Two-lane blacktop (1971)

[Chris Knipp]

Your comments about the period and influences or links are very helpful. I would like to write something of my own about how it feels and how it felt then to watch the movie. I want to see it again on a big screen. I have a copy of my own somewhere, but would like to see it somewhere like Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, which has shown it before I'm sure. I think maybe the former PFA director Tom Luddy (now director of the Telluride FF) has old ties with Wurlitzer and Hellman. I am thinking also my old classmate and frat brother and the Producer of Five Easy Pieces Richard Wechsler, also did have ties.

It's good that you emphasize the importance of Rudy Wurlitzer's involvement.

[oscar jubis]

Well, well. Five Easy Pieces (and The Conversation and Wanda) is another great movie I might show in school. Nicholson produced and starred in another Monte Hellman movie, The Shootist, which Rosenbaum considers a "key forerunner of Jarmusch's Dead Man". I am excited about the prospect of watching these films with my students. I hope that specialized theaters continue to show them rather than more obvious programming like the Godfather movies (which I recently rewatched) and MASH and other good, popular stuff.

[Chris Knipp]

Of course PFA would be unlikely to show the Godfather series, as a priority. The Coversation is a good source for you especially given your interest in European art films. I don't see the point of Wanda and even found its humor mean. I saw The Shootist but don't remember it at present.

[oscar jubis]

We reacted to Wanda quite differently. Here's my capsule review, written in 2005:

Wanda (USA/1971)

Winner of the Critics Prize at the 1970 Venice Film Festival, received great reviews during its commercial run at the Cinema II in Manhattan, and then erased from memory. At least in the USA. Europeans, particularly the French, wouldn't let it disappear. This independent feature, the only one directed by Barbara Loden before she died at age 48, was re-released in France in 2003, and then on dvd last year. What a revelation it is! An honest, cliche-free character study of a drifter lost in the coal towns of western Pennsylvania. A feminist film perhaps, yet free of dogma and didacticism. An improvisational film to a great extent yet not a moment seems superfluous. Shot in 16 mm, mostly with handheld cameras, yet never amateurish or crude. Wanda is a woman whose aimlessness and good figure make her particularly vulnerable, but she is not a "victim". Wanda can perhaps be described as a person who is not a good fit for the roles available within her milieu. She ellicits our sympathy even though she seems to have little interest in her two children, whom she admits are "better off" with her ex-husband. Tony-award winner Barbara Loden wrote, directed and played the main role in a film that deserves a place of honor amongst the great American Independent films. Wanda is every bit as good as Cassavetes' Shadows, Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers, and Biberman's Salt of the Earth. It's simply too good to remain in obscurity.

[Chris Knipp]

I was confused and thinking of something else. I have not seen this, and am getting it from Netflix.

I watched Guy and Madeleine and could see why you and others like it so much, though I didn't quite fall in love with it.

[oscar jubis]

Wanda is a sad movie, as I remember it. Tell me what you think, Chris. I think Blacktop is the one to show in school. I'm glad you watched Guy and Madeline .

[Chris Knipp]

I'll let you know.