Two-Lane Blacktop: The Criterion Collection

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In the beginning, God created the Earth. And it was good.

A few years later, he created Warren Oates. And it was even better.

For many people, Steve McQueen is the ultimate movie icon of "cool," but I´ll take Warren Oates any day of the week. Warren Oates was so cool he didn´t even have to be cool. McQueen couldn´t spend a minute on-screen without actively emoting machismo; it was all part of the image, the branding of the ultimate man. Warren Oates was all-man too, but he was the kind of man who could wear a canary yellow V-neck sweater and still kick your ass. Oates was best-known as a so-called character actor for Sam Peckinpah, but he delivers his finest performances in two Monte Hellman films, playing a mute cockfighter in the appropriately titled "Cockfighter" (1974), and as a wanna-be street racer in the minimalist masterpiece "Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971).

"Two-Lane Blacktop" is the greatest American road movie ever made. I state this as fact, not opinion. At the same time, it´s difficult to hold up "Two-Lane Blacktop" as an exemplar of the genre, because it resembles no other American road movie. The movie is stripped down to the barest essentials, much like the ´55 Chevy that shares top billing in the film. None of the characters have names, and other than Oates, none of the main actors had appeared in a film before, though some were still pretty big names. 22 year-old James Taylor (yes, that James Taylor) stars as The Driver, 26 year-old Beach Boy Dennis Wilson stars as The Mechanic, 18 year-old screen-test discovery Laurie Bird stars as The Girl; Oates is identified only as GTO for the ´70 GTO he drives.

Novelist and first-time screenwriter Rudy Wurlitzer crafts a script that, following in the tradition of the "French "New Novel," focuses on objects, gestures and behaviors more than dialogue and action. As with most worthwhile films, the plot is reed-thin: The Driver and the Mechanic challenge GTO to a cross-country car race with the "pink slips" for both cars as the stakes. Along the way, the drivers stop to pick up hitch-hikers or even to help each other out. The film ends well before the race does which is just as well since everyone involved seems to have forgotten about the race anyway.

Taylor was just beginning his performing career when Hellman spotted his face on a billboard in L.A. and decided he would be perfect for the role. It´s the only film role of Taylor´s career; he claims that he has never even watched "Two-Lane Blacktop." Dennis Wilson likewise never played in another film; the ill-fated Laurie Bird only appeared in two more features (including Hellman´s "Cockfighter") before committing suicide in 1979. Hellman exerted tight control over his novice actors. Unlike the veteran Oates, none of the other three leads were allowed to see the whole script; Hellman only doled out the pages needed for that day´s shooting because he wanted his actors to live in the moment, an approach aided by the fact that the film was shot in sequence as the crew followed old Route 66 eastward.

Taylor, Wilson and Bird come across as Bressonian models, their emotions and gestures hammered so flat that they prove infinitely malleable, each stony expression yielding to another shot of endlessly rolling, taunting, unforgiving blacktop. Oates, by contrast, is an open wound hiding behind empty bravado and his endless supply of V-neck sweaters of all colors. His performance is so nuanced, it opens up further with each viewing of the film, or at least it does for me. He is the ultimate bullshit artist, spinning a new yarn for every hitchhiker he picks up, but he bears the weight of dashed hopes on his shoulders. His endless chatter is simply a way to extend the moment before he buckles under the pressure (of life, of the road, of everything). He dreams of going to Florida to "Let all the scars heal." But it ain´t gonna happen.

The film´s slow pace and sparse dialogue along with the characters´ mutually inept attempts to connect with one another bear the trappings of existential angst, but the resemblance is a superficial one. At its heart, the film is really about what it appears to be about: three men, one woman, and two cars, a ménage à six the likes of which cinema has never seen. Almost every permutation is tried at least once: GTO and The Girl in the GTO, Oates in the ´55 Chevy, The Driver and The Girl in the ´55 Chevy, GTO and the Mechanic in the GTO, the Girl alone in either car (she really gets around).

If you´ve ever hauled cross-country, you know how hypnotic the white lines can be. No other road film captures that hypnotic effect as vividly as "Two-Lane Blacktop." Of all the great "New Hollywood" films of the late 60s and early 70s, "Two-Lane Blacktop" is the best of the lot.

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