It’s always interesting to see how these films dress the future. Still however the resistance rustle up a sexy aeroplane for a thrilling and explosive chase, and deliver a rolling critique of the American love of violent entertainment, expressing their grievances by wearing blue overalls and attacking the state. The side story in Death Race 2000 concerns the American resistance movement, who could, like the race itself, have done with a better budget. Paul Bartel’s salary for directing Death Race 2000 in 1976 was $5,500. Interestingly, someone in 1975 must have realised that Death Race 2000 had cult potential, because in 1976 Bartel shot another film about a coast to coast race also featuring David Carradine, this one called Cannonball (1976) or sometimes Carquake. Despite not having directed much since then, he has had a great career as an actor, and you will have seen him in something, whether it’s Fame, Gremlins 2, The Pope Must Die and even the episode of The Comic Strip he directed, in which he plays Oscar Wilde. Paul Bartel was less slick at making a profit over the years, and sank everything, including his mother’s house, into Eating Raoul. In his nearly-six-decades in the business, only about a dozen of Corman’s films failed to make a profit, and although he isn’t known for making high art, he still has a keen following, and can never be ignored by writers on film. With hundreds of movies to his credit, Corman is hard to ignore and his influence on cinema is incalculable. Griffith.Īlthough Paul Bartel directed Death Race 2000, it’s always seen as a product of Roger Corman.
Death Race 2000 is infamous for being one of Quentin Tarantino's all-time favourites and he even dedicated Death Proof to the writer of Death Race 2000, Charles B. So whereas in Death Race 2000 lost out to Rollerball in terms of box office, it nonetheless probably remains the King Lear of Grindhouse. In 1975 you’d have to picture Death Race 2000 released at a cinema house somewhere between the mainstream showhouse and the porn cinema, the cheap double and triple bill joints where anything went, and films - as typified by those of Roger Corman - contained violence and nudity as par for the course. Post-feminist viewers will be surprised at the casual nudity in Death Race 2000, as it’s something that isn’t seen anymore. But this is a cult film, and a very silly one at that. Presenting killers as heroes, as Paul Bartel discovered, is not completely straightforward - although in Death Race 2000 David Carradine does succeed as a very charismatic killer. Bartel said that Eating Raoul was inspired by Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers, although it’s probable that Kind Hearts and Coronets was a hit and Eating Raoul wasn’t, was because in Kind Hearts and Coronets Alec Guinness only ever killed versions of himself. Mary Woronov had worked underground film, starting back in the day with Andy Warhol, and she joined director Paul Bartel in Eating Raoul (1982) hugely underrated comedy in which a normal boring Los Angeles couple discover a murderous way to fund their restaurant business. Mary Woronov ( her website is here) plays one of the racers in Death Race 2000 - Calamity Jane - a gal too good-hearted it would seem to play a vicious hit and run killer. Later it appears that some of it is true, at least inasmuch as his hand is not his own.
The story is that Frankenstein has been disfigured and damaged in his races and has been surgically rebuilt, but early on that’s revealed as a sham, making him some kind of corporate shill. Looking into the character of Frankenstein it’s likely he’s some kind of dupe, like a fake wrestler. DR2K makes a bloody dash for the funny bone, often without special effects or women’s clothing.ĭeath Race 2000 stars John Carradine as the most vile national heroes that the United Provinces of America have ever produced, a disfigured homicidal racer who is close personal friends with the president. It’s Death Race 2000 that holds the crown - sleazy, cheesy, action packed, and wallows in silliness for a shockingly concise 78 minutes. Death Race 2000 and Rollerball (both 1975) show a dystopian corporate future in which the masses are appeased by bloody and ritual sports.
0 kommentar(er)
