Schrader says that people were dumbfounded when he would tell them that it’s about two black dudes and one white, rather than two white dudes and one black. One of the interesting things about the film is the central three-way dynamic between the lead characters.
Much of which has long been common knowledge (like the story of Richard Pryor pulling a gun on Paul Schrader and threatening to kill him if he kept insisting they do more than three takes), but the Schrader commentary on the DVD of this is absolutely fascinating and it not only explains much of the style of the film (and its shortcomings) but also really gives you an insight into the process of directing and shooting actors in a scene. This is such a great film, but it’s great almost despite itself if you learn about the difficulties involved in the making. (thanks to Colin and Kaprisky for the transcript) Brief thoughts Mark Cousins’ original introduction, transcribed by colinr0380 And I love that Schrader knows that a static camera can be sublime. I love the compassion of this film – look at the funny/scary scene when the taxman visits Pryor’s family.
Blue collar brilliance logical fallacy tv#
What distinguishes this film from the conventional TV style, what makes it in the end very Paul Schrader I think, is the intensity of the stare that you get in that post-party scene. It is hard to think of anyone who could have introduced the main storyline of the robbery with more conviction. They do not look at each other, they hardly move, the acting is very downplayed, the dialogue overlaps, there are no cutaways and no moves. But then you see the great motionless scene after the first party when the three men sit and talk about their futures and float the idea of a robbery.
There is a light, loose rhythm to the film that you do not usually associate from him. He usually focuses on one person like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, or Mishima, or Julian from American Gigolo, or Jake La Motta.
When you look at it now, Blue Collar doesn’t at first look like a Schrader picture. Jack Nitzsche’s score (he also did One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Nicolas Roeg’s Performance and An Officer and A Gentleman) captures the sounds of these men’s lives. He cast Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto to bring comedy and life to his characters. As with Taxi Driver, former strict Calvanist and theology graduate Schrader wrote a script about blue collar American men, their siege mentality and their violence. Set in Detroit around a motorcar production line, it forewent Scorsese’s epic style for a more low key, almost documentary approach. Two years after Taxi Driver, screenwriter Paul Schrader directed his first picture, Blue Collar.
0 kommentar(er)
