Vanishing Point San Francisco

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Movie
German title Vanishing point San Francisco
alternative title in the GDR:
Grenzpunkt Null
Original title Vanishing Point
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1971
length Cinema: 99 minutes
DVD: 95 minutes
Blu-ray: 99 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Richard C. Sarafian
script Guillermo Cabrera Infante
production Norman Spencer
music Jimmy Bowen
camera John A. Alonzo
cut Stefan Arnsten
occupation

Vanishing Point San Francisco is an American road movie by director Richard C. Sarafian from 1971 with the then largely unknown Barry Newman in the lead role.

action

Ex-racing driver Kowalski bets he can get a car from Denver to San Francisco within fifteen hours - a distance of around 2,000 km. He wants to overcome this challenge by taking amphetamines . At the same time, however, he is also aware that even the necessary average speed means a permanent break in the speed limits and that he has to give free rein to the 7.2-liter V8 engine (440 cui) of the white 1970 Dodge Challenger R / T.

Because of his driving style, Kowalski is being followed more and more intensely by the police during his drive through the southwest of the USA (according to flashbacks , he was himself a police officer). On his side, Kowalski has in particular the blind radio disc jockey Super Soul, who listens to the police radio and who he describes as the “last American hero” can repeatedly warn the fugitive about planned police actions over the airwaves. At least until Super Soul is violently silenced. Along his route, however, Kowalski also receives help from a motorcyclist, members of a hippie community and other people. In a later scene a newspaper clipping is shown referring to his girlfriend Vera’s fatal surfing accident five years ago.

Ultimately, however, Kowalski does not achieve his goal because he crashes suicidally into a roadblock.

reception

Many interpreted the final scene as if Kowalski had done this on purpose, because you could see a smile on his face. However, in an interview, Barry Newman cleared up this misconception by saying, "Kowalski smiled because he thought he was just about to get past the roadblock and would have a free ride ... he didn't know he was racing to his death."

Sarafian said in an interview that he planned a different ending. The light between the dozer blades should represent a gateway into another world, which Kowalski enters in the event of a collision (see The Doors ' Break on Through (To the Other Side) ).

Trivia

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
  • The (exile) Cuban writer and film critic Guillermo Cabrera Infante wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym Guillermo Cain . The script is based on a story by Malcolm Hart .
  • In the GDR, the film was released on November 7, 1975 under the title Grenzpunkt Null and was admitted from the age of 14.
  • For the DVD released in 2002, the English rating from 18 years of age was adopted. In 2009 a new edition with a changed cover was released, which is released for ages 16 and up.
  • Due to an acute lack of money, it was not possible for the producers to destroy the expensive Dodge Challenger in the final crash. For this reason, a cheaper used Chevrolet Camaro was used. If you take a closer look, you can see the striking sideline of the Camaros during the detonation. Chrysler withdrew from sponsorship after the screening because they wanted to distance themselves from the image of the film (drugs, frenzy, hippies, nude scenes).
  • There is a scene with Charlotte Rampling as the hitchhiker, which was first released on the USA DVD, in which one learns that San Francisco is his home and that Kowalski is supposedly his only name (quote: "Kowalski. First, last and only . "). The scene takes place the night after saying goodbye to the motorcyclist.
  • Lead actor Barry Newman became known to a wider audience in Germany through the Petrocelli lawyer series .
  • In 2003 the band Audioslave used the film for the music video for the song Show Me How to Live . Original scenes were mixed with newly shot material.
  • Directed by Charles Robert Carner , this material was filmed again in 1997 as a TV production (German distribution title: Hell Hunt to San Francisco ) with Viggo Mortensen in the role of Kowalski.
  • In the episode dirty work of the series Tatort from 1989, a scene in which the killer is preparing in the hotel, a television set with vanishing point San Francisco in the background .
  • In Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof from 2007, the protagonists drive a white 1970 Dodge Challenger , in the final chase Tarantino refers to the film in several shots (e.g. in the jump scene) and the film title is also mentioned several times.
  • The following announcements by the protagonist Super Soul , who reports on the chase as a blind radio DJ for the station KOW, served various bands as the starting point for their songs. The British band Primal Scream quoted the film in the song Kowalski on their 1997 album Vanishing Point . Guns N 'Roses also used the quote in their song Breakdown , which appeared on the album Use Your Illusion 2 .
  • Clint Eastwood's film Gran Torino also makes reference to the film by giving the protagonist the name Kowalski .

Reviews

“This film is so straightforward that there isn't even time for the hero's first name. [...] Pumped full of amphetamines, he breaks road blocks in a chord and even chases his muscle car across the desert. Vanishing Point ( Vanishing Point San Francisco ) is not exactly an educational film for the driving school, but a celluloid memorial for the legendary 1970 Dodge Challenger R / T. "

- Süddeutsche Zeitung

“With short cuts that occasionally interrupt the long trip, Sarafian soon makes it clear: Kowalski is on the run from his experiences with the American dream. As a Vietnam warrior, he still believed he was defending Western ideals; he came back sobered. As a police officer, he then tried to protect an allegedly drug addict employee from her boss and lost his job in the process. So he now races along at excessive speed and only cares about the radio announcements of a blind black disc jockey who warns him of the traffic lane. "

- The mirror

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article The ten best auto films: Full throttle on the screen Süddeutsche Zeitung 2011
  2. ↑ Filmkritik Fleeing Der Spiegel 25/1971