Tell me if this sounds familiar
There is this getaway driver the best in the whole city he barely speaks
And he always wears the same really cool outfit
He ends up being hunted by his criminal associates and tries to protect an innocent woman with whom he becomes
Involved you might think I'm describing Edgar Wright's baby driver or maybe Nicolas Winding reference drive
And you wouldn't be wrong but both of these films are working off of a framework established more than 30 years earlier
by writer director Walter Hill in his film the driver
If you are familiar with the two more recent movies watching this is a revelation
It's like discovering their secret origin story the driver is as tight and minimalist a film as they come the title character speaks
350 words in the entire film
None of the characters have names the credits list simply the driver the player and the detective
Everything is stripped down to its barest essentials
There isn't a wasted word or moment no back story the characters barely seem to think they just act
Both ansel elgort baby, and ryan. Gosling's driver are variations on Ryan
O'Neill's character
Silence brilliant getaway drivers the structures are similar all three films open with the main character waiting to pick up some thieves
Followed by a spectacular chase as he outruns the police later on in the stories a heist goes wrong
Danger closes in and the driver is forced to get blood on his hands as he tries to get out alive
but
While Walter Hill was the first one to put this kind of getaway driver on film the roots of this character go back much further
Jean-pierre Melville's
1967 film la samurai starring alain de la as jeff costello
While it's not about a getaway driver it is about a silent
Intensely focused professional criminal dressed in an immediately iconic jacket with seemingly no personal life our backstory here
Melville took the dark antihero of American noir films in particular Allen lads character from 1942 s this gun for hire
stripped him down until he was less a character and more of a pure archetype and injected him with the code and
minimalism of Japanese samurai with a healthy dose of French style
Luo Samurai is a hypnotic experience as we follow this man about whom we know nothing as his sharp silhouette cuts through a monochromatic
Paris with laser focus he's all coiled tension full of potential energy waiting for a release
Walter Hill's stroke of brilliance was to drench the whole thing in neon and give that potential energy and outlet
cars
Like la samurai in the driver everything is still and poised
until the film erupts into motion and sound
With several furious car chases since the driver is so minimalist
It feels like he'll is creating a template a simple framework for other directors to come in and interpret in different ways
inserting their own themes and interests and styles
For effin that means making the driver a man prone to horrifying burst to violence who doesn't know how to function in society
Or maintain normal human relationships for right that means making him a guy with a good heart who over the course of the film
must learn to take responsibility
Both right and Ref and choose to supplement the drivers silence with music giving him his own soundtrack as he drives through the city in
Baby driver the music is an escape he listens to it at all times to drown out his tinnitus
But more significantly it's to distract him from the world of violence and crime in which he lives
His hobby is literally taking parts of that world the audio clips he records and transforming them into something positive
Music in drive the driver is notably more
emotionally stunted and
his ref and himself has said we're gonna make a movie about a man who drives around at night listening to pop music because that
Becomes his emotional relief he listens to music as a way to feel something he has no family
seemingly no close friendships
So pop music is his outlet for experiencing emotions
These creations of Melville and Hill have reverberating through decades of cinema
John woos the killer is directly indebted to LA Samurai pretty much Michael Mann's entire career
Telling neon new are stories of professional criminals living by strict codes can be traced back to the driver
But it's the specific getaway driver archetype. I find the most fascinating
Partly for how it's been interpreted and evolved
But also for the potential of it the framework is strong and simple enough that you can imagine
Countless distinct filmmakers taking it and creating their own
Interpretations Wes Anderson might make a movie about a young getaway driver who's forced by his father to work for their family's criminal enterprise
But he really wants to be a Formula One driver in Europe Richard Linklater might make a whole movie hovering one long
conversation between the driver and the thieves in the backseat
Cronenberg's could be about the drivers body
Fusing to the car to create a disturbing human machine hybrid and in Guillermo del Toro's version
I don't know. I guess the driver is a monster
Now that I say these I actually really want to see all those movies so Hollywood feel free to take these ideas
Hello guys, thank you so much for watching. This is a video. I've been wanting to make for months now
I saw the driver for the first time back over the summer at this series of heist movies and Brooke with the Edgar I curated
And I loved it. It's a tough movie to get a hold of in the u.s.
You have to import the blu-ray from Europe if you really want it's not on any streaming services
But if you're a fan of things like Drive our baby driver. It is really worth seeking out. It's very very cool
if so if you like these videos that we're making and you want to help us make more of them you should check out the
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And I'll be back here in the next couple days with more video stuff, and then I'll see you next Wednesday