Despite “Bullitt” being one of the definitive ’60s cop movies and being hailed as the starting point for all modern car chases, Peter Yates’s film lacks many of the in-movie charm and out-of-movie extras that would make it iconic.
No sequels, no catch phrases, no spin-offs or copycats, not even a classic villain. It does have the green Mustang, which Ford released as a special edition model in 2008 to commemorate the film. But for all “Bullitt’s” original critical accolade and box office success in 1968, perhaps the film has simply not aged well.
That’s not to call it bad, but it’s approach does not even begin to embellish the more cathartic pleasures of the action genre. Steve McQueen as Lt. Frank Bullitt is one of the era’s flatter male leads. He lacks a backstory, an attitude and even much dialogue, regardless of McQueen’s steely glances and reserved delivery. We realize how quiet he really is when he finally does have an “outburst” near the end of the film. He does have a girlfriend in the lovely Jacqueline Bisset, but her appearances seem superfluous.
I see “Bullitt” not as a gung-ho cop mystery with a salty Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry, nor as a gritty, hard-nosed thriller like “The French Connection” (which in my view tops “Bullitt’s car chase), but as a strict procedural designed to show a cop immersed in the job, one whose tragedy is that he has no outside life.
Yates establishes this sensation by making a film that feels constantly in motion. The camera constantly looms from above and below in perfect ’60s New Wave fashion; it feels close in terms of space but distant and stealthy behind doors, beams, windows and in one shot, two pairs of female socialites’ legs. It even persistently surveys the room in slow, studious tracking shots. Watch the careful motion inside the hospital, tiptoeing around the OR with grave intensity designed to illicit only somber feelings, none of rage or vengeance.
In fact, there may be more camera motion in individual shots than there are in the entire car chase sequence. Yates’s famous sequence is so expertly constructed, but mainly through its Oscar winning film editing. The compositions add dimensionality to individual shots through rearview mirrors and the steady POV shots emphasize the heavy impacts along the hilly San Francisco roads without ever losing context of the pursuit itself, but for the most part the camera maintains its speed while the editing and set dressing provide the kinetic energy.
Yet you have to wonder what else might’ve caused “Bullitt” to stand out in 1968. At one point Yates relies on the tension provided by a telecopier processing critical information. At another, Bullitt dives under a slowly taxiing plane, which marks just about the film’s most death-defying stunt. Roger Ebert even praised the plot for being complex without being inscrutable, but Bullitt’s case seems pretty cut and dry. A man from Chicago needs to be protected such that he can testify, but when that man is killed and the killers are still on the loose, Bullitt pursues them until he stumbles across the real man needing to testify.
Neither the imposter nor the man sent to murder him have dialogue of any kind, so we feel cheated of a compelling bad guy. “Bullitt” also loses points for giving Robert Duvall a grand total of two lines to recite. His enhanced role alone could’ve made for a much different film.
Nice review Brian. This movie has a really cool car-chase and that’s about it. Yeah. McQueen’s the man, but the story is so dry and subtle that you don’t even have a clue of what’s going on, or don’t even care for that matter.
I wouldn’t say I was confused by any of it, but yeah, there’s not really much to go on story or character wise, which in a way may be the point.