Classic Car Chases

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The Seven Ups






This one used to get mentioned a lot, although it is arguably bland by modern standards. There is a similar feel to The French Connection. I think they used a zoom on the POV shots to create the perception that the cars were closer to traffic ahead than they were.



To Live and Die in L.A.






I think that this film planted the dangerous idea in the public that one just might be able to get away with driving the wrong way on the freeway as an evasion tactic. This has been tried out many times on L.A. freeways with predictably crunchy and squishy results.



Bullitt





You don't really appreciate how even old "sports cars" were slush boxes until you watch these classic chases.




I found the rest of the film rather cold and distant, but I do love this scene.

The legend goes that it feels real, because it basically is. When Friedkin wasn't threatening human lives on New York streets, he was blowing of jungle canopy with real explosives. This man is the cinematic equivalent of Zimbardo/Milgram (his cinema verite is why they realized they needed safety rules).



Whether you like the film or not, there's no denying how tense and thrilling this sequence is.

A little too Scooby-Doo at the end, but it's good. I find the first chase to be more satisfying. It's at night. It's horrifying. No happy ending.



Ronin





A good car chase in a rather bland movie. Note the wrong-way idea revisited from To Live and Die in L.A.



Things to note so far.

  1. These chases are in dialogue with each other. One classic chase influences another. Later chase sequences offer their own reply, ratcheting up the stakes. The Seven Ups references the French Connection. Ronin references to Live and Die in L.A.
  2. We get a lot of close up shots of driver faces. I guess this gives us a sense of emotion and the steely resolve of our heroes and villains.
  3. The bad guys don't usually drive alone. They have company. This allows for more panicked reaction shots from passengers, creating the illusion of stakes.
  4. Notice how no one gets run over, no matter how reckless things become. There are car collisions, yes, and even an occasional fire. However, the most plausible thing to have happened in the Seven Ups was for three of four of those kids to get plowed over. Car chases, however, a very loathe to run over pedestrians. I think part of the reason would be the implicit critique of the hero. Real heroes don't get people killed. This failure, I think has encouraged dangerous pursuits in real life, resulting in the need for legislating, for example, that police officers must abandon pursuit out of respect for public safety.
  5. Our driver-POV/front bumper-POV shot is almost always zoomed-in to create the illusion of greater speed/closer proximity. Cheap trick but it works.
  6. Notice the editing. Not a lot of "oners" in film chases.
  7. About 7-14 Minutes. The classic car chase is about 10 minutes long, or so it seems.



Thoughts about "Lucy", " The Gumball Rally", "Speed", "The Rock", etc.

Good call on "The Seven-Ups", my favorite chase film.

I think we would do well to separate films which are premised as a chase (e.g., Cannon Ball, Speed) from films which feature a chase.



Real World Analogues: Life Imitates Art



I'm not saying that Friedkin did it before people did it in real-life, but he did raise the stakes for drama by having Richard Chance drive the wrong way in To Live and Die in L.A., an idea which has since been replicated in later films and which may have inspired runaway drivers such as the one below.






Note that in the clip, our driver goes the wrong way, police pull off pursuit, and multiple units are involved. A car chase is typically not just cat and mouse between A and B, but between A and every car within reach of B's radio.



What we have learned from real world chases is that they tend to be shorter (ending with a crash) or longer (people driving for miles looking for that magic exit ramp from their last bad decision). In the real world, if you haven't spotted and ditched the cop before the lights come on, it's typically too late. And if there is a helicopter involved, you're at 5 Star status IRL, so you might as well give it up.



An interesting exception to the rule is a someone who has been driving a black-on-black Dodge Charger with a tail-light cut-off-switch which has, apparently, been playing cat-and-mouse with Arkansas Highway Patrol for an impressive number of evasions.






Of course, it's hard to know if the failed pursuits are of the same car, as the driver may have inspired copy-cats and there is more than one black Charger in the world, however, it is interesting to note that this is a sort of real-life analogue to the Hollywood chase.



If Hollywood were to be more responsible, it would show what would really happen in some of these pursuits. People run over. Blood and broken glass. Fire and screams. The fantasy of the chase is never really challenged by the nightmare of the conclusion. But is it Hollywood's job to tell us how it really is or how we wanted it to be? If we wanted prudential advice, we'd call an insurance agent. Even so, there is something bafflingly persuasive about film. It is a "seeing" which informs our folk physics and folk psychology. If we've seen it happen enough times on film, that is an "experience" which informs our intuition.