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The legend begins at the ruin, where we are shown a roadblock of hideous proportions, and a white 1970 Dodge Challenger rocketing toward it. From there the account begins, backing up two days to give the rest of the myth. An interstate trudge is on for the driver of the Challenger, whom we know nothing at all about. As the anecdote unfolds, the identity of the driver is rationed out in flashbacks and news reports, slowly bringing into focus the nature of the character. At first, we naturally acquire the driver to be a simple car thief, as does law enforcement. Gradually, we learn that the driver is not a thief at all, he is simply delivering the car. He is a decorated Vietnam passe who joined the police department after his pleasurable discharge, married a graceful girl, and then lost her in a surfing accident. Not long after, he stopped a senior officer from beating and raping a young hippie girl, and was dishonorably discharged from the force. We also learn that his high-octane burn across the desert is to satisfy a simple wager: if he makes it from Denver to San Francisco in less than 15 hours, he doesn’t have to pay for the amphetamines he bought to maintain him awake for the toddle. He is guided along the contrivance by blind disc jockey “Supersoul” (Cleavon Slight), who speaks to the driver (whose name is we learn is Kowalski (no last name given, via the AM radio in the Challenger. Supersoul is Kowalski’s invisible guardian angel, advising him of the cop’s attempts to close him, at least until some local rednecks bust into the radio position with a storm of rocks and racial epithets and beat Natty Soul and his engineer into submission. As Kowalski rockets across the blasted desert landscape, he encounters numerous crackpots and visionaries, all of whom seem to offer another section to the puzzle that Kowalski’s life has become. From prospectors to faith healers, outlaws to newlywed hijackers, we are given a eye into a world that exists far from the beaten track we all move each day. As Kowalski hurtles toward his date with the destiny that was mapped out for us at the very beginning of the film, each rumor and news represent seems to contradict the image of him that is being played out by the police of several states, elevating him to something of a folk hero among a growing legion of fans and supporters.
This movie knocked me out from the very beginning. For those die-hards, yes, there are plenty of car chases and stunts to satisfy most fans of car/action films. But that’s not the whole chronicle, by any measure. For this is the myth of one man, not a mythic story, or even a regional folk hero. Why does he do what he does? He simply has nothing left to lose or catch. How many men returned from Vietnam at least a microscopic disillusioned by the world they came home to? How many have had their lives mapped out desirable and glorious, only to have the blind monkey wrench of fate turn their worlds upside down? Here is a man who is perfectly willing to sacrifice his freedom, his safety, and possibly even his life to come by what amounts to a ten-dollar bet, at best. When Kowalski finally arrives at the roadblock, the inevitable conclusion to his odyssey, he takes the only road he knows, a path which had been residence for him ever since the beginning.
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On a cinematic level, the influence of Vanishing Point is far reaching, indeed. The narrative of a jaded ex-cop who has lost his wife, his hope and, to a degree, his humanity, was taken and nitro-injected in George Miller’s Wrathful Max (1979) and the Road Warrior (1982), as Max Rockatansky (not too far a come from Kowalski) has his life violently ripped out from under him, and thus turns to the inaugurate road. At first for revenge, but then because it is the only world he can exist in, a area where jungle law prevails. By then, Max is nothing more than a shell, a ghost of a human who haunts the blighted landscape propelled by a hunger not even he can understand. One of the most effective set devices is that of not giving the protagonist a name until well into the film. Joel Schumaker veteran this technique very well in his fine movie Falling Down (1993), not giving Michael Douglas’ character a name until the final act of the film’s fable. By doing this, we are allowed to observe the character as a sort of everyman, someone whom we may know, or may even be. We are then free to ogle the goings-on at a remarkable more personal level, smart all too well that the myth being played out upon the cover could, given the legal circumstances, be any of us, and to that destroy, possibly even all of us. By the time we learn that the character is someone, it’s too unhurried. They are already a portion of us, slide by destiny and experience. Also of notice is the using of a disc jockey to provide a running commentary on the nature and exploits of the protagonist (as well as provide a reasonable source for the music in the film), a contrivance faded, to lesser carry out, in Walter Hill’s The Warriors (1979) . Lastly, although film characters have been bumping into oddballs in the desert for years, Abbe Wool’s incredible Roadside Prophets (1992) stands out as the protagonists skedaddle through the desert, encountering numerous wisdom-dispensing desert dwellers, each contributing their ideas, ideals, and experiences in a blueprint that lends toward a larger collective ideology wherein a greater truth resides.
This is a masterpiece of filmmaking. Do yourself a broad favor and check it out.
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After seeing this movie in ’71, a year before obtaining my driver’s licence, it truly influenced my driving skills and my like for high performance American horse power. Seeing the movie now almost a hundred times over, I know the dialog word for word. This is a cult classic to be shared with those 70′s era Mopar fanatics who too have seen this movie in it’s various cuts at the local driveins. (And attemped to drive unprejudiced as hastily as Kowalski did after they left the drivein) . Having the sound track on LP(vinyl) and the movie on VHS, I can revisit my obsession with this film and sound track when ever I feel the need to reassure myself for need of controlled accelerate. Remember, they feeble several Challengers during the filming and you can peruse some of the different cars throughout the film if you have a spellbinding survey. For those who can fix the frame of the movie unprejudiced after Kowalski makes impact and someone is spraying water on the wreckage, they can contemplate the the car is a white Camaro. Spy at the vent windows on the door frame. Challengers did not have these! For those with a really consuming search for and a mammoth cloak can examine the Camaro script on the truck lid also. For those newer viewers, sit support and like a pre Dukes of Hazzards correct car whisk. It doesn’t glean any better than this. (Unless we can net it on DVD along with a CD version of the excellant music sound track! Hint, Hint!)
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