Car chase  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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A car chase is the vehicular hot pursuit of suspects by law enforcers. The rise of the automotive industry in the 20th century increased car ownership, leading to a growing number of criminals attempting to evade police in their own vehicle or a stolen car. Car chases are often captured on news broadcast due to the video footage recorded by police cars and police and media helicopters participating in the chase. Car chases are also a popular subject with media and audiences due to their intensity, drama and the innate danger of high-speed driving.

In film and television

In film and television, the term "car chase" refers to a scene involving one or more automobiles pursuing one another; the chase may or may not involve a police car. Car chases are a staple of the action movie genre, and feature-length films have been built entirely around car chases, often featuring high-powered, exotic vehicles. They are popular because they are fast moving scenes that generate a great deal of excitement and action, due to the speed of the vehicles involved, and the potential collisions and the debris resulting from the wreckage, while not being hugely expensive to stage.

Staging car chase sequences often requires numerous takes and destruction of several vehicles (whether intentional or mishap), giving an incentive for filmmakers to find ways to reduce costs. Hence it is common to use older vehicles that are 1–2 generations behind the current models on the market, since these can be second-hand acquisitions at low cost due to depreciation. There are some exceptions, if a high-profile vehicle (maybe but not necessarily a halo car) is used and/or if the vehicle manufacturer pays for product placement in a film production (serving as a technical adviser, donating vehicles to be used in filming); examples include the James Bond and Transporter franchises who use current and even concept vehicles.

Although car chases on film were staged as early as the motor vehicle itself — one of the earliest examples being "Runaway Match" directed by Alf Collins in 1903 — the consensus among historians and film critics is that the first modern car chase movie was 1968's Bullitt. The revolutionary 10-minute-long chase scene in Bullitt was far longer and far faster than what had gone before, and placed cameras so that the audience felt as though they were inside the cars. Even during the most calamitous scenes, the star – Steve McQueen – could be clearly seen at the wheel of the vehicle. Previously, car chase scenes were often staged using the rear projection effect.

The French Connection further increased the realism. While previous chases had obviously been filmed on closed roads, isolated highways, or Sunday mornings (including Bullitt), The French Connection placed the chase in the midst of busy New York traffic and pedestrians. The producer of both Bullitt and The French Connection, Philip D'Antoni, went on to direct The Seven-Ups with yet another trademark chase sequence through New York featuring Roy Scheider from The French Connection as well as Bill Hickman, one of the drivers who had previously appeared in Bullitt.

As time went on, so did the expectations of the movie car chase. Since Bullitt, car chases featured in movies have become more advanced and arguably more entertaining. Car crashes have also formed an increasingly important role, with the destruction of any vehicle often coming as a delight to the viewer. An early example of a staged but startling accident in a movie chase can be found in the 1974 movie McQ, which featured an incredible rollover, the first cannon rollover in fact, across a beach. The spectacle came at a cost, however, for stunt driver Hal Needham, who sustained multiple injuries after setting the explosives too high.

Eventually this resulted in movies which are not much more than a series of linked car chases, such as the 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds, which culminated in a 40-minute car chase scene with multiple crashes (some of them unplanned, real accidents) and a 30-foot-high, 128-feet-long airborne jump over crashed cars that block a road.

Arguably the most typical car chase is one in which a car is being pursued by police cars. In part because car chases are so common many movie makers try to introduce a new twists to them. One of the most famous variations is from The French Connection and involves a car chasing an elevated train. Chases involving buses, trucks, snowmobiles, trains, tanks, and virtually every other type of vehicle (with or without wheels) have appeared at some point.

Car chases can also be played for laughs. Films such as The Blues Brothers, The Keystone Kops, W.C. Fields comedies, The Three Stooges, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Shaggy Dog, No Deposit, No Return, Freaky Friday, The Gnome Mobile, The Million Dollar Duck, What's Up, Doc?, and many others have car chases that are used for comedy.

Probably the most complex type of car chase involves going the wrong way at high speed against moderately congested freeway traffic, most notably in To Live and Die in L.A. and Ronin which, by no small coincidence, were directed by William Friedkin (The French Connection) and John Frankenheimer (French Connection II), respectively.

Several films that feature complex large-scale chases involving a lot of vehicles in the pursuit include The Blues Brothers, The Transporter, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Road Warrior, and The Fast and the Furious series. Another method of escalating a car chase scene is to have a character move from one vehicle to another and to fight in or on top of a moving vehicle as the Wachowskis employed very effectively in The Matrix Reloaded.

A number of television shows have been built around the popularity of car chases, such as CHiPs, The Dukes of Hazzard, Knight Rider, Airwolf, and most recently, Chase.

In more modern times, the use of computer-generated imagery is becoming increasingly popular, and, although costly, eliminates any danger level. While impressive at times, it is often argued that it eliminates the realism of the chase scene, which can then in turn damage the established thrill factor. Recent examples of this computer-generated imagery can be found in the Michael Bay films Bad Boys II and The Island. An example of a lower budget film using computer-generated imagery in a car chase is RSTC: Reserve Spy Training Corps. Driven was particularly panned for its CGI car chase sequences. Such criticism has affected recent Hollywood productions; for example, films like Ronin, The Bourne Supremacy, The Kingdom, and The Dark Knight all had actual live-action chases with minimal use of CGI, if at all.

In the action comedy film Hot Fuzz, the scene in which Sergeant Angel chases the speeding car has been declared the shortest car chase in film history. The brevity of the scene, as acknowledged in interviews, was itself the joke.

In an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball, entitled "The Name", Police begin a chase against the Watterson family after Gumball/Zach sent a false request for vehicle theft.

See also

• Commandeering
• Traffic stop
• Carjacking
• Motor vehicle theft
• Road movie
• Street racing
• Road rage
• Skye's Law