The Fast and the Furious, but it’s not supposed to be. The sometimes awkward dialogue and the less-than-stellar acting from two American pop-music icons
can distract viewers. Even still, all of the gaffes make the movie feel somehow more genuine and raw.
More important to some than capturing the American experience,
Two-Lane Blacktop literally captures street racing of the early 1970s. Similar to how
American Graffiti encapsulated car culture in the 1960s, Two-Lane Blacktop expertly, if not accidentally, paints a wholly accurate picture of the cars that dominated local streets and drag strips. Most notably, the opening sequence features cameos from members of The Brotherhood of Street Racers and Willie Robinson’s 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona. Even for its idiosyncratic, art-school approach to dialogue and character development, Hellman’s work will stand the test of time at the very least for its accurate depiction of its era.
Filmmaker Monte Hellman, the best-kept secret in Hollywood, dies at 91 | Arts & Entertainment
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Monte Hellman, the director know for spare, probing genre movies such as “The Shooting,” “Two-Lane Blacktop” and “Road To Nowhere,” has died at age 91.
Hellman died Tuesday at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Desert, following a fall in his home, his daughter Melissa Hellman said.
Writing about Hellman in 1970, The Times’ Kevin Thomas referred to the filmmaker as “just about the best-kept secret in Hollywood.”
“When you see how great Monte’s films are, you’re amazed that he didn’t get to make three or four times as many, but then when you see how they did at the box office, it’s a miracle that he got to make the films he did,” said Dennis Bartok, former head of programming at the American Cinematheque and a longtime friend and collaborator with Hellman. “And I think part of it was that Monte never had that one defining hit that would carry him through the rest of his career. That film was supposed to be ‘Two-Lane Blacktop.’ I think it wa
Monte Hellman
He also helmed The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind, two sparse Westerns starring a young Jack Nicholson.
Monte Hellman, the maverick director and protege of Roger Corman who helmed the existential cult classics
The Shooting and
Two-Lane Blacktop, died Tuesday. He was 91.
Hellman died at Eisenhower Health hospital in Palm Desert a week after he had fallen in his home, his daughter, Melissa Hellman, a producer, told
The Hollywood Reporter. He was my best friend, she said.
Cahiers du Cinema, the influential French magazine, once called Hellman the most gifted American filmmaker of his generation, and critics likened the idiosyncratic director to Michelangelo Antonioni and Sam Fuller.
Monte Hellman, Two-Lane Blacktop Director, Dies at 91
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Monte Hellman, the maverick director of such films as “Two-Lane Blacktop,” “The Shooting” and “Road to Nowhere,” died April 20 at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Desert, Calif., following a fall in his home on April 19. He was 91.
Hellman was a cult director who was widely admired within the industry, earning such fans as Quentin Tarantino; they liked his down-and-dirty storytelling, which featured poetic flourishes amid his genre films.
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After working as an editor’s apprentice at ABC, he made his directing debut with the 1959 “Beast From Haunted Cave,” produced by Roger Corman. He became part of the Corman stable of veterans who learned how to get maximum impact on minimum budget. Other Corman alumni include Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard.
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