This is the one time where I actually surprised myself with my choice for number one film. It was two years ago I first heard of the film "Two-Lane Blacktop" after reading a very passionate essay on it by Kim Morgan who is a leading authority on the film. "Two-Lane Blacktop" is a film that has since snuck up on me, the more I watch it, the more I begin to understand its world and its characters, and it is now a world I enjoy very much returning to constantly.
"Two-Lane Blacktop" is a film full of misfits, everyone in it does not know where they're going, or what they're doing. It's a film about what drives us both physically and metaphorically, so it should come to no surprise that it is a film about racing. It follows a driver (James Taylor) and his mechanic (Dennis Wilson) as they spend their days racing their '55 Chevy, priming it up to meet its ultimate speed. The two men are obsessed with their car, which is pretty much all they converse about, (or is it all they know how to converse about?). The two meet up with a drifter girl (Laurie Bird) who hops from car to car hitching a ride when she can. The two men don't even look surprised when they just happen to find her in the back seat of their car, they just drive off and like that, she becomes part of their world.
Down the road they meet another man driving a G.T.O. (Warren Oates). G.T.O is middle aged who wheres sweaters and likes to tell fabricated stories about his life to random hitchhikers he picks up. The two cars meet at a gas station and decide to race eachother to Washington D.C., the winner gets the other car's pink slip.
"Two-Lane Blacktop" could've been a standard action movie about a cross-country race between the '55 chevy and the G.T.O., but instead it becomes something more special. As the story progresses, the drivers seem to lose more and more interest about the race, we the audience even forget sometimes, instead it focuses on the lives of these individuals, each one struggling their own way in this world.
What makes these people race? They don't even seem to be in any hurry to get to their destination. When G.T.O has a leak in his carburetor, the four of them hang out at a garage until it opens so he can get it fixed. By the time it is open, G.T.O has become too drunk to even drive, so the mechanic and the driver take his car to fix it themselves.
The film is actually very sad once we understand the people we are dealing with, each one is dealing with their own issues of alienation and isolation. There is a scene where The Girl and The Mechanic are in a motel room having sex, while The Driver is outside by himself listening to them. To them it is the driving, the speed, that is the only thing that makes sense to them. There are many key lines of dialogue that point to the character's philosophy, such as when The Driver says "You can never go fast enough", you can find meaning with what he is saying.
For me the saddest most revealing bit of dialogue comes from G.T.O. as The Girl has now decided to ride with him, he talks about these hopeless dreams he wants to have with her such as driving to New York and building a house, at the end he says "...if I'm not grounded soon, I'm gonna go into orbit." Here is a broken man chasing something he can't find, and chances are he won't find it with this girl. Warren Oates lives in this character, you can believe him every step of the way, he makes you wonder what his whole story is, and you can't help but feel sorry for the guy.
"Two-Lane Blacktop" probably could not be made today, in fact it could've only been made in the 70s when studios took chances on films like these. With its initial release, the film suffered a box office failure, but it has since gained a substantial cult status, and I believe it will only grow in stature in the coming years. It has a stripped down quality, and a minimal flavour that helps to gravitate towards these characters more. These are people with few words, who can't express themselves like other movie characters can. These people feel more real to me, they talk of what they know, I may know nothing about cars, but I understand where they're coming from.
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