Never Just A Car
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 เม.ย. 2018
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Cars are everywhere in the movies. Why are filmmakers so obsessed with automobiles?
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// Movies Shown in the Video:
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Goldfinger
American Graffiti
Fargo
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
The Darjeeling Limited
La La Land
Repo Man
Take Shelter
Jack Reacher
Nightcrawler
Baby Driver
John Wick
Bullitt
Everybody Wants Some
Boyhood
Ronin
Inception
Chinatown
Hitman Agent 47
The Departed
Jaques Tati's Trafic
Little Miss Sunshine
Badlands
Interstellar
The Fast and The Furious
Death Proof
Whiplash
Rushmore
Casino
Thelma & Louise
Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior
The French Connection
The Wolf of Wall Street
Goodfellas
Speedracer
Knight of Cups
Drive
2 Fast 2 Furious
Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Big Lebowski
Taxi Driver
The Godfather
On The Waterfront
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Inside Llewyn Davis
Song to Song
To The Wonder
Midnight Special
Lady Bird
Blue Velvet
Darkest Hour
Straw Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Jurassic Park
Nocturnal Animals
The Meyerowitz Stories
The Place Beyond the Pines
Mullholland Drive
Fight Club
The Hitman's Bodyguard
Spielberg's Duel
Crash
The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo
Mad Max - Fury Road
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Loving
Locke
Falling Down
Sicario
Blade Runner
Blade Runner 2049
Back To The Future
Herbie Goes to the Monte Carlo
Cars
The Blues Brothers
North By Northwest
Memento
Children of Men
Breathless
Psycho
Transformers
Touch of Evil
#VideoEssay #ThomasFlight - ภาพยนตร์และแอนิเมชัน
Even though I included almost 100 movies in this video, I know I missed some of the best car moments in cinema. What are your favorite scenes or films that I left out?
Thomas Flight lack of uncle bens murder
Death Proof
Christine
The highway scene from the Matrix
This scene with the Mystery Machine! th-cam.com/video/iEattbpjGG4/w-d-xo.html
"Cinema is the technological sibling of the car. Born of the same era, neither knows of a time without the other." - this!
Unlike the vast majority of visual essay channels, you really understand that 'showing your point' is just as important as saying it.
"Cut to the Chase"
Hear, hear!
It's a joy to know that people like Thomas are out there who still care about movies with all their heart.
Did you think we hit the 2020’s and just collectively decided movies are obsolete?
Great essay! The last point you made, how LA's dependency on cars shaped (US) cinema - you only need to look east towards Japan. Trains have a much higher importance in films and anime due to their central character to Japan's everyday, urban life. I remember when I watched Source Code, I was so suprised to see a train as the center of a US production.
precisely! i find the way surroundings effect the way different cultures tell a story fascinating!
anime + trains made me instantly recollect that particular shot from Perfect Blue
You can see evidence of this in Old Hollywood too, where trains play a much more prominent role than they do in American films today.
Interesting to see how the film-makers will adapt to the advent of self-driving cars taking over transportation. Just like cell-phones made certain stories like being disconnected and lost harder to tell.
EDIT: swear I wrote this just before you said the same.
Great minds think alike ;)
Perfect balance of examples shown, never cliche or too artsy or too mainstream. Very well thought out. Great work as usual.
Editing this must have been a total bitch, great work as always Thomas. I love these sort of compilation video essays that examine something universal among films, though it makes me realize how many damn good movies I still have to see.
There's definitely some blood/sweat/tears in this one. It actually has the same effect on me, I feel like I just scratched the surface!
Dude, it was all worth it!
"Cinema is the technological sibling of the car. Born of the same era, neither knows of a time without the other."
Really great line
Lincoln needs to use all the sentences in this for their next ad
I wish I could have had Matthew to narrate this.
Really great discussion and awesome editing!
seeing you here...
just missing , Now You See It,Nerdwriter,Royal Ocean Society,100 years of Cinema,BeforeCredits,Lessons from the Screenplay and a few more but also Every Frame a Painting
Mixing up the supercut aesthetic in a video essay. Well played, Mr. Flight. Well played.
if all film essayers gathered energy to make one video
the spirit bomb would make one hell of a montage, specially with you in the middle of it
Louser
As a car enthusiast, I really appreciate you calling out the car in cinematic form and what it does for movies. My one major gripe with cars in movies is that unless it’s a proper car focused movie, like Cars or Fast and Furious, the cars will have the wrong sounds. It will sound like what people want to hear not what the car really sounds like. I respect movies like Rush and Need For Speed for this reason. It draws authenticity and brings us car fans in to hear a Lamborghini sound attached to a Lamborghini. Films should start doing this or it’ll turn people like me off.
Love it. I'm studying at film school next year and you are definitely one of the TH-camrs that have inspired me to take it. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! Good luck with you studies! Enjoy film school and make the most of every resource it makes available to you.
It is in the car, alone, that we are the most free to be our true self. It’s like our third mask, just behind social media and the comfort of our home.
Loving the work
This video essay gradually got better. Movies are the life of me.
Glad you think so!
Terrific video. The question regarding the impact of driverless cars is especially thought-provoking.
If cars were self driving I'd hope most films would either ignore their existence or set the movie before they existed unless they are important to the plot. I guess as more people adopt cars as a service and autonomous vehicles become commonplace even pretending they don't exist will make scenes with them not connect to the audience as much. It's a fascinating problem to have to solve.
Another amazing video. I think the taxi gives another very interesting perspective on the attitude towards the car. Being in a taxi feels like stepping into the world of someone else. I think it's done very well in Anomalisa. For Michael Stone, being in the taxi is a microcosm of being in this new city, a bombardment of culture and the local personality.
Uber even more so! Because a car is so personal, you feel like you're in someone else's space, and you are, they're very in control and there's a certain amount of inherent trust needed to even put yourself in that situation with someone else at the wheel.
Another example is the Taxi scene in the Big Lebowski where The Dude wants the driver to turn off The Eagles, the driver won't, and when The Dude keeps complaining, he gets tossed out. My car = my rules.
You’re truly a master of analysis as any artist must be. I’m a new fan of your work.
Definitely check out Jim Jarmusch's film Night On Earth if you haven't already. It's essentially a series of short stories about long cab rides and the interactions between the drivers and the passengers. It's a great display of many of the ideas expressed here. Being in a car with another person, especially at night, can be a very intimate experience, even if you were unaware of the other person's existence a few minutes ago. But it's an inherently limited form of intimacy, because once you get to where you're going, at least one of you has to get out, and that shell of privacy is gone. It might be the last time you ever see that person, depending on the situation. While modern technology is often seen as isolating people from one another, it has the potential to bring them together in ways that weren't really possible before.
This sounds great. I'm a fan of Jarmusch. I'm definitely going to watch it as soon as I'm not sick of looking at cars anymore!
There are some channels that can be viewed as a natural successor to "Every Frame a Painting"
Thomas Flight is one of them :D
Highest compliment! Thank you. My inspiration for this video was their video about chairs.
Cars are way more fun to sit in than chairs though!
Love them both and can't get enough of quality content like them.
_"their video about chairs"_ while technically not my introduction to EFaP, that was where I started to take them seriously...
Thanks for still being here. *_;' )_*
Wow this has been my favorite video of yours so far! So incredibly edited and your analyses always make me think. Please please keep making videos!!
Thanks! Lot more coming!
Wow, one of the most insightful supercut/video essays I've seen. Good on you, Thomas.
Thank you very much!
I love you Video essays. The contents are in depth and the editing is great. Keep it up!
I'm 3 years late but I loved this video essay.
'Your hands are on the wheel, you feel you control your destiny , you get to put the music on.' Probably my favorite line. Thorougly enjoyed it! Although, I was looking for a Jim Jarmusch clip or reference throughout the essay, that guy loves his cars and car journeys :D But your channel is amazing and I have learnt a lot from your videos! Thank you.
This was fantastic Thomas! Great implementation of elements from the supercut format
Thanks! There's so much to cover on this topic it really needed both. :)
Jack's here , Beyond Frame's here
with Like Stories of Old , this brotherhood of art comtemplators is a evolution of the human intellect
You did the video I always wanted to make. This was just superb. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Tremendous editing Thomas!
one of my favorite vids, I'm a car lover and I always want to make movies and you more than did this justice.
Glad I found this video. I just couldn't stop thinking about how "cool" characters are so attached to a vehicle. Doesn't even have to be a car. Can be something like a ship.
It would've been nice to mention that scene from hereditary , the accident that happens in the car and how the scene is filmed giving us (me at least ) the impression that maybe nothing happened and as long as we dont face the event we can just act like nothing changed , the only thing that stuck in my head since i forgot the most of that scene (ironically so) is how the boy choosed to deal with what happened , the lack of a proper reaction and realization and how he just leaves the car abandoned when he arrives home and goes directly to bed where he can retreat with hope that the next day will undone what in the previous one just happened
This is an excellent essay, but I feel like it's a very USA centric view of the history of cinema. US culture is based around cars, it's a massive signifier, and though the 'history of Cinema' is in many ways really the 'history of US cinema', in countries like Great Britain you get similar motifs with Trains in film as it's a far bigger part of our culture as just one example.
I love your work sir! Life evolves around the vehicle, from start to finish, and everything in between. Please keep up the great work.
Thank you! I plan to keep at it for a long time if I can :)
Wow, what an amazing video! Instant sub.
You can tell how much work and effort you have put into this video and it really payed off. Just great work! Cant wait to see more videos from you! Greeting from Germany.
Glad to have you watching! :)
This is also where movies often screw it up, sometimes characters for example getting a mustang, who are young teenagers disinterested in cars. I like to when writing look for a car that suits them. This can often be very hard.
This was great, I found your video while doing research for my own essay about sentient cars. There were things here I hadn't considered.
Hello Thomas,
thanks so much for this great video essay. As a native Berliner, I never had a car or needed one. You just opened up my mind and made me think more about personal space connected to cars and big/small cities. Also, I really like the way you structured this episode, especially that you ended on "How will self-driving cars affect our society and cinema". :)
James
This is a wonderful video essay. Much appreciated.
Thomas Flight is on another level
amazing analysis, great editing. tks !!!!
Amazing video! Your insights and analysis are very useful to apply to my own film viewings. Keep up the great work!
Thanks!
Brilliant essay! Adore the supercut, and your analysis. Very impressed by the breadth of media you use. Some sther car scenes that aren’t in this (because of course you couldn’t fit them all in):The Santa Claus, Cruel Intentions, Drive Me Crazy, Two Weeks Notice, Breakfast at Tiffanys. Then some more recent films (ones made after your video) I was thinking of Parasite and Promising Young Woman
This is so great! I definitely agree on the points you make, I noticed when writing my own little thing my character is desperate for freedom, and the first thing he does is buy a car.
They're an extremely versatile piece of prop.
Please make an episode on trains (including trams) in cinema. That would be fascinating to watch. It will also be interesting to see how trains inhabit European and Asian cinema as opposed to American cinema where significance of cars is borne out of necessity.
I became a film buff because of my love for cars. I'm new to your channel, great content!
What a cool idea for the video! Great editing too!
Great editing and research!
Great editing man!
Thanks!
6:41 i love your edits, they really drive your point home, no pun intended :)
3:01 beautiful transition
I was so happy when I stumbled across that edit :)
God Damn man, this was fucking great. I'm in a filmmaking class right now, and I have to write a surrealist narrative for my next project, and I have chosen to write about cars, specifically the driving experience. There's a lot of similarities in this video to what I already have in my script as well as some themes I can add. Good job dude
Original and interesting, great video Thomas!
Thanks for watching!
Great video, as always! With Joseph Campbell's heavy emphasis placed on "Road Symbolism" it's no wonder we share a collective cinematic obessions with cars. Reminds me of Charon, the mythological ferryman, who's boat ushers us into the deeper new world of adventure, discovery, and transformation.
I just watched this video... in my car.
Excellent one, as always
Great video subject i rarely think about. Thanks!
great vid and editing!
Thanks!
That's a great idea with the captions telling you what movie is shown at the moment :D
Stole that idea from Every Frame a Painting’s Toronto video!
i know this is before im thinking of ending things but the first like quarter of that movie is just a conversation in a car and it's really interesting
Greatness. Really well done.
Thank you sir!
I love when I recognize movies I have seen a long time ago. I smile as if they were my grown up children sending me letter
Otherwise, brilliant video, as always !
I'm so glad you mentioned Locke! That film is amazing.
Tom Hardy is great it in!
Nicely done
Excellent editing
Great vid man
Your focus on the car through these clips has whetted my appetite to learn how cinematographers have grappled with the challenge of filming this small stage. How are the cameras coping with movement, lighting, glass, structures, and sound in such a confined space? How are the safety of the actors ensured ... to say nothing of their performances!
Great job, Thomas.
Excellent video!
Cuarón's Roma was probably released after this video was made, otherwise it undoubtedly would have made it into the video. It has many great car scenes, especially the first one, where the parking of a car is filmed with a sanctity like it's some great spaceship landing.
loved how you put ray liotta driving in goodfellas next to ray liotta driving in the place beyond the pines.
Decades later, almost exactly the same shot. :)
This was truly excellent.
Thank you. I this is maybe my favorite essay I’ve made.
Loved the video and the insight. It seems like it would have taken ages to edit all this together.
I would have loved for you to touch on road trip movies as well. This is a quintessentially American thing to do. All pack into your car and drive somewhere together, and there is a subset of movies that are dedicated to this action. Some are cheesy comedies, while others are more then that. That might have been too much info for this video, but it is an interesting topic that came to my mind when watching your video.
There were a lot more topics I wanted to talk about but I felt like it was getting long. But yes, you're right. Even the fact that "road movie" is a genre is telling.
Thomas Flight I gotcha. Plus you put enough work into the video already. Thanks for the great content.
I love this video. So happy to see Locke get some love, too!
I couldn't leave it out, great concept. Fantastic performance by Tom Hardy.
Amazing stuff!!
robert altmans short cuts has an amazing use of a car hit
Great, great topic, but way too short! What I’m missing? At least: The car in Wim Wender's movies (especially in “Faraway so Close“, where it serves as a kind of time machine). The opening scene from “Punch-Drunk Love”. The Citroen in ”Diva". The whole movie ”Night on Earth“. And so on…
Frankly, after watching this, I'm starting to wonder if movies could even exist without cars. Terrific essay, though just a tad disappointed I didn't see a snatch of Paper Moon in this - one of the great road trip movies.
A Thomas flight video is never just a video
That video was soooooo good😱🤯
Awesome video!
Thank you!
What a great little video
You, sir, just earned a sub. :)
Taste of cherry has one of the most interesting use of a car that I remember.
Can you imagine Baby Driver, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Locke all in the same video!!!!! I love it!!!!
i am always surprised by how sci-fi portrays cars. always so traditional. can't we imagine more innovation than flying and smooth looks?
john pardon aerodynamics seems to be the future regardless
Kind of amazing to me too. But here we are!
I remembered idk why the scene from "A Single Man" with Colin Firth smoking in a parking lot and you get such a strong feeling of loneliness...
you had me at "Ronin"
Excellent commentary.
Thank you!
You just need a minisode on Sam Raimi's Oldsmobile and you got all bases covered ;).
And when you mentioned 'you can just put your music on' I definitely would have thrown a Wayne's World clip in there. One of the most famous/memorable musical car scenes ever. And beating up a persons car... just recently saw Assault in Cell Block 99 and holy shit that's one of the best car breaking scenes ever.
Notable mentions that weren't included:
Rush, Days of Thunder, Collateral, Solaris, 8½, The Shining, Christine, Super Fly, Duel (1971), Heat (1995), Gone in 60 seconds (1974 & 2000), Grease (1978), Vanishing Point (1971), I Robot (futuristic Audi), Scarface, Dumb and dumber (The Mutt Cutts Van), Dude where's my car? , How High, Ferris Bueller's day off (Ferrari), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (flying car), Taxi (1998), Perched on a Tree (1971), The Troops of St. Tropez (1964), The famous Joker police car scene, Any Batmobile.
Good job.
End of Terminator when Sarah Connor is driving away in a jeep, a symbol of freedom, roughing it outdoors, and going places others cant. Also it's red which is a color of power, confidence, and daring.
I'm surprised that one scene in 'The Shape of Water' isn't mentioned or shown. For those unfamiliar, it's set in the 60s and there's a scene where the villain is debating over buying a car and has an exchange with the dealer over the teal/green colour of the car, which the villains dislikes. The dealer then suggests its a car for the future and that all successful men would drive it. He buys it basically so he can look like 'the man' of the 60s. It's subtle but god it's awesome.
One aspect the writer seemed to overlook is the car and the potential effect it can have on popular culture, fashion and social mores. Take the 1972 film Super Fly, for an excellent example.
The central character in the film (Youngblood Priest, a Black cocaine dealer in NYC's Harlem) drove a 1971 customized Cadillac Eldorado. The car belonged to K.C., an actual hustler and pimp from Harlem who plays a pimp in the film. The film car was customized by Les Dunham Coachworks of New Jersey, who modified the headlight covers, goddess hood ornament (Rolls Royce/Bentley style), lake pipes and circular porthole windows. The film helped start a trend for car customization in the United States known as the "Pimpmobile". Many celebrities along with aspiring drug dealers, gangsters, and pimps modified their cars during the 1970s as a result of watching Super Fly. As a direct result of the film (and the car's popularity) it was possible to order a similar though milder version of Priest's customized Cadillac directly from any Cadillac dealer with the majority of the work being done by ASC. The trend continued until the late 70's. (Cadillac El Deora Eldorado/El Classico DeVille.) See below.
The film's director, Gordon Parks Jr. stated that Super Fly was the impetus for the cocaine dealer becoming a "cultural and social icon" of sorts throughout the 70's and well into the 80's.
What would the "disco era" have been like without cocaine?
omg i love it tank you
Incredible video.
Thanks for watching!
holy shit this channel is good
Soooo true!
I didn't see: Christine. The Cuda from Phantasm. Addams family vehicle. The famous Delta - Sam Raimi Car that he has in every one of his films. The Volkswagon in the Shining. C'mon now, these are all epic cars and far more memorable than a lot of the cars you had in this video. Great video all the same though - wonderfully done and entertaining. Do a part 2. Maybe about how some cars are more like actual characters in the film. AKA Christine, The Cuda from Phantasm ....
It is interesting, I thought I was the only person who noticed the cars in film as descriptor in the movie. It is funny when I see a cat that seems incongruent to what is going on, I can easily get stuck in “why?”
Fantastic.