Vanishing Point – (Visual Entertainment Group/ Shock)

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Vanishing Point pits itself as an anti establishment film from the get go, a pan across a small country gas station over gentle strumming folk guitar. There’ tranquillity here in this rural backwater, but there’ a slight edge to the peace, as the music harks back to the revolutionary hippy spirit 60′. It’s quickly interrupted by the sound of large engines and sirens, shattering the peacefulness, as bulldozers move into place to block the road and a news crew skids to a halt. Sonically this becomes the blueprint for the remainder of the film, where the roar of suffering engines high in the mix are almost a character in themselves. Here the engines represent the man’ attempt to crush the hippy dream, later the bottom end rumble becomes a symbol of freedom itself. When the engines are roaring you know everything you need to know. It’s here you can draw links to the fetishisation of the engine in Monte Hellman’ Two Lane Blacktop, where the gunning of the engine was saying so much more than the emotionally stilted characters.

Structurally this 1971 film may be a car chase for almost its entire running time, but it’s a thinking man’ car chase, an elusive existential car chase, across deserted highways and country roads, where the search for answers inevitably leads to more questions. It’s the story of Kowalski (Barry Newman), who working for a car delivery service agrees to deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger from Colorado to San Francisco. Whilst scoring some speed for the journey he bets his dealer he can do it in 15 hours. Then he drives really really fast ignoring road laws, common sense and initiating a police chase across three states. It’s Bullitt meets Electroglide in Blue, as the chase triggers flashbacks in Kowalski, and we begin to learn more about his former life and why he may be behaving with such a reckless disregard for his own welfare. He’ aided on his journey by some of the eccentric characters he meets long the way, like the rattlesnake wrangler in the middle of the desert and the naked girl on the motorcycle. Yep it’s that kind of film.

He shares a peculiar kind of bond with a blind radio host, Super Soul (Cleavon Little – later the sherriff in Blazing Saddles), who populates the soundtrack with late 60′ tunes by the likes of the JB Pickers, The Doug Dillard Expedition, Jimmy Walker, and Jerry Reed. He also provides an update to Kowalski on police movements, turning him into a folk hero in the process. There’ a real link in the use of counter culture music over montages of the road to the likes of Easy Rider, a similar rock and roll spirit, though in the case of Vanishing Point it takes on a more outlaw feel, as its usually to images of police crashing off the road or Kowalski mounting median strips in his effort to escape.

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“He’ the last American hero for whom speed means freedom of the soul. The question isn’ when is he gonna stop but who is gonna stop him,” Super Soul offers during one of his rallying monologues, pitching the dual as the last great counter cultural statement against the man.

It was directed by Richard C. Sarafian who would go on to direct Sean Connery in the critically panned 1972 film The Next Man, and later provide the voice of a beaver in Dr Doolittle 2. You can see elements of the style of his good friend Robert Altman, particularly in the naturalistic way dialogue is captured in crowd scenes and the desire to intercut numerous non actors into the film, using unique and weathered faces to build atmosphere and lend a freewheeling feel of authenticity.

It’s a strange B-Movie from back when that wasn’ a term of derision, and it’s become something of a cult film. Primal Scream were so enamored they named their fifth album after the film in 1997, naming one of the songs Kowalski and billing it as an alternate soundtrack. “The music in the film is hippy music,” offered singer Bobby Gillespie to NME at the time, “so we thought, why not record some music that really reflects the mood of the film? It’s always been a favourite of the band, we love the air of paranoia and speed freak righteousness.”

It’s a film that was very much the product of its times, yet luckily its time was one of cultural upheaval, when some of the darkest, most paranoid and lasting independent films were being made in America. The kind of cinema that would never be made today.

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Bob is the features editor of Cyclic Defrost. He is also evil. You should not trust the opinions of evil people.

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