“Uneasy cool”: The Steve McQueen movie Martin Scorsese called an “American milestone”
There are few film directors who serve as the genuine epitome of American cinema quite like Martin Scorsese. From his early works like Mean Streets and Taxi Driver right through Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York and Shutter Island, Scorsese has consistently delivered films of the highest quality.
There’s a fearless approach in Scorsese in the way that he explores the complex nature of morality within his characters, and they are often described as genuine and ethically ambiguous human beings. Throw into the fact that Scorsese is capable of delivering mesmerising narratives with sheer visual prowess, and it’s easy to see why he’s considered one of the all-time greats.
Even though Scorsese is truly the pinnacle and very essence of American cinema itself, he’s equally proven himself to be something of an encyclopaedia of the medium of film from both across the world and within his native United States. As far as the latter category goes, it looks as though few American films left quite an impression on Scorsese as Peter Yates’ 1968 neo-noir action thriller Bullitt.
“The car chase through the hills of San Francisco is now so famous that it’s come to overshadow the rest of this police drama, about a rogue cop who realises that there’s something awry with the protection of a state witness and takes the situation into his own hands,” Scorsese once wrote of Bullitt.
Starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon and Robert Duvall, with a screenplay by Alan R. Trustman and Harry Kleiner, Bullitt tells of a no-nonsense police officer played by McQueen who dives headfirst into a challenging case of political corruption and crime and is celebrated for its iconic car chase scene, widely considered the greatest of its kind.
Scorsese admitted that such a kind of story has been told on several occasions, like in Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry. However, Bullitt’s special feature manages to separate it from its other contemporary works of cinema. “What’s distinctive about Bullitt is the tone,” Scorsese explained, “the feel of the movie.”
Going on to express his admiration for Yates’s film, Scorsese noted, “There’s something very special about Bullitt’s uneasy cool, quite different from the paranoid thrillers that were about to become popular. Everything is calm but subtly disquieting. Everyone here speaks in low tones and is laconic. Bullitt is a film of moods and textures—the streets, the clothing, the cars, the light.”
Scorsese went on to point out the fact that cinematographer William A. Franker shot both Bullitt and Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby remarkably in the very same year and went on to call both the action thriller and the iconic horror movie “two milestones in American cinema.”
Check out the trailer for Bullitt below.
