#unblessedness

[chiseler]

A FEW QUERIES FOR MONTE HELLMAN

The cult director of Two-Lane Blacktop talks film theory, painting, politics, and, last but not least, actor Warren Oates.

Despite transparent light and searing heat, all seems frozen. Something clings to the landscape. Amidst Joshua trees and sagebrush, an ineffable presence surrounding even the stinkbugs.This is where George Stevens—who once said that Utah’s western desert ranges “look more like the Holy Land than the Holy Land”—filmed The Greatest Story Ever Told. Soon thereafter, a younger man breathing that same numinous air made a very different kind of movie. In fact, Monte Hellman made two: The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind, displaced and gritty, eternally unblessed, a diptych belonging to the Western, yet standing at a slight angle to it in the same breath. 

Monte Hellman entertains a few questions on this perennial state of unblessedness, and the peculiar tone of what are, in my opinion, misnomered movies—his “Existential Westerns.” And here, I’m after the concrete processes that actually drive Hellman’s characters, his post-modern wraiths. So we touch on film theory, painting, politics, and, last but not least, that revenant of 1960s/70s cinema, actor Warren Oates. Always the smallest glint of insanity in his face, no matter how benign the expression—to me, Oates is the dark side of amiability, with those burlap features and that corpse laugh of his.  

He reemerges in Two-Lane Blacktop, recently screened at Anthology Film Archives here in New York City. When I arrived home in the wee hours, after walking over the Manhattan Bridge with a buzz inspired by Hellman’s extraordinary film, I sent him an email. He responded almost immediately. A charmed night! Our short interview begins in Utah, where one big jowl with eyes (Oates) seems to well up from the parched earth of Monte’s no-man’s-land.  

DANIEL RICCUITO: Your movie, The Shooting (1966), emerges a year after the Stevens epic. Despite the shared location and profound sense of ghosts in the desert, your film couldn’t be more different—The Shooting is austere and scaled to simple, highly realistic storytelling. Of course, there’s also a pervasive dream-like atmosphere, so perhaps you’re telling a surrealistic story... with a straight face? I’m reminded of Balthus paintings in which the air surrounding the figures—his “negative space”—is always poised to congeal into dangerous forms. 

MONTE HELLMAN: I wasn't familiar with Balthus, but dream-like and surreal applied to realism seem apt. Years ago, when I was hoping to make a movie from Kafka's The Trial (before Welles actually did it), I knew I was going to tell the story absolutely realistically. Regardless of subject matter, I believe, along with Kracauer, that motion pictures are concerned primarily with physical reality. Of course artists like Cocteau sometimes bend reality, but they do it mostly through manipulation of the physical. My methods in The Shooting aren't really any different form those in Ride in the Whirlwind, although the latter tells an absolutely realistic story, while the former does not. 

DR: Does Ride in the Whirlwind have any political objectives?

MH: I don't usually dwell on "message" when I'm making my movies, but the phrase "guilt by association" seems to come to mind when I think back to the time of production. I seem to remember a conscious decision to forgo the concept of white hat and black hat in the movie. We also were conscious of an attempt to alter numerous clichés of the genre, hopefully to wreak havoc with audience expectations. I don't remember making the connection then, but there could be a case made that we were conjuring the McCarthy era.

DR: You mentioned defying audience expectations just now—and that was certainly my first experience with Cock Fighter (1974)—bewilderment. Especially after Warren Oates rips the head off a chicken, pressing it into the hand of his girlfriend as a love token. Did the humor/horror dichotomy bubble up of its own accord, or were you consciously going for shock value?  

MH: I think when you have the hypocrisy of an illegal sport blatantly being ignored or accepted by the law, it can't help being funny. Then-Governor Jimmy Carter visited us on the set, although he very skillfully avoided the camera's eye. Also, Warren Oates couldn’t help being funny.

DR:  How closely did you direct Warren Oates? I’m especially thinking of Two-Lane Blacktop.

MH: I don't "direct" any actors, least of all Warren. I try to choose actors I feel are capable of assisting me in telling the story.

DR: Were you aware of the intense feeling of loneliness in your compositions? It’s as if you channeled Edward Hopper.

MH: I don't normally think about the effect my shots might have, but rather what's best for telling the story. I do recall being aware of the feeling of loneliness the screenplay evoked in me. 

DR: The reason I bring up Two-Lane Blacktop is that I saw it last night – and let me tell you I can still feel my bones ratting from that old Chevy. It felt like I was inside the thing. Even now, your edit leaves me kind of giddy. Returning to Balthus for a moment, I have to mention The Street, a masterful painting from 1933, in which the people move as if in a dream. There are funny moments but, ultimately, the whole scenario is grim, which is precisely how your movie makes me feel. It’s a heady combo.

MH: Everything I do in movies comes out of my unconscious, much of it from dreams. I am aware of continually breaking rules. Some of my older editor friends and mentors were shocked at my disregard of rules, and surprised at how well these broken rules worked. My method was primarily to search for the most effective performance, no matter the angle in which it occurred.

DR: Afterwards, I walked back to Brooklyn feeling high.

MH: That pleases me.

by Daniel Riccuito

This interview was conducted by email in July, 2015.

[libidomechanica]

To talk of love’s howled still endure the brain, cold, made at

To talk of love’s howled still endure the brain, cold, made at this

incomplexities caged ‘ wherefore have kisse, open’d world, unblessedness,’ and

slender embassy of love’s desolation, who wish me! Behind a name in

ordinary wallow’d in bloom the birth, our young and,

how sharpen’d in throws herself be snuff about gold? Or proud thought (what mighty

will; and wise, hopeless, my days you say well-tuned gold, the faculty,

when largeness (and say morn wall, but now is selfe them by day did

despised. With chaste Hero, with the door, near

petrified. O slave, no more.) I’d try conclusions think it has arm’d himself

art in its sockets celebrated, and verse thine eyes

can I not gladly, or for your life, and human prior

to bed, where it selfe might here I once in thrown his will

blamed mountain range adventures of glassy bower which it fears

who, then let at a silent allusion of Dracula my father my sovereign,

watch. ‘Ertheless he that restless may God granted. Singing ‘

That ole Ace downcast, not suspected,’ by-and-by

ye do lie, and if he had heard, so strive was, the sea

has turned and coughed, and that enchantment plucked up— you again; and

she wisest of all my flesh was strong as Death,) and made the

next day she proper court their spell? But do not liquor: thy name, for

your love you have seen God, what rich Ocean form a lengthy leaden comes by

the mob stood with Truman’s so dramatic lost those lips of the

load. Birds in my store than even but wars. Was below

they call on us? Dozen men the voice, when he were

day. The oldest peasant fruits. How many tress move in such doore, ere we

cannot flie away. So straight should be wires growing: astrophel, sayd

she, my spouse; thou think what were almost him so hugely stood without

a reward the sea of slaughter’s initiation of

the worse that one and could decide, and a memories dart;

’tis the queenly beames, takes the hole, and place for he went,

and a dread out the fault, but heals to the lifts he flies.’

[gayhardmens82]

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[libidomechanica]

Untitled Poem # 5126

Thou be my ain dear Willie’s wife is nam’d, neede no more, to hammer a horse will not die. Do in courteously, and then is from all white-flower the great son of its own high upheld by jasper pillow, but come or name, at once a little shy at first, I visited that a girl for love, Soldier firing that amazing field the

ceased to fill the world, unblessedness. but Longbow’s talk you wouldst answered, touchwood, and come instead of in Arizona, one is in love swearing,— Stella beare! I watch’d the Soul, oh Taper o’er his friend against odds to feel a drouth, by sun or most Peace engross’d by matter—Adeline dispraised help, and lie, ever silver ramble down to thee, or Geordi-

an knot was dared. Difficult to offer upward its apply, as his own horseman, came a livelier was almost to proclaim it far abode of green fruit would stand no more. ‘Tis better to one of heaven. ‘D lie with desire, if I have devise and not to be, Sounds on my sorrows flow; some shepheard, or

the bier with tears? off, woman, scarcely the just now,’’ by thy odour matcheth not, but as frankly the breath to turn church, which would stamp of hemlock to strew or maiden, today, Infant ripe for grant, or ravishment, of thy deep kindness, the mother. to- morrow after rapine bent. Besides them send, reapen then, in

the papers echoed with hum of beer: his soul of his step so light! But if they be that she hands of fish, fowl, and brawl their mortall gifts, no earth its spirit’s perch, the beasts, look’d at Juan said, Dear heart, that same self-same fixed tranced I wis since I called Hope Lake where your courtesy calls forth between you little in his left over, she with

a steady, sober flight, therefore once more rich banish sleepe doe closed with frightful to tie an unwithering of man, of beast, by Aurora look could have but loue which we are drift of difference; and life is nae sae trig, she is my day the ranckorous rigours of the lamp will not matter; so thou no evil of their lords, and far — ‘tis

nonsense to proclaim it far and a spirit struck, though it held no hiding-place, under which how deep being! A slight show how black chords upon him to replie well as of an old newspaper; that in her feet, whose loss in blooming in the fair most Peace engrost; whose drapery hints we may be, comfort bestow all thy numerous parent longs for

the Lot of Kaikobád and Kaikhosrú forgot, we rot and round his graciously: no tumbled mine hid as worth it’? pulling down the shore; So much more— Hello, cup. the cruel Ida keep his hand — for the tracery of the hour I met the sea on my bosom: thou didst rehe arsal a single season’s warmth

[libidomechanica]

Untitled Composition # 6242

S life—for (but the Sun.  Crank, by things as you,) as hawks may  be disputing in monstrous, scented 

they starve althoughts can head, denying  through a wistfully there shadows  have knowne of youth, and whether 

dealt in filmy veines which  eloquent, thou may this saying on  removal office that bene 

like running. Of what a falcon,  and soon, not whateer thee. Had palisades,  when pity “that 

sweetly; ‘ill write, which were wonne  to die with what  shall be one has round the 

unblessedness, state, how bragly it  festreth sore, that I chaunst to  the life, forget the 

world round and the first,  our young, but vulgar, cold, that  in innocent: “twere beneath, and 

here by fate man, he shock the  reeking you sit alike poisonous  wave of scarlet cloak (I hate nor worse, 

white rose hie and round him in,  his separate  Hell, thou wilt thou setst a battering 

and no spot in wonted way,  me of waters called Lowder caught  me in with such a 

rosie Morne, whose hearts hid cause the  soil of myself shalt have seen— She  deems it is at peace which in 

you tell you that he exactly  whats step after all the rain,  for the next that 

height tinge of a calf in my  hand! bear their full moon, clear self! ”S sake. Our  open you to trust!)’”