Bullitt, directed by Peter Yates and starring Steve McQueen, premiered on October 17, 1968. A much beloved film that invariably brings a smile to the face of its enthusiasts—mostly for its legendary car chase. It lasts over ten minutes! Steve McQueen did much of his own dangerous high-speed driving! That streets-of-San-Francisco sequence (the big hills send cars flying through the air) inspired countless successors; William Friedkin in The French Connection pointedly set out to top it. (In that movie’s wild car-pursuing-train frenzy, the streets are full of people, oncoming traffic and assorted hazards that the recklessly-driving Popeye Doyle barely misses (or not quite); in Bullitt, the streets are more or less conveniently abandoned.)
To all of which we say, “so what”? A car chase is an exercise in logistics. Mapped out in advance, with embellishing ornaments precisely pre-positioned, requiring a small brigade of assistants each lending specific talents to the enterprise, all skillfully orchestrated by a leader with a flair for such spectacles—filming a car chase is more like hosting a grand party than making a movie. My mother could have organized a hell of a car chase.
In sum: chase, schmase. Rather, in a fit of righteous contrarianism, we want to reimagine Bullitt with those twelve heart-pounding minutes trimmed from the film, and consider only the rest. And with that sacrilegious edit, the grand and greater strengths of Bullitt become more evident. It is a solid mystery with a fine central twist, a deftly handled, top-shelf police procedural, a thoughtful character study, and, most important, an early, critical contribution to the emerging New Hollywood—with its all-location shooting, saturated darkness, documentary style, small observations about race, power and class, responsible but unflinching treatment of consequential violence, and a deep skepticism of once implicitly trusted institutions.
Legend insists that McQueen hired Yates on the strength of the director’s previous effort, Robbery, a film which also included a notable and much-lauded chase sequence. But Robbery has other attributes which would also stamp Yates’ imprint on Bullitt that likely caught McQueen’s eye as well. It too was the project of an ambitious producer-star (Stanley Baker), it was also shot, impressively, entirely on location, with a commitment to naturalistic lighting, documentary-style realism and several long, very fine, night-for-night sequences. Add a world weary cynicism, and Yates’ signature style (which would reach its apogee in his masterpiece, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) is plain to see in all these films.
Letting go of the car chase in Bullitt allows for a greater appreciation of two exceptional sequences that endure—and require filmmaking talents less easily imitated. The first is a long, mostly unhurried twenty-five plus minutes that follow a brief, shocking burst of violence. With a cop down and a key witness gravely wounded, Yates decelerates the narrative and shifts into detailed, lingering procedural mode, first on the ambulance filled streets of the crime scene, and, then, especially, overnight at a (real) hospital—a location also distinguished by its deftly handled observations regarding race and gender politics, in particular with its understated exchanges involving a black surgeon (Georg Stanford Brown) in which power struggles are communicated implicitly and clearly understood.
The second, also an extended sequence (if with more “action”), also takes place at night, at the airport. The airport scenes offer a clinic in suspenseful storytelling, first in the terminal and them amid the saturated blacks on the runway (and that’s actually McQueen diving under a moving 707) offering still more glorious night-for-night shooting in the hands of cinematographer William Fraker. In all of these settings Bullitt’s principal nemesis is an ambitious, callow politician (Robert Vaughn, so believable you want to vote against him), whose signature line is “integrity is something you sell the public.”
Also less frenetic (and, again, adding depth) to Bullitt is a love interest, in the form of Jacqueline Bisset; in their scenes together (and elsewhere) Yates often reached for long lenses, distancing the camera from the action and letting the images tell the story. This approach more generally also brings out the best in McQueen, an actor whose talents were especially well suited for silent passages where glances substitute for words, and the story can be advanced simply by following his expressive eyes. As Renata Adler observed in the New York Times, the movie takes full advantage of McQueen’s “special kind of aware, existential cool.”
Keith Richards once said that the only real disagreement he had with Mick was over pacing—Keith always wanted it slower and Mick always wanted it faster. (Your mileage may vary—but we favor this version of Gimme Shelter.) So stick with us and stop chasing cars—in Bullitt, a key film in the emerging New Hollywood, the best moments are its slowest. Keith has it right, once again.
Yates takes his time with McQueen and Georg Stanford Brown at the Hospital
At the airport: Robert Vaughn wants answers