Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 American road film directed and edited by Monte Hellman, from a screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer and Will Corry. It stars musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird in the leading roles. The sparse, existentialist plot follows a group of street racers during a cross-country race through the American Southwest.

Universal Pictures commissioned the film in the wake of Easy Rider monumental success. Over the years, it developed the reputation of a sleeper hit and a cult classic, In 2012, the US Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." He convinced the production company to pay Will Corry $100,000 for his original story, about two men, one black and one white, who drive across the country followed by a young girl, which was inspired by his own cross-country journey in 1968. and Laughlin agreed. A friend of Hellman's recommended underground writer Rudolph Wurlitzer. He wrote a new script in four weeks. Wilson was the last actor cast and Hellman chose him because he felt that the musician "had lived that role, that he really grew up with cars". In his review for The New York Times, Vincent Canby wrote, "Two-Lane Blacktop is a far from perfect film (those metaphors keep blocking the road), but it has been directed, acted, photographed and scored (underscored, happily) with the restraint and control of an aware, mature filmmaker". Time magazine's Jay Cocks wrote, "The film is immaculately crafted, funny and quite beautiful, resonant with a lingering mood of loss and loneliness ... Not a single frame in the film is wasted. Even the small touches — the languid tension while refueling at a back-country gas station or the piercing sound of an ignition buzzer — have their own intricate worth". In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, "Two-Lane Blacktop is a movie of achingly eloquent landscapes and absurdly inert characters". In his review for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote, "The movie starts off as a narrative, but gradually grows into something much more abstract — it's unsettling, but also beautiful".

The film has since become a cult film. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 93% based on reviews from 40 critics. The site's critical consensus reads, "Beautifully directed and utterly unique, Two-Lane Blacktop captures the spirit of its era as smoothly as it evokes the feeling of the open road." On Metacritic it has a score of 89 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 2012 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Home video

Two-Lane Blacktop was unavailable on video for years because Universal Studios only released a few films from their catalog each year and it was not a priority. In 1994, Seattle's Scarecrow Video invited Hellman to show the film at their store. They proceeded to collect 2,000 signatures, including Werner Herzog's, for a petition to get the film released on video. Both People magazine and Film Comment ran articles about the store's effort and the film.

For years, Universal had been looking for a partner to give Two-Lane Blacktop a proper release befitting its cult film status. This DVD set was released on December 11, 2007. Two-Lane Blacktop is available on Blu-ray disc from UK distributor Masters of Cinema, having been released on 23 January 2012; this release was marked as a Region B disc, which would only play in Blu-ray disc players in Europe, Africa and Australia. The Criterion Collection released a U.S. Region A Blu-ray edition in January 2013.

Legacy

Two-Lane Blacktop is notable as a time capsule film of U.S. Route 66 during the pre-interstate highway era, and for its stark footage and minimal dialogue.

It has been compared to similar road movies with an existentialist message from the era, such as Vanishing Point, Easy Rider, and Electra Glide in Blue.

Brock Yates, organizer of the Cannonball Run, cites Two-Lane Blacktop as an inspiration for the race and commented on it in his Car and Driver column announcing the first Cannonball.

See also

  • List of American films of 1971
  • List of cult films

Notes

References

  • Two-Lane Blacktop essay by Sam Adams at National Film Registry
  • Two-Lane Blacktop: Slow Ride an essay by Kent Jones at the Criterion Collection
  • Behind The Camera: Two-Lane Blacktop