Set your videos - 2 Lane Blacktop - Tonight!
Discussion
Motown Junk said:
Well, 00:55 actually on Film4. Gonna see if I can work out what the ending means this time 
I guy I know recently wrote this about the film:"Let me ask you. When you used to dream about getting your Charger did you never see yourself driving it and think about it blasting other cars off the road with its power?
Did you never dream of a long road trip across the USA? Route 66 maybe?
Well this film is that dream But of course in reality it could never happen. But the characters in the film are somehow making that American dream happen.
I find the characters interesting.
Lets deal with the three in the 55 Chevy first.
They were not actors. They had to be tutored on every line they delivered because they were so flat. It made them so two dimensional it hurt!
The director tried to get around this by dropping hints about them through the film that slowly give them a little character.
But their flat acting does not really matter because the whole film has an unreal, dream like quality to it anyway. So it kind of works in with that. You don't have "real" people with complex lives in dreams do you?
Ok so they are driving around racing for money.
But why? What are they seeking? Money for a new car? new house?
Clearly not. So what the hell are they doing? Again it is like a dream. They are just doing the same thing all the time. Traveling but noy getting anywhere.
They show very few emotions. It is as if they have given up on their lives and are just victims of fate. They go through the motions of the American Dream. The Route 66 dream.
Have they some sort of hope of finding something along the way? Something spiritual? Can they see and end in sight at all?
The girl is the same as the two men. Just drifting in the wind. It does not matter to her which way they are heading. She even dumps her belongings when she has no room for them.
This I guess is the absolute freedom that young people in America were still seeking on the tail end of the hippy era.
But I am at a loss as to what they would do with success at what they are doing. They have everything they want and need in the shape of that car. It is all that matters to them. They look after it, call it "her", feed it, race it, live in it.
When the girl offers them something human they both think about it. But neither of them would take the risk of forming a relationship with a human. So they blow her off and away she drifts.
Mr GTO however is a totally different ballgame.
For a start he is not a bad actor at all. And I think he proves this even with the basic material he has to work with.
This is your "middle age crisis" man (i.e. most people in this club ). He dreams of and wants the freedom that he perceives the young people of the early 70s as having. Sexual freedom. No ties. No boss. Drugs because they are "hip" and "cool" things that young people do.
Plus he totally believes his car makes him into some sort of National Playboy.
His only problem is that no matter how much he tries to act cool and young he always makes an over-the-top mess of it. Which provides us the viewer with some of the light hearted moments.
Like when Harry Dene Stanton touches his leg and he says "I ain't got time for that - This is competition"!
Then he tries to impress and score with a girl half his age.
He does not understand young people. But he thinks he wants to be one and he thinks they really are free.
I guess some of us feel like that sometimes. Which is why this film appeals. It is the dream we have when we are tucked up in bed.
Dreams don't have an ending. They just stop when you wake. Same as this film. You just wake up from it and it was not real. Because it is not real and it could not end because there is no goal.
We can imagine driving along roads forever. But in real life we would come home to a life more normal. "
Pretty good description all in all.
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