"We must all compromise."..."Bullshit!"

"Bullitt" (1968) DVD Review


As with several other reviews recently I took no notes so this will be brief (unless I get carried away like last time). Anyways, I hadn't seen Bullitt since I was a child. Bill Collins saved my life when I was a child as he was the only person on the telly who showed quality flicks. He gave me Hitchcock. He gave me Ray Harryhausen. He gave me Clint Eastwood. He even gave me the extended versions of Superman and Superman II. He gave me Steve McQueen. I think Bullitt was one of them.

Bullitt is an incredibly lean and efficient thriller that is renowned for it's major setpiece, the car chase through the hills of San Francisco, but it's more than that. Bullitt is incredibly sparse in its detail, which is a testament to director Peter Yates (who provides a solid DVD commentary), screenwriters Alan Trustman (The Thomas Crown Affair) and Harry Kleiner (Extreme Prejudice and Red Heat) plus editor Frank Keller.

McQueen plays the weary title character, a cop hunting down the people who killed a former mafia gang member, who had been placed in protective custody by Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) an ambitious politician who'll stop at nothing to prevent Bullitt in getting his man.

McQueen was born to play this role, and his looks say more than any dialogue could and Vaughn is suitably sleazy as the ruthless Chalmers. Yates peppers the supporting roles with interesting players: Jackie Bisset is lovely as Cathy (and would go on to work for Yates again in The Deep), Robert Duvall gives a brief appearance as another cop and the great Simon Oakland plays Bullitt's superior.

Special mention must also be made to Bill Fraker, the DP, who, as every serious film buff must know by now, does a great job of framing the famous car chase. Unlike modern car chases, this is leisurely edited in comparison, geographically positions the camera so we know what is going on at all times and uses liberal POV's from inside the cars. The rear-view mirrors are also well used and it is quite apparent that McQueen is doing his own driving. I also must note that very well done action setpiece at the airport at the end, again very clear that McQueen did much of his own stunts. My next reaction was that this type of scene could never get made nowadays. My third reaction was that it reminded me a bit of the final of Heat.

I was quite happy to rent this title, but could not find it. The price tag of $17 lured me also. The Getaway can't be far off. The other main reason I purchased this was that on disc 2 was a feature length doco called "The Cutting Edge: The Magic Of Movie Editing". This alone justified the price tag. The only doco (I know of) that covers the art of film editing, this is an outstanding study of one of the most invisible techniques in movie making. Wisely the doco concetrates most on the man considered to be the modern master of editing, Walter Murch. Murch has worked with Lucas and Coppola, and the documentary filmmakers show Murch as he cuts Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain. Murch adopts a gunslinger approach to cutting while standing up that is quite interesting (and funny). Also interviewed is my personal favorite editor Mark Goldblatt - plus there are many others: Paul Hirsch, Howard Smith, Conrad Buff, Carol Littleton, Frank Urioste, Thelma Schoonmaker, Michael Kahn, Anne Coates. They also interview most of the major filmmakers working today: Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Alexander Payne, Wes Craven, George Lucas, Paul Verhoeven, Joe Dante and Lawrence Kasdan. You even get some brief footage of the 'mother' of all editors: Verna Fields. This is as close to a perfect documentary you can get.

In addition, disc 2 also houses the documentary "Steve McQueen: The Essence Of Cool". This is another very solid piece of work done by Turner Classic Movies. The run-down of interviewees alone is impressive: colleagues Robert Culp, Suzanne Pleshette, Martin Landau, Robert Vaughn, Eli Wallach, Richard Attenborough, LeVar Burton, his first and third wives, Neile Adams and Barbara Minty, producers David Foster, Walter Mirisch, filmmakers Norman Jewison, Haskell Wexler, Peter Yates plus a couple of fans in Lawrence Kasdan and Alex Baldwin (who don't forget starred in The Getaway remake). Several stuntmen who worked on Bullitt and The Great Escape amongst others also recount some entertaining tales of McQueen and his desire to do all his own stunts. The doco runs through his entire career from early television in a Studio One tv play appearance and Wanted Dead Or Alive right through a troica of very different films late in his career, An Enemy Of The People, Tom Horn and The Hunter, just prior to his passing from lung cancer in 1980. The interviews are well intercut with a plethora of clips from all of his major film roles (except strangely, Junior Bonner, what couldn't get the rights?). It's interesting to note how poor the Le Mans clips looked what with a DVD release only a couple of years ago. There are also some clips of McQueen interviewed himself, including a brutally honest audio interview and some wonderful still photography accompanying the presentation. Interesting that LeVar Burton points out McQueen's line of dialogue in The Hunter: "I'm getting too old for this shit" that was reused seven years later in Lethal Weapon. One of the funniest stories has son Chad McQueen (also an actor) that dad had discovered the bible. "He would wake me up on a Sunday at 6.30 and we'd go to church. Then on the way home we'd buy a six pack".

PS. I've been doing a personal 100 Greatest Songs Of All Time and man is it a bitch. Done A's and B's and all I can tell ya at this point, there's probably too many Ryan Adams songs in there. Anyways, an aside.