Originally Posted by
vnx205
Absolutely.
The car chase from Bullitt was widely regarded for a long time by people who knew what they were talking about as the second best car chase ever filmed. They preferred "The French Connection".
Having seen the Bullitt chase in excess of 50 times (probably nearer 100) and the one from TFC only once, I am probably biased, but I prefer the Bullitt car chase.
I still believe that it is the best example ever of how a car chase can be made spectacular. It was done using effective cinematic techniques. Modern car chases are just made to look spectacular by writing off lots of cars. They usually make very little use of good cinematography.
What I mean is that Bullitt made some slightly spectacular driving look extremely impressive. Modern car chases need to do something extremely spectacular with the cars to make it look good.
Some of the Bullitt techniques include:
Low camera angle to make jumps look higher.
Telephoto lens to make jumps look steeper.
Telephoto lens to exaggerate drift on corners.
Wide angle lens to exaggerate speed towards camera.
Subjective shots approaching jumps to emphasise the risk and excitement.
Skillful editing of multiple camera angles to allow a long chase from a fairly short drive. (Very few people notice that the same green VW keeps coming out from the right. In fact I have had to show the clip about half a dozen time to most people before they notice that they are looking at exactly the same piece of action several times from different angles and even the same angle again.)
That is only a few of the things that are brilliantly done. I could mention a number of other bits of editing, the soundtrack, use of suspense and several other features.
It's a classic bit of cinematography.
The new version I suspect will simply smash up more cars.
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