Sunday June 17th 2012, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema, VANISHING POINT (1971), Directed by Richard Sarafian, 105 minutes, in English. A classic anti-authoritarian cult film, high-definition screening, screened by guest programmer Jeffrey Babcock. 8pm
Since law-abiding conformity seems to be running rampant these days, I think its time to re-screen this rebellious one-of-a-kind ultra-cult classic! Art film and exploitation road movie come together in Vanishing Point, an existential car chase film that races across the desert in a post- Easy Rider America. Barry Newman stars as Kowalski, a drug dealer who bets that he can drive his Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. He then loads up on amphetamines and begins his full-throttle journey through the American desert, picking up the wrath of the cops who are trying to stop him. When a hip black DJ (Cleavon Little) learns about Kowalski’s odyssey, he turns the driver into a folk hero on his radio broadcasts, declaring him the “last free Man on Earth“. The amazing car chases and excellent stunt work are set against the American west, beautifully captured by cinematographer John A. Alonzo. Vanishing Point is most assuredly a product of its time, the heady, anything-goes era of rebellion in the early 1970s.
And maybe you know already, but this is the wonderful film that Tarantino rants on about in his film Deathproof.
One viewers thoughts on the film:
“Vanishing Point is a “fin de siecle” story, a unique requiem for a quickly dying age- a now all-but-disappeared one of truly open roads, endless speed for the joy of speed’s sake, of taking radical chances, of living on the edge in a colorful world of endless possibility, seasoned with a large number and wide variety of all sorts of unusual characters, all of which had long made the USA a wonderful place–and sadly is no longer, having been supplanted by today’s swarms of sadistic, military-weaponed cop-thugs, obsessive and intrusive safety freaks, soulless toll plazas, smug yuppie SUV drivers, tedious carbon-copy latte towns, and a childish craving for perfect, high-fuel-efficiency safety and security.”
Film night at Joe’s Garage, nice, warm and cozy cinema! Doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:15, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net
