Car Chases and Why?
Fascinating article in the New Yorker this week by Tad Friend about Los Angeles and its culture of high speed car chases. Real ones, not those in the movies. Though for some idiotic reason, the magazine’s website has included this Q&A with Mr. Friend about the article instead of the article itself, it still left me curious enough to ask the following questions…
1) Would there be high speed chases if we couldn’t see them on television? In other words, is the fact that they draw huge television ratings a big part of why this article was written?
2) Mr. Friend concludes that technology exists or will soon where you can simply shut off a car’s engine remotely. When the cops can do that, will that be the end of the high speed chase?
3) Will you be sad about it?
4) What is the best high speed chase on film ever and is the answer strict geographic chuvanism? Because the answers I usually here are Bullitt (San Francisco), To Live and Die in L.A. (Los Angeles), The French Connection (New York) and The Blues Brothers (Chicago).
5) Have you met or have a six degrees connection to someone who stood beside the freeway as OJ passesd yelling “Go Juice Go!”
6) Why does Mr. Friend, who lives in New York, keep writing “Letters from California” as if California is a foreign country instead of the most populous state in the union?
Answer any and all.
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2 Replies to “Car Chases and Why?”
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The best cinematic car chase is without a doubt in the French Connection. However, I reccomend Ronin as an addition to your list. Quite a good car chase in the classic sense. The Transporter also has some absurdly over-the-top prolonged scenes of automotive mahem.
As for question six, I was shocked to see the “Letters From California” column. This is the first time I noticed it as a Californian and found the whole thing unintentionally droll. Combined with NPR’s relocation of half of their news team to Los Angeles, this renewed interest in the exotic west comes across as the kind of orientalizing awe you describe it to be.
As for coverage of LA car chases, This American Life did a much better job in Episode 248.
The best cinematic car chase is without a doubt in the French Connection. However, I reccomend Ronin as an addition to your list. Quite a good car chase in the classic sense. The Transporter also has some absurdly over-the-top prolonged scenes of automotive mahem.
As for question six, I was shocked to see the “Letters From California” column. This is the first time I noticed it as a Californian and found the whole thing unintentionally droll. Combined with NPR’s relocation of half of their news team to Los Angeles, this renewed interest in the exotic west comes across as the kind of orientalizing awe you describe it to be.
As for coverage of LA car chases, This American Life did a much better job in Episode 248.