Bullitt
As a tough, shot-on-location action film, Bullitt remains as compelling today as it was in 1968. Steve McQueen, practically burning the celluloid with his raw charisma, stamps an indelible mark upon the film as a cop on the trail of some particularly vicious criminals. Part of a cycle of important crime films, Bullitt functions as both a procedural whodunnit and as a study of flawed masculinity; director Peter Yates thus endows the film with a breakneck pace, and uses the San Francisco locations as staging-grounds for, amongst other things, the most famous car chase in cinema history. (Yates was an ex racing-car driver, and fellow speed-freak McQueen did his own driving for the sequence.) McQueen's career-defining performance, the take-no-prisoners narrative, and the film's still-potent violence and action are all masterfully tied together by Lalo Schifrin's highly influential jazz-infused score, which slyly suggests that the rough stuff that these males engage in may also be their way of having fun.
Don't miss the chance to hear Lalo Schifrin in Coversation with James Morrison.
Reviews
“There's a self-reflexive sense of reactionism here that escapes most action-thrillers; after the violent climax, the film pauses and suggests, with its final two shots, that modern heroism might be overwhelmed by the moral decay it opposes.”
The Cinema Scale
When
2:00 PM Saturday, 19 February
Buy Tickets Online
Greater Union - Cinema 5
Ticket Price
Full price $14
Industry $12
SPU Concession $10
As Part Of
Lalo Schifrin: In Conversation with James MorrisonAbout Bullitt
113 minutes35mm
1.85:1
Stereo
In English
Print Source
Village-Roadshow
Paul Mackenzie
paul_mackenzie@roadshow.com.au