Monte Hellman gives the people in his westerns and road films time to remain strangers. We value that patience, especially when Warren Oates makes the company warmer, though a thin story does not always reward such close attention.
Fi1m perspective
In Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), the driving continues while the race matters less. Monte Hellman, directing and editing, lets encounters take their time without making each one build towards a contest. We were glad of Warren Oates's company: his warmth makes it possible to care about people who give so little away. Hellman is worth that patience, although he occasionally asks for more than the thin story can sustain.
His feature debut, Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), began his directing work for Roger Corman. The westerns The Shooting (1966) and Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), made back-to-back with Jack Nicholson for Corman, helped establish his reputation for sparse storytelling. Across his genre films, motives remain uncertain and action is pared down. These are familiar kinds of stories in which Hellman offers fewer explanations than we might expect. Two-Lane Blacktop was his only studio feature, but the move did not make his characters much more forthcoming.
Jack Deerson and Gregory Sandor's landscape photography gives Two-Lane Blacktop plenty to look at while the central group stays reserved. The outdoor colour lets us enjoy the journey without pretending that movement has made these people happy. Hellman's editing allows the competition to lose urgency, and the film benefits from not continually trying to make the driving exciting. Some stretches could still be shorter. His attention to awkward company is absorbing, but there are silences in which we notice little beyond their length.
Cockfighter (1974) reunited him with Oates and Corman for another portrait of obsession. Later features came at long intervals, and Road to Nowhere (2010) returned to the competing demands of work and intimacy through a film within a film. That concern makes sense of the way his men can be so absorbed in what they do and so uncertain with other people. It also makes the casting important: in Two-Lane Blacktop, Oates gives us a reason to stay when the story cannot. Start there, and choose an evening when nobody needs to be hurried.
Biography
Monte Hellman (born Monte Jay Himmelbaum) was an American film director, producer, writer and editor. He was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City, on 12 July 1929 and grew up in Los Angeles. He studied speech and drama at Stanford University and film at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Hellman began his career as an editor's apprentice at ABC Television. His directorial debut was the horror film Beast from Haunted Cave (1959), produced by Roger Corman. He later directed the Westerns The Shooting (1966) and Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), both starring Jack Nicholson. He directed and edited the independent road movie Two-Lane Blacktop (1971).
His other films include Cockfighter (1974) and Road to Nowhere (2010). He also worked as second unit director on The Big Red One (1980). Hellman died on 20 April 2021.
