MOVIE REVIEW - BULLITT

Shoot Straight, Buckle up!
by Mark Hebert

One of my fondest memories as a child was the night my father, with a slight smile, came into my room while I was playing. He ushered me into the TV room and plopped me down in front of the television set. “You have to watch this son”, he said. “OK cool”, I thought. I was never aloud to watch TV at this time of night. I focused on the TV. I was shown a man in a big green car. He was sitting, calmly, in the driver’s seat. He was across the street from another vehicle. The other vehicle was a big and black, it had two stoned faced men inside that screamed “Bad Guys”. Now, I only was about ten at the time, but I think I knew what was to come. “See?” my dad said excitedly, “He just buckled his seat belt”. I looked on and smiled.

What came next, a car chase through the streets of 1968 San Francisco, is considered the best in movie history and wildly influenced the very definition of a “car chase” in all movies to follow. The movie was Bullitt, starring movie icon Steve McQueen. Throughout the story we were taken on the aforementioned car chase and… well … many other exciting chases. Steve McQueen played the role of Lieutenant Frank Bullitt. He was assigned to a case by politician Walter Chalmers, played by Robert Vaughn. We can safely say this didn’t work out well for Bullitt and an investigation ensued. Now, I want to point out the kind of character Bullitt was and how he got things done; he did things his way. One famous quote that Bullitt shares with Chalmers is “You work your side of the street, I’ll work mine” (Yates). Needless to say, they are not very fond of one another.

The chemistry that McQueen and Vaughn share together during their scenes is dynamite. This would be the second of three movies that they are in together. Steve McQueen can be considered one of the first action heroes of the mid twentieth century with many movies under his belt. He was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood, but was also considered one of the toughest to work with, because he often had problems with directors and producers. In some ways, it seemed, McQueen was reflecting himself when playing the roll of Frank Bullitt.

The Director, Peter Yates, uses a lot of quiet scenes and close ups of Steve McQueen full of intense focus. This effect shows the dedication and intellect of the character. This is wildly different from the modern cop drama that actually has to tell us when they are playing “Good Cop, Bad Cop”. If you don’t know what I mean, go rent any 80’s-90’s cop buddy film to understand. Unlike these films, Bullitt assumes the audience is getting “it” without having to tell us, and for that it shows intelligence generally lost to the genre.

I do not want to harp too much on the films of today, but it seems that they lack the skill and the inventiveness of filming without post-production editing (i.e. Computer graphics) that characterized films in the 1960’s like Bullitt. Many times I hear that directors are not too worried about making the best shot as they assume the problems can be fixed in the editing room. The days of getting the right shot seem to be over. Bullitt shows us, magnificently, that this was not always the case. The film uses real muscle cars, not computer generated clones. I even heard that the actors, Steve McQueen and Bill Hickman, were in fact driving during the filming sequence which in itself shows the dedication the film has to authentically representing reality.

There was some pretty significant film techniques used in this film, primarily the use of wide angle shots. They seem to create a world that Frank is apart of, not just controlled sets with perfect lighting. Some pretty amazing shots were used to show the rolling hills of San Francisco and area. It made me want to go and take a tour. Some other techniques I found visual pleasing were the use of camera angles to give different visual perspectives.

Sound and music is often used in today’s movies to create drama, compared to the 60’s and 70’s, which have a minimalist approach to its use. In Bullitt there is no crazy techno or hard rock playing during action sequences, just a note here and there for added effect…oh yeah, least I forget, there is also the rumble of a couple of V-8’s with their gas peddles maxed and the sound of metal crunching as they land from ….well, you get the idea. The use of the sounds of the city is abundant. The sounds of the freeways and the people talking right after a gun shoot out are what we hear, instead of some song or beat. Often we are just seeing Bullitt contemplating his next move in silence and with dead focus. The mood that this creates is one of slow, deliberate, intensity. Stillness, like the calm before the storm, is the name of the game.

Also I should point out that there are very fine movies produced today and I don’t want to seem harsh or overly critical of all of them, but it also seems to me that many of them lack something…something that was lost with the advancement of filming technologies. Movies today seem to hand-feed us, like we don’t have to think about the plot or have any emotional response to the characters. This can also be a negative thing. In the case of Bullitt we must follow the story closely, sometimes with no dialogue, no music, just scenes of Frank walking. We assume he is investigating the case, and any intelligent person would think so. The movie wants us to figure things out for ourselves, not come up and drop the plot in our face and say “here, this is what’s happening and that’s the good guy and that’s the bad guy”. Bullitt is a film that’s better then that. It wants us to react, to feel the mood, to watch as the story unfolds before us.

I think that most modern movie enthusiasts would, at times, become bored with this slow story telling style. In my experience though, just when I was about to fall asleep I would hear the low purr of a V-8 about to punch it. I believe that, even after almost 40 years people will not remember the slow or “boring moments”, they will remember the slopes of San Francisco, as cars take flight.

Did I like this movie? Yes. Will you like this movie? Maybe, but you better buckle up when Frank does; else he will leave you behind.

Credits
Bullitt -Steve McQueen
Chalmers -Robert Vaughn
Cathy -Jacqueline Bisset
Credits
Directed by Peter Yates
Screenplay by Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner
1968 Warner Brothers
Works Cited
Bullitt. Dir. Peter Yates. Warner Brothers, 1968