By Jason Apuzzo. Peter Yates, the director of Bullitt and other acclaimed films, has passed away at age 82.
I was very sorry to read this today, because just last weekend I’d watched Bullitt while listening to Yates’ director’s commentary – which was superb. Yates was a fine director – one of my favorites of his was The Deep from 1977 – and was originally brought from the UK to the United States by Steve McQueen to do Bullitt (Yates’ first American film) because of his fine work on the 1967 film Robbery; Robbery had featured a great car chase and an avant-garde style that McQueen very much liked.
Yates and cinematographer William Fraker (who just passed away this past year) brought an understated, documentary styling to Bullitt that continues to make it a cut above its many imitators – a kind of clinical/ironic detachment that made everything in the film seem more believable, and therefore more intense. Almost as if eavesdropping, the audience hardly ever sees anything in Bullitt happen directly – but only through reflected images, windows, mirrors; plus, the long lenses Fraker used give the photography the feeling of being an act of surveillance. When combined with the tight, economical performances of the cast – and Lalo Schifrin’s jazz score – these qualities lend Bullitt a cool sophistication that few films of any genre can match.
I remember my parents telling me that when Bullitt came out in 1968, they were so excited by it that they sat through two consecutive screenings – something I don’t think they’ve done before or since. The film still has that kind of effect on people, I think in part due to its depiction of strong, stylish professionals (McQueen in particular) maintaining their cool in moments of extreme tension and suspense. Watch the famous car chase from the film above, for example. Look how perfectly dressed everybody is, and how they never lose their composure – even while careening over the vertiginous hills of San Francisco.
Yates and Irvin Kershner, who also passed away recently, were director/storytellers of a different generation who were less obtrusive, less likely to impose themselves on their material than today’s breed. They were, in short, pros – with a passion for documentary fidelity to reality – more than they were self-styled, egocentric auteurs out to distort reality (Nolan, Aronosfsky, etc.).
Yates will be missed; his films, however, will certainly live on and stand the test of time.
Posted on January 10th, 2011 at 1:51pm.
I will always remember Steve McQueen’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, to introduce and show that clip from Bullit. It’s standard today for an actor to appear on a show with a movie “sample”, but then it was, I think, without precedent. And, seeing it again after all those years, it is still just as good.
Thanks.
Thanks for that detail, Force Tube. That’s interesting to learn.
Thanks for this piece, Jason — it’s important to remember filmmakers like Yates, as well as Kershner. Off the top of my head, I can’t even think of who their contemporaries may be.
I just got Bullitt on Blu for Christmas, so I think I’ll check that out tonight — haven’t seen it in years.
Thanks, Vince, as always. Enjoy the film – I’ve no doubt you will.
One of my all time favorite movies. Steve McQueen represents the type of actor that simply does not exist today in Hollywood and Peter Yates had actual directorial talent. He had an effortless talent that’s completely missing from today’s Hollywood. Also San Fran is beautiful in this movie as if you’ve gone back in a time capsule and it’s 1968 again. Although I’m not sure if that’s a good thing!
Great points, JohnG. This movie absolutely did wonders for San Francisco – and still does, in my opinion. I’ve often thought, by the way, how beneficial it must have been for San Francisco to have had both Bullitt and Harry Callahan on its police force at roughly the same time … 🙂
As for Yates, the key here is that his work appears effortless – when actually a great deal of thought and preparation went into making the film, scouting the locations, preparing the unique look of the film, etc. It was a big deal at the time for Bullitt to be shot on location outside of Los Angeles; much of this had to do with the fact that neither Yates nor McQueen wanted Warner Brothers looking over their back, because they were trying to make the film in what was (for the time) an unusual, documentary style.
My parents were living in San Francisco at the time the film came out, and they loved it – both the film and the city. Regarding San Francisco, they never conveyed any complaints to me about hippies, protests, et al. I actually think The City by the Bay you see in Bullitt is closer to real life than what you get from some Boomer-hippie’s reminiscences about Haight-Ashbury.
I am saddened to hear about Peter Yates passing. I first met him in 1975 when he and his son would come into my father’s store in Westport CT. I got to know him on a nodding basis during the summers when I worked for my father.
I was surprised when Peter came to Indiana University (summer of 1977?), where I was a student, to direct Breaking Away. I spent a week, before school started, working as an extra. It was fun and a real learning experience.
I once asked Peter why during the chase scene (the above film clip) the same green VW was passed three times and the white GTO(?) was turning the same corner multiple times. Peter just laughed.
Great comment, Rorke! Actually Yates addresses that issue on the DVD/Blu-ray commentary. Apparently all of the ‘civilian’ cars you see around the Mustang and the Charger were really stunt cars driven by stunt drivers. They only had so many stunt cars available to them, though, so some repetition was inevitable.