Had Michael Cimino not killed New Hollywood with the financial disaster that was Heaven’s Gate, he might have eventually unmasked the movement anyway, exposing this supposedly new style of filmmaking as nothing more than the old way with a dirtier face. His debut feature, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, illustrates this in spades: One of the many intended cash-ins on Easy Rider’s success, the film reverses the nature of other counterculture road movies. Though it begins with sweeping, Fordian vistas and ends in muted, existential despair, the film is less a deconstruction of Americana by the intrusion of the real than a study of human interaction that reinforces, if tragically, its classical formalism and iconography.
As such, the film’s pairing of old and young functions not as a commentary on the generation gap or the trading of an antiquated set of values for a newer one, but as a means of drawing out their parallels. Certainly Thunderbolt (Clint Eastwood) and Lightfoot (Jeff Bridges) are introduced as contrasts: black-clad Thunderbolt hunched over a church pulpit, the sunlight glinting off his glasses further obscuring him, while Lightfoot, decked out in bright, post-hippie patterns and pleats, practically materializes just outside the dealership where he jacks a car.
Once thrown together, though, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot’s rapport becomes a juxtaposition of different personalities voicing the same core being. Bridges brings his off-kilter sense of humor to his role, while Eastwood remains more taciturn, but both characters are sardonic, shrewd robbers, desirous of a payday for the same reason, to finally be able to just buy something of their own. It’s a dream so myopic, so survivalist, that it transcends an identifiable political slant even as it epitomizes the microeconomic impact of politics on the poor across generations.
The old/young distinctions that the pair blur are further eroded by other characters. Stopping at a gas station where they will steal their next car, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot make pleasantries with the grouchy old attendant, who responds to the casual “How’s business?” with a rant about the vast mirage of the American economy, held in place solely by the whims of “a little ol’ lady with $79.25.” In the small Montana town where the duo and Thunderbolt’s vengeful former partners, Red (George Kennedy) and Eddie (Geoffrey Lewis), plan a heist, a department store owner keeps guard dogs so vicious that they feel as if they’ve been teleported from a modern urban dystopia. Red and Eddie, for all their outspoken reference to Lightfoot as a kid, sound like teenage virgins as Lightfoot tells them of a housewife coming to her door nude.
Eastwood, who originally wanted to direct Thunderbolt and Lightfoot himself, gave screenwriter Cimino a chance behind the camera, and the director showcases an innate ability for reflecting subtext in form. The film doesn’t turn a blind eye to the passage of time and its attendant changes, yet it never undermines the expansiveness of its visuals. Like John Ford, Cimino in his prime had an uncanny ability to make location backdrops an extension of theme and characters’ internal thoughts, as well as a projection of their mythic force of will.
Of all the 1970s road movies, this one may be the only one in which the characters find themselves. Unfortunately for them, their true selves are corrosive and unsustainable, a grim truth borne out in one of the most disturbing deaths in American film, in which one of the characters neither suffers a moral reckoning nor finds dignity in death, but instead powers down like a machine with a dying battery. His end is one of inevitability, retroactively casting the film’s elemental masculine friendship as a catalyst for the demise of these iconic beings.
Image/Sound
Taken from a 4K scan of the 35mm original camera negative, Kino Lorber’s transfer retains all of the gritty beauty of Michael Cimino’s debut. Grain is even and consistent, while the colors are naturalistic, particularly in the skin tones, yet vibrant in the many shots of open vistas against blue skies. There’s also strong depth to the image, with sharp details deep into the frame. On the audio front, there’s a lossless stereo track and 5.1 surround, both of which feature crystal-clear dialogue and handle the cacophonous sounds of the chase sequences quite well.
Extras
Nick Pinkerton serves as an adept emcee on the included audio commentary track, amply covering the backgrounds of the filmmakers and all major players, while leaving plenty of time to tease out the theme of subterfuge that runs throughout the film. It’s a consistently compelling listen but most enlightening when focusing on the mentor-mentee relationship between the titular characters and the homosocial (and homoerotic) aspects of their bond that make the film a playful deconstruction of the buddy film. The disc also comes with a 30-minute audio interview with Cimino, who talks about his screenwriting process and the daunting task of directing Clint Eastwood at his peak, along with a smattering of TV spots and trailers.
Overall
A solid commentary track and handsome transfer courtesy of Kino Lorber should help raise the stock of one of most underrated road movies of the 1970s.
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