The car chase was one of many innovations of the New Hollywood era, where on-location authenticity supplanted studio backlot fakery. Yes, there were car chases in movies before Peter Yates' "Bullitt," but they tended to be laden with process shots featuring actors at the wheel while the image projected behind them veered out of control. Even an A-plus production like Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" settled for soundstage-bound sequences that manufactured the sensation of high-speed vehicular mayhem.
Perhaps they were thrilling to people at the time because they had nothing quite so thrilling as a comparison. In any event, once Yates unleashed his 11-minute, practically shot pursuit through the perilously hilly streets of San Francisco in 1968's "Bullitt," there was no going back. If you weren't filming real cars barrelling at unsafe speeds through city streets or country roads, you were wasting everyone's time.
And it is only right...
Perhaps they were thrilling to people at the time because they had nothing quite so thrilling as a comparison. In any event, once Yates unleashed his 11-minute, practically shot pursuit through the perilously hilly streets of San Francisco in 1968's "Bullitt," there was no going back. If you weren't filming real cars barrelling at unsafe speeds through city streets or country roads, you were wasting everyone's time.
And it is only right...
- 10/23/2022
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
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