worrying, gravity defying car chase.
As the 60s progressed, there was a renewed period of
experimentation, as both technical and social advances allowed cinema a much
broader scope. Whilst there were many
Modernist experiments within cinema during this period, the increased technical
potential of the medium prolonged – to some extent – Classical dominance.
By the time we reach the 70s, cinema has properly entered
its Modernist period, evidenced by the distillation and exploitation of the
peculiar qualities of its own formal legacy.
This deconstruction initially occurs using the formal elements of the
Car-Chase, which becomes the first singularly cinematic archetype to become a
new separate and very distinct genre in its own right.
 |
| Dennis Weaver gets "trucked off" in Spielberg's Duel (1971) |
The decade was dominated by mainstream movies taking the Car-Chase as their subject. In 1971, an unknown director named Steven Spielberg crafted his entire debut feature around a single predatory car chase in the TV movie Duel. From the The
California Kid (1973), which revolved around a psychotic sheriff who ran speeders off the road, to Greased Lightning
(1977), featuring Richard Prior as a real life rum-runner turned racer, these films centred
their narratives around Car-Chase action and maintained the genre throughout
the decade, straying very little from the established format.
The genre was driven by several recognisable elements. During the sixties and seventies, youth
culture was largely centred around an anti-authoritarianism and a distrust of
establishment figures.
Reflecting this, the central characters of many movies
during this period were often sympathetic individuals outside the law. The trend towards the anti-hero easily
filtered through into the Car-Chase genre, providing filmmakers with the
opportunity to throw the combined might of the police department motorpool
against our hapless heroes.
To further polarise our sympathies, there was often an
individual authority figure with a grudge, representing as many bigoted
prejudices associated with the establishment as possible and whose primary
purpose was to be humiliated a variety of wacky slapstick ways during the
course of the feature. The
archetypal “Fat Redneck Sheriff”, epitomised by Jackie Gleason in the three
Bandit movies, even managed to make an unexpected cameo appearance in the 1974
James Bond flick Live And Let Die (1973).
 |
"...and there goes the Challenger,
being chased by the blue, blue meanies on wheels"
Vanishing Point (1971)
|
With such two dimensional characterisation and exaggerated
action sequences, few of these films were intended to be taken seriously, the
possible exception being Vanishing Point (1971) - which would be a controversial
inclusion in that this meditative, existential Road movie includes few actual
chases – and the strange and beautiful Two Lane Blacktop (1971).
Quite simply, narrative is stripped to all but that which is
necessary to identify the media and legitimise the movie. A classic example of this type of abstraction
can be found in the original obscure cult movie Gone in 60 Seconds – written, starring, directed and produced by stunt driver
H.B. Halicki. That movie famously began
as a 40-minute demolition derby car chase, allegedly taking seven months to
film in five cities and leaving a grand total of 99 vehicles destroyed in its
wake. The plot is typically minimal - 46 cars must be stolen,
including a 1973 Mustang Mach 1. Only
after shooting these sequences did Halicki - who died attempting more extreme
stunt driving for the sequel - hastily film the narrative bookends to provide a
contextual framing to justify the excessive auto-action.
 |
| Burt Reynolds at Bo "Bandit" Darble |
|
Whilst certainly not the first movie of the Car-Chase genre
to use the classic template, Smokey and the Bandit (1977) is probably one of the most
familiar. Directed and written by Hal
Needham, the films premise is another simple derivation on the classic theme.
Bandit and the Snowman, played by Burt
Reynolds and country singer Jerry Reid, must drive a Kenworth semi from Atlanta
to Texarkana and back in 28 hours - loaded with 400 cases of bootlegged beer
for rich-boys Big and 'Lil Enos Burdett, who make this bet with every aspiring
road-racer they can.
Win and our good 'ole boy heroes can buy a new rig with an
$80,000 prize. If they Lose, it's off to jail. To make the trip efficiently,
Bandit surmises they need a car to divert the attention of the local law
enforcement away from the truck and its illegal cargo. This neatly leads to the
introduction of the Bandits Pontiac Trans Am. In between the comic-slapstick
Car action, Sally Field provided the most irrelevant and implausible love
interest in movie history, whilst Jackie Gleason made his movie comeback after
7 years offscreen, as the iconic Buford T Justice, a obese hick Sheriff with a
grudge.
Whilst Gone in 60 Seconds is an obscure cult gem, Smokey and
the Bandit was a huge hit. Surprisingly,
it grossed over $126 million in the U.S. alone. It ended up second only to Star
Wars on 1977s biggest hits list and spawned two sequels, a wave of imitators
and a television series.
There were other derivations on the Car-Chase formula, such
as the “Great Race” format – taking its name from Blake Edwards’ 1965 caper movie
which was based on a turn of the century round-the-world race between a
starched, heroic Tony Curtis and a dastardly Jack Lemmon. This particular format was an extension of
movies such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) – itself a re-working of Around
the World in 80 Days.
These early “race” movies were really an excuse to present a
series of comic, slapstick set-pieces between a large ensemble cast, using the
Race format as a type of Vaudeville or Variety show framework to present a
series of sketches.
In the 70s, The Gumball Rally and The Cannonball Run
similarly revolved around a madcap coast-to-coast race. Like the prototype 50's B-pictures, both The
Cannonball Run and The Gumball Rally were based on the same real life event, an
illegal road race known as "The Cannonball Baker Sea to Shining Sea
Memorial Dash."
 |
The last truly great Great Race movie
The Cannonball Run (1981)
|
In these movies, the Great Race format is used to cram in a
bewildering crowd of cameo racers. The
Cannonball Run in particular takes a long time to get underway, purely because
of the amount of characters it has to introduce. Among the competitors in eponymous
no-holds-barred race to California, Smokey director Hal Needham once again draws
on the talents of Burt Reynolds for his lead, this time along with unstable
sidekick Dom DeLuise, who periodically switches into his inexplicable alter-ego
“Captain Chaos”. Jamie Farr hams it up
as an equally unstable Arab millionaire determined to win no matter what the
cost and ratpack crooners Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. play two gambling
drunks dressed as priests so “God can be their co-pilot."
Doing their respective bit for international
stereotypes, Roger Moore plays a James Bond style racer complete with gadget
packet Aston Martin, while Jackie Chan pilots a rocket propelled Subaru. Also on the starting lineup are seventies sex
bombs Farrah Fawcett, Adrienne Barbeau, Tara Buckman and a whole host of
supporting characters, each playing various comic archetypes. Sticking to a winning formula, they are
pursued by government agent AF Foyt, a fascistic bureaucrat obsessed with
stopping the racers.
The main difference between Cannonball and the earlier
ensemble features, was that this was no longer a character driven movie. Instead the emphasis was clearly on setting
up a series of high octane race and comedic chase scenes. The advantage in using so many well-known
actors was so that they could play what was essentially a pastiche of their
popular persona.
This made any cumbersome character development unesscessary
and draws on from the formal rules of early Modernist Abstraction by using
certain Classical conventions - already familiar to a predominantly
Classical audience - in order to make abstract work accessible. As with the majority of the 70's Car-Chase
cycle, the characters are little more than caricatures, generally with a strict
moral distinction. They are either the
bad-guys or the good-guys, with the audience made certain they know exactly who
they should be rooting for.
Cartoonish villany actually draws its archetypes from early
silent shorts - where visual exaggeration was necessary in order to compensate
for a lack of sound and the poor quality and relatively short length of the
reel. Here we seen these techniques used
merely to ensure there are no lengthy distractions from the action - a wise
move considering shocking speed with which the action grinds to a screeching
halt during Burt Reynolds obligatory romantic interludes in both The Cannonball
Run and Smokey and the Bandit.
 |
Dick Dastardly & sidekick Mutley,
in Hanna-Barbera's Wacky Races
(doomed to failure, 1968-71) |
|
Considering this willing two dimensionality, it is
appropriate that the Great Race format would find itself preserved in the Wacky
Races cartoon, its hapless villain Dick Dastardly practically a clone of the
Jack Lemmons moustache-twirling Professor in the original Great Race, both of
them doomed to perpetual humiliating failure.
Naturally, once a solid and identifiable formula has been
established and proved a success, so that formula is reproduced by others until
its popularity is exhausted. In this
respect, there are further parallels to be drawn with other fields of formal
Modernism.
The very experimental and personal form of Cubism developed
by Picasso and Braque suddenly found itself a formal genre in its own right. In a short space of time it was beyond their
control and in the hands of a expanding mass of minor Cubists that continues to
grow, even today. Similarly, the
Car Chase genre mutated and spawned with ferocity.
As well as follow-ups to Smokey and Cannonball, Needham made
the a further string of Car orientated movies - including Hooper and Stroker
Ace, both starring Reynolds at the wheel. Even an autumnal Sam
Peckinpah contributed Convoy, which - in a radical move - substituted cars for
trucks, but left much of the remaining formula intact. Across the ocean, the Brits managed to cause just as much
destruction, albeit with the rather reduced horsepower of the humble mini, in
The Italian Job (1969).
 |
Ledgendary stunt driver Grant Page at the wheel
in a scene from Mad Max (1979) |
Back in the B-movie soup from which the Car Chase had
first emerged, the genre continued to fascinate. Roger Corman took a particular interest in
the Car-Chase phenomenon he had indirectly helped to pioneer. Among his hastily produced cut-price
productions were Gumball, Grand Theft Auto and demented cult favorite Death
Race 2000 (1975), which optimistically suggested our obsession with the Car Chase had
at least another half century staying power.
In this case, post-apocalyptic drivers took part in a pan-American
massacre whereby points were scored for slaughtering innocent bystanders
en-route. Distilling the medium even further, George Miller's Ozploitation classic Mad Max (1979) presented us with a dystopian near future where the car chase was pretty much all we had left.
If we were required to continue the Cubist analogy and
identify a Picasso figure amongst the pantheon of gearjammers in this Modernist
branch of cinema - being a single and widely recognisable iconic character
whose work embodies the movement in its entirety - it would undoubtedly be Bo
“Bandit” Darble himself, Burt Reynolds.
The quarter-Cherokee son of a former cowboy provided the
lead in two of the most important movies in the genre, Smokey and the Bandit
and The Cannonball Run. As a both stuntman and the charismatic and recognisable
lead from a number of popular television series, Reynolds was perfect for these
roles. He was required only to be an
amiable “everyman” character. As a glib
and humourous antihero-lite, he played a consistent archetype, seemingly a
parody of real-life persona. This
allowed the movies he starred in to dispense with any cumbersome character
development or complicated plot framing.
All the filmmakers needed was an excuse to get Reynolds into a Trans-am
and on the lam.
These movies were a product of their time, but mark an
important turning point and, like all Modernist constructions, allowed a
revitalisation of the medium. In
retrospect they were crude and irreverent, but once a Classical benchmark has
been achieved, the only way to develop is by the stripping of a medium back
down to its basics.
Interestingly, Braque neatly stated his intentions for
Cubism in a manner that is neatly applicable to the Car-Chase
deconstruction. Frustrated by the
Classicist and Neo-Classicist genre, he stated that it was his intention to
“create a new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears in terms of volume, of
line, of mass, of weight."
 |
"A new sort of beauty, the beauty that appears
in terms of volume, of
line, of mass, of weight"
Georges Braque |
Like the early Modernism of other media, these genre movies
mark a complete abstraction of form. In painting, Braque and Picasso had developed the Cubism form by taking the Classical format of
painting and discarding all but the specific qualities unique to that
medium. They were making paintings about
paintings. In these movies, from Gone in
60 Seconds to the Gumball Rally, filmmakers took the format of Classical movie
structure, but reduced all but certain unique cinematic qualities of that
media. These qualities are perfectly embodied by
the Car Chase, an element in that simply cannot be reproduced in any
existing media; not literature, painting, sculpture or even theatre.
Naturally, as with Cubism, critics found this Modernist abstraction
difficult to grasp and many were immediately hostile. For instance, Tim Pulleine wrote that the
classic Cannonball Run was “lacking any recognisable plot or characterisation,
or indeed incidental invention, it merely offers a parade of inept
whimsy and lame intra-mutual reference.”
This kind of critical attack is striking in its similarity
to the derogatory comments made by the critics of Modernism in other
media. Any initial break with Classism
in a medium is often considered vulgar and shocking - before being eventually
embraced. This was the case with Cubism,
Futurism, Impressionism and Car-Chase movies.
Of course, once any form has been fully popularised and
become over familiar, it will quickly lose relevance. The very success of the Car-chase movie
started an unprecedented cycle of hastily produced sequels and inferior
imitations, which swiftly stifled the originality and sheer excitement of the
pioneering early works. In tandem with
this decline, George Lucas’ 1977 space opera Star Wars had redefined the
concept of the thrill movie – with previously unimaginable special effects
sequences raising audience expectations far above the simple pleasures of the
dirt-track and tarmac demolition derby.
By 1983, even Reynolds declined to return as the lead for
Smokey and the Bandit III, offering only a split-second cameo at the films
conclusion. From the mid-eighties onwards,
the phenomenon of the big budget, high-concept “Summer Blockbuster” had
superceded the Car-Chase genre almost entirely.
Nevertheless, no popcorn movie of the 80’s was complete without at least
one obligatory burst of car chase action.
Since then, the Car-Chase has remained a staple set-piece of the
generic Action movie, making countless cameo appearances in all manner of
productions. During the 80's and 90's, many movies included memorable Car Chase scenes, including The Blues Brothers (1980), Beverly Hills Cops (1984), Lethal Weapon
2 (1989), Days of Thunder (1990), The Chase (1994),
Goldeneye (1995) and The Rock (1996). At the close of the decade, John Frankenheimers Ronin (1998) recalled the gritty style of the 1970s
thriller and revisited the mean streets of The French Connection. An honorable mention should also go to the audacious tongue-in-cheek sequence in Way of the Gun (1999), where a two car chase is staged almost entirely at walking pace,
but with no less automotive destruction.
 |
This is how Michael Bay arrives at work every morning
Bad Boys II (2003)
|
|
First across the line of new millennium was Jerry Bruckheimers surprise hi-octane remake of Gone in
60 Seconds (2000). In view of his unerring
dedication to the Car-Chase sequence throughout his entire career, this
movie is a characteristically broad tribute not just to the original
movie but to the
genre as a whole. Close behind, The Fast and the Furious (2001) franchise starring the
appropriately monikered Vin Diesel, returned the genre to its drag racing
roots.
We must also not forget that formal progression continues
apace in established media. As we
develop the cultural sensibilities of the Post-Modern – a methodology with
growing importance in the fields of art, music and literature - there is an
increased self-referentiality within all media coupled with an increased use of
the techniques of contextual irony and pastiche.
 |
Zoe Bell clings for life to the hood of a 70 Challenger
as Stuntman Mike tries to run the girls off the road
Death Proof (2007)
|
There is perhaps evidence of this in Jan De Bonts Taxi (2000), which provided a compact and knowing Gallic wheelspin on the genre. We've also had Pixar's animated Cars (2006) and Michael Bay's Transformers (2007), in which the titular vehicles actually are the main characters. In Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007), two separate sets of voluptuous women are stalked at
different times by scarred Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who uses his "death proof" cars
to execute his murderous plans.
There are sly and overt references to almost every movie
mentioned in this article and even though perhaps only a third of the action
actually takes place on the asphalt, there is more talking about movie cars and
stunt work than any other movie I can think of. Nevertheless, the climactic high speed chase is one of the
most exciting twenty minutes of automotive action to grace the screen in many
years. The action and the danger here is real; the centrepiece being real-life
stuntwoman Zoe Bell as herself playing “ships mast” on the front of a speeding
Challenger as they are rammed repeatedly by the chasing psychopath.
When the girls eventually turn the tables to exact a fitting
revenge on Stuntman Mike, it’s an appropriate coda to a movie that is a love
letter to a genre so often male-dominated and a timely reminder that women
should never again be considered mere ornament amongst the freeway frenzy.
Death Proof is as close to a pure Post-Modern tilt on the car chase movie as we are going to find for the time being, but glance in the rear view mirror reveals there is a new challenger, close behind and gaining fast. Whilst the art of cinema evolved very quickly over barely a century, it seems that it is on the verge of being overtaken by a
bratty digital cousin with barely 40 years on the clock.
 |
The car is the star
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) |
Home computer and gaming technology has raced through
it’s Primitive and into its Classical stage very quickly, becoming increasingly interactive and close to offering sensory
experiences the cinema is unable to match. With new generations of games consoles appearing at an ever-increasing
rate, it is of particular
note that one of the most popular and enduring Computer Game genres has been the
Car Chase.
As we approach the astounding cinematic technology of the Eighth Generation consoles, it should come as little suprise that one of the most popular gaming franchises is Grand Theft Auto,
a game that takes great delight in its fetishisation of the golden age of Car Chase cinema.
Meanwhile, popular cinema is still clinging persistently to the hood of Modernism, obsessed by the ever decreasing returns of high-concept formal abstraction. But digital gaming is raising the stakes and the threat of supercedence by new technical developments acts as a catalyst for experimentation and the pushing of boundaries. As we enter this strange new cinematic landscape, we might just find ourselves across the border, heading toward the next cinematic Renaissance. The future is a different country. They do things differently there. But one reassuring thing is almost for certain: there will still be Car Chases.
