RIP Monte Hellman, 1929-2021

As far as the image can go: the film melts in the projector at the end of Two-Lane Blacktop, Hellman’s 1971 masterpiece, starring Hellman regular Warren Oates, singer James Taylor and the Beach Boy who drowned aged 39, Dennis Wilson.

Sad to read on the bfi site (via feuilleton) about the passing of Monte Hellman, the maverick American auteur who died on April 20th, aged ninety-one. A fine old age, sure, the sad thing being the existentialist filmmaker struggled making movies for most of his career.

In the 1960s he shot four films in a row with a then-unknown Jack Nicholson; in particular the The Shootist and Ride the Whirlwind were distinctive and striking westerns with experimental narratives, both completely ignored on initial release. Next came Two-Lane Blacktop, just the ultimate road movie (everything happens/nothing happens). Two films followed with Warren Oates once again, Cockfighter and China 9, Liberty 37. By 1989 he churned out the straight-to-video slasher movie, Silent Night, Deadly Night III: Better Watch Out! It took Hellman twenty years to finance Road to Nowhere (2010), his final film, and in his last years he made his living from doing Airbnb. The American dream of a singular talent.

• Fascinating top ten (followed by another dozen) movies Hellman picked for the BFI’s top 100 films from 2012.

Previously on Barnflakes
Top ten road movies