Post by petrolino on Mar 3, 2018 22:37:33 GMT
'48 Hrs.' is an acerbic crime thriller in which gruff policeman Detective Jack Cates (Eddie Murphy) reluctantly teams up with agitated convict Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy) to bring down a pair of vicious cop killers, Albert Ganz (James Remar) and Billy Bear (Sonny Landham).
"I’ve been trying to get him to do a movie for about 30 years and never could make it work out. He and I bumped into each other over the years, we had several meetings trying to work things out, and he and I both have the same lawyer so would see each other at various social events. He’s directed about 10 movies, but anybody who’s been a great star as long as he has is going to be very knowledgeable about the picture business, but I only know one way to direct. You direct him and hope for the best. He and I get along very well, I like him a lot. He’s two things, a writer, producer, director, but setting all that aside he’s two things: he’s a very good actor and he’s a star. Both those are very considerable. I think everybody understands about him being a star, but I don’t think people totally appreciate how good an actor he is. Actors often get judged by material as well as their abilities, and I think he’s giving a very good performance in this film. This one’s a little more character-driven than some of his other dramas, but that’s for you to judge, really."
- Walter Hill discusses the making of 'Bullet In The Head', The Collider
Christian Slater & Sylvester Stallone in 'Bullet To The Head' (2012)
Before Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy were cast in their roles, Hill suggested a possible pairing of Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor that never came about. The film was set to be an Eastwood vehicle but Clint instead got to go "buddy-buddy" with Burt Reynolds for Richard Benjamin's period piece 'City Heat' (1984), the picture Burt had his jaw smashed to pieces on. Nick Nolte hit it off with Hill and they would soon be reunited for 'Extreme Prejudice' (1987).
Music is an essential part of Hill's cinema and '48 Hrs.' has one of James Horner's finest soundtracks. The iconic imagery comes courtesy of veteran glamour photographer Ric Waite who became a major cameraman in the action arena. Hill's always enjoyed hurling stunt performers through sheets of glass and he amps it to the maximum with the brash but enjoyable sequel 'Another 48 Hrs.' (1990).
"I’ve been trying to get him to do a movie for about 30 years and never could make it work out. He and I bumped into each other over the years, we had several meetings trying to work things out, and he and I both have the same lawyer so would see each other at various social events. He’s directed about 10 movies, but anybody who’s been a great star as long as he has is going to be very knowledgeable about the picture business, but I only know one way to direct. You direct him and hope for the best. He and I get along very well, I like him a lot. He’s two things, a writer, producer, director, but setting all that aside he’s two things: he’s a very good actor and he’s a star. Both those are very considerable. I think everybody understands about him being a star, but I don’t think people totally appreciate how good an actor he is. Actors often get judged by material as well as their abilities, and I think he’s giving a very good performance in this film. This one’s a little more character-driven than some of his other dramas, but that’s for you to judge, really."
- Walter Hill discusses the making of 'Bullet In The Head', The Collider
Christian Slater & Sylvester Stallone in 'Bullet To The Head' (2012)
The influential crime film '48 Hrs.' turns the standard American police procedural on its head and in doing so provides a template for all "buddy-buddy" cop flicks to come. Following the film's box-office success, Hollywood became dominated by inverted "buddy-buddy" crime pictures and they remain popular to this day. '48 Hrs.' benefits from a snappy script written by Roger Spottiswoode, Larry Gross, Steven De Souza, Jeb Stuart and director Walter Hill. It's easy to forget how dark this original thriller is because Eddie Murphy arrives in sensational comic form but it really probes the darkest recesses of the criminal mind. Hill's terse direction and crunching set-pieces deliver first-rate action under a ringing egg timer and the cast is populated with dynamic character actors.
"The direction by Walter Hill, who has never been any good at scenes involving women and doesn't improve this time. What he is good at is action, male camaraderie and atmosphere. His movies almost always feature at least one beautifully choreographed, unbelievably violent fight scene (remember Charles Bronson's bare-knuckle fight in "Hard Times"?), and the fight scene this time is exhausting. Where Hill grows in this movie is in his ability to create characters. In a lot of his earlier movies ("The Warriors," "The Driver," "The Long Riders," "Southern Comfort") he preferred men who were symbols, who represented things and so didn't have to be human. In "48 Hrs.," Nolte and Murphy are human, vulnerable, and touching. Also mean, violent, and chauvinistic. It's that kind of movie."
- Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
''48 Hours,'' which opens today at the Coronet and other theaters, hasn't entirely lost the flavor of Mr. Hill's earlier work; it still features villains much more sleekly handsome than its heroes and a machismo from everyone that just won't quit. Nick Nolte, as Detective Jack Cates, is first seen fighting with his girlfriend (Annette O'Toole), telling her, ''I make you feel good, you make me feel good - now what the hell more do you want from a guy?'' In the course of the story, a bus is hijacked and a young woman is taken hostage. As for their respective fates, only the bus's is ever specified. Never mind that; ''48 Hours'' is still highly entertaining, especially after Mr. Nolte encounters Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy), first seen in his prison cell wearing hat, sunglasses and a set of earphones, to which he is happily bopping along."
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"In a 2010 interview with The A.V. Club, Nick Nolte claimed that the 1982 crime-comedy was a game changer as far as the issue of race relations was concerned. “In 48 Hrs., Eddie and I are racially slurring at each other and showing our anger,” Nolte said. “The only films before 48 Hrs. [to do that], if I’m correct, were Lilies Of The Field and In The Heat Of The Night. After civil rights, there was this long period of very awkward attempts at communication between the whites and the blacks. The whites didn’t know if ‘brother’ was the right thing to say or not. It was just really awkward. I think more than anything, that was the underneath appeal of 48 Hrs.”
- Andrew Lasane, '10 Timely Facts About 48 Hrs.'
Nick Nolte & Eddie Murphy in '48 Hrs.'
'Ocean Size' - Jane's Addiction
- Roger Ebert, The Chicago Sun-Times
''48 Hours,'' which opens today at the Coronet and other theaters, hasn't entirely lost the flavor of Mr. Hill's earlier work; it still features villains much more sleekly handsome than its heroes and a machismo from everyone that just won't quit. Nick Nolte, as Detective Jack Cates, is first seen fighting with his girlfriend (Annette O'Toole), telling her, ''I make you feel good, you make me feel good - now what the hell more do you want from a guy?'' In the course of the story, a bus is hijacked and a young woman is taken hostage. As for their respective fates, only the bus's is ever specified. Never mind that; ''48 Hours'' is still highly entertaining, especially after Mr. Nolte encounters Reggie Hammond (Eddie Murphy), first seen in his prison cell wearing hat, sunglasses and a set of earphones, to which he is happily bopping along."
- Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"In a 2010 interview with The A.V. Club, Nick Nolte claimed that the 1982 crime-comedy was a game changer as far as the issue of race relations was concerned. “In 48 Hrs., Eddie and I are racially slurring at each other and showing our anger,” Nolte said. “The only films before 48 Hrs. [to do that], if I’m correct, were Lilies Of The Field and In The Heat Of The Night. After civil rights, there was this long period of very awkward attempts at communication between the whites and the blacks. The whites didn’t know if ‘brother’ was the right thing to say or not. It was just really awkward. I think more than anything, that was the underneath appeal of 48 Hrs.”
- Andrew Lasane, '10 Timely Facts About 48 Hrs.'
Nick Nolte & Eddie Murphy in '48 Hrs.'
'Ocean Size' - Jane's Addiction
Before Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy were cast in their roles, Hill suggested a possible pairing of Clint Eastwood and Richard Pryor that never came about. The film was set to be an Eastwood vehicle but Clint instead got to go "buddy-buddy" with Burt Reynolds for Richard Benjamin's period piece 'City Heat' (1984), the picture Burt had his jaw smashed to pieces on. Nick Nolte hit it off with Hill and they would soon be reunited for 'Extreme Prejudice' (1987).
"Alas it's all too easy to see why Walter Hill's been marginalized for so long. He's a genre director who specializes in action and suspense, but also a quirky, self-conscious artist who tends towards minimalist imagery and pessimistic themes. Like John Carpenter, who also advanced a personal aesthetic through hard-edged genre films in the 70s and 80s, he's the sort of macho pop artist that Hollywood no longer knows what to do with. (This disconnect is evidenced in the generic, uncertain ad campaigns for such recent movies as Joe Carnahan's The Grey and Neveldine/Taylor's Gamer, which can be said to follow in the Carpenter-Hill tradition.)
The upside of this development is that Hill has become so alien to contemporary American cinema that he seems new again. Compared to the most recent mainstream action releases—which operate under the assumption that "action" means bombarding the audience with kinetic imagery, visual coherence be damned—The Driver and The Warriors are refreshing in their stripped-down compositions, pregnant silences, and overall formal control. There's something uncanny about these films too: whenever possible Hill removes from the frame everyday detail that might situate the story in a familiar contemporary setting. The movies seem to take place in their own self-contained worlds, suggesting the influence of science fiction."
- Ben Sachs, The Chicago Reader
"If you think it strange that America’s greatest living action filmmaker writes his pictures from a spartan office, then you’ve clearly never seen his films. They are pure cinema, unadulterated and pared down to the bone. Not only can you fit their plots on the back of a fag packet, you’ll get most of his laconic protagonist’s dialogue on there as well. Walter Hill doesn’t waste time on concerns like backstory or exposition: he favours forward momentum. Running time rarely crosses the 100 minute mark. In interview, Hill is as straightforward and as unpretentious as his movies. When we ask if he was aware at the time of being part of a golden age of American cinema in the 1970s, he says “Oh, Christ no. We were just a bunch of people out there trying to make a living.” And when we suggest his movies were overlooked by critics on their release he fires back, “Look, I’m not complaining: if you think you’re going to be an action director and also be a critical darling, you’re crazy.” At one point he catches himself referencing an old interview of his: “Not to quote myself,” he chuckles. “I realise that’s an ego beyond ego.”
We’re speaking to him ahead of a mini-retrospective of his work at Edinburgh International Film Festival, which will take in his first seven films, from 1975 Charles Bronson-starring bare-knuckle boxing saga Hard Times through to 1984’s gloriously pulpy rock’n’roll odyssey Streets of Fire. In between these pictures there are four masterpieces: the effortlessly cool existential getaway driver thriller The Driver; The Warriors, a neon-lit New York street gang movie by way of Homer; western The Long Riders, the finest telling of the Jessie James story; and thinly-veiled Vietnam allegory Southern Comfort, in which a band of National Guardsman get their asses handed to them by some back-water bayou trappers. There’s also 48 Hrs, from 1982, the movie that launched Eddie Murphy’s acting career and invented the 80s love-hate buddy movie. Thank it for Lethal Weapon and condemn it for Turner & Hooch – or vice versa."
- Jamie Dunn at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
"Walter Hill wrote Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway, co-wrote and produced Alien and was one of the creative forces behind both Tales from the Crypt and Deadwood on HBO. If you grew up watching action films, crime movies or westerns in the '70s or '80s, Walter Hill has touched your life. The filmmaking descendant of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Fuller and Sam Peckinpah, Hill makes movies about specific types of men with specific types of codes by which they live. His movies are all sweat and blood."
- Patrick Bromley, 'Director Essentials : Walter Hill'
"The news of Powers Boothe's passing, especially so soon after that of Bill Paxton, came very hard. My friendship with Powers covered many years, yet we somehow managed to do only two films. I wish it had been 20. We worked in deserts, swamps, and on sound stages; in all circumstances, I came to admire his good humor, his courtly manners, his bemused reserve ... I used to gently tease him as the ‘Hamlet of the Prairies’, and even though it was difficult to imagine anyone more American (a Texan; proud of it), there was something grand about the performances, as well as the man, that was kindred to the Shakespearean. He contained the not-unusual contradictions of the talented: tough, yet sensitive; powerful, but gentle; patrician in spirit, but much admired by crews and co-workers. And, to put it simply, Powers was a great actor."
- Walter Hill, IndieWire
James Belushi & Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'Red Heat' (1988)
'Rocket Queen' - Guns N' Roses
The upside of this development is that Hill has become so alien to contemporary American cinema that he seems new again. Compared to the most recent mainstream action releases—which operate under the assumption that "action" means bombarding the audience with kinetic imagery, visual coherence be damned—The Driver and The Warriors are refreshing in their stripped-down compositions, pregnant silences, and overall formal control. There's something uncanny about these films too: whenever possible Hill removes from the frame everyday detail that might situate the story in a familiar contemporary setting. The movies seem to take place in their own self-contained worlds, suggesting the influence of science fiction."
- Ben Sachs, The Chicago Reader
"If you think it strange that America’s greatest living action filmmaker writes his pictures from a spartan office, then you’ve clearly never seen his films. They are pure cinema, unadulterated and pared down to the bone. Not only can you fit their plots on the back of a fag packet, you’ll get most of his laconic protagonist’s dialogue on there as well. Walter Hill doesn’t waste time on concerns like backstory or exposition: he favours forward momentum. Running time rarely crosses the 100 minute mark. In interview, Hill is as straightforward and as unpretentious as his movies. When we ask if he was aware at the time of being part of a golden age of American cinema in the 1970s, he says “Oh, Christ no. We were just a bunch of people out there trying to make a living.” And when we suggest his movies were overlooked by critics on their release he fires back, “Look, I’m not complaining: if you think you’re going to be an action director and also be a critical darling, you’re crazy.” At one point he catches himself referencing an old interview of his: “Not to quote myself,” he chuckles. “I realise that’s an ego beyond ego.”
We’re speaking to him ahead of a mini-retrospective of his work at Edinburgh International Film Festival, which will take in his first seven films, from 1975 Charles Bronson-starring bare-knuckle boxing saga Hard Times through to 1984’s gloriously pulpy rock’n’roll odyssey Streets of Fire. In between these pictures there are four masterpieces: the effortlessly cool existential getaway driver thriller The Driver; The Warriors, a neon-lit New York street gang movie by way of Homer; western The Long Riders, the finest telling of the Jessie James story; and thinly-veiled Vietnam allegory Southern Comfort, in which a band of National Guardsman get their asses handed to them by some back-water bayou trappers. There’s also 48 Hrs, from 1982, the movie that launched Eddie Murphy’s acting career and invented the 80s love-hate buddy movie. Thank it for Lethal Weapon and condemn it for Turner & Hooch – or vice versa."
- Jamie Dunn at the Edinburgh International Film Festival
"Walter Hill wrote Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway, co-wrote and produced Alien and was one of the creative forces behind both Tales from the Crypt and Deadwood on HBO. If you grew up watching action films, crime movies or westerns in the '70s or '80s, Walter Hill has touched your life. The filmmaking descendant of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Fuller and Sam Peckinpah, Hill makes movies about specific types of men with specific types of codes by which they live. His movies are all sweat and blood."
- Patrick Bromley, 'Director Essentials : Walter Hill'
"The news of Powers Boothe's passing, especially so soon after that of Bill Paxton, came very hard. My friendship with Powers covered many years, yet we somehow managed to do only two films. I wish it had been 20. We worked in deserts, swamps, and on sound stages; in all circumstances, I came to admire his good humor, his courtly manners, his bemused reserve ... I used to gently tease him as the ‘Hamlet of the Prairies’, and even though it was difficult to imagine anyone more American (a Texan; proud of it), there was something grand about the performances, as well as the man, that was kindred to the Shakespearean. He contained the not-unusual contradictions of the talented: tough, yet sensitive; powerful, but gentle; patrician in spirit, but much admired by crews and co-workers. And, to put it simply, Powers was a great actor."
- Walter Hill, IndieWire
James Belushi & Arnold Schwarzenegger in 'Red Heat' (1988)
'Rocket Queen' - Guns N' Roses
Music is an essential part of Hill's cinema and '48 Hrs.' has one of James Horner's finest soundtracks. The iconic imagery comes courtesy of veteran glamour photographer Ric Waite who became a major cameraman in the action arena. Hill's always enjoyed hurling stunt performers through sheets of glass and he amps it to the maximum with the brash but enjoyable sequel 'Another 48 Hrs.' (1990).
