My next monthly Nick's Pix is Paul Schrader's searing drama Blue Collar, one of the best films of the 1970s and features the finest performance by the great Richard Pryor.
This one-night-only screening is at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, January 8, at Classic Cinemas Lake Theater in Oak Park. It will feature trivia, prizes, and special guest Tom Appel from Consumer Guide Automotive. Get your tickets here!
Life is very unpleasant for three Detroit auto workers and best friends (Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto) as they deal with day-to-day financial difficulties, factory politics, and enormous amounts of stress, all while being pulled and pushed by not only the company but also their union.
After they decide to rip off their union, things become more complicated and dangerous, and their lives fall apart in various ways. This leads to a climax of immense power and devastating truth about the lives of the working class in the Rust Belt.
Released in February 1978, "Blue Collar" is an angry, radical film that powerfully examines the working man's plight and exposes the lies deep within the American Dream.
It's also an enormously entertaining movie that bursts off of the screen with an energy and style all its own. It's equal parts comedy, urban drama, crime caper, political thriller, and a portrait of middle-class America. It works on every single level.
With Pryor, Keitel, and Kotto at the very top of their games, the film contains three of the finest performances of that decade. Pryor, in particular, knocks it out of the park with easily the best performance of his career.
"Blue Collar" remains one of the best and most assured directorial debuts ever. It is a landmark work that announced the beginning of one of the most fascinating careers in filmmaking history.
Schrader would go on to make such varied, acclaimed, and interesting movies as "Hardcore," "American Gigolo," "Cat People," "Light Sleeper," "Affliction," "First Reformed," and more. Still, he has never made a film as good as his first, "Blue Collar."
On a personal level, this movie had a huge impact on me as a kid. I was about 13 years old when I saw "Blue Collar" with my middle-class, factory-worker father, who was visibly shaken by the movie and shocked and sullen when it was over.
We didn't talk about it afterward, but it was a film loaded with brutal truths that spoke to my father and me. At that time, we lived in that world daily, and it was one of the only Hollywood movies that felt wholly accurate and tangible.
For those reasons alone, it is one of my favorite movies of all time. Not to mention that Richard Pryor is one of my heroes and is utterly magnificent in it. "Blue Collar" is a really special movie and, in my opinion, one of the most important American films ever made.
The behind-the-scenes stories about the film's making and the actors' behavior on set (Pryor pulled a gun on Schrader at least twice) are crazy and shocking.
This was a significant film for Yaphet Kotto. "I've made a lot of movies I'd never want to see," he said. "But what happened over there in Kalamazoo, that kind of movie comes along once in a lifetime. It restored my faith in acting. That moment came along with 'On the Waterfront,' and now it's come along again. If I never make one more movie, I can tell myself I made 'Blue Collar.'" (quote taken from "Yaphet Kotto: 'Blue Collar,'" by Roger Ebert)
I will share more stories on Wednesday, the 8th.
My Special Guest will be Tom Appel from Consumer Guide Automotive.
Tom will join me on stage to discuss the accuracy of the film's portrayal of the auto industry and what was happening in the car business then.
It will be a fun and fascinating discussion with a knowledgeable expert in the field.
For further reading, I recommend checking out the article Paul Schrader's "Blue Collar" Commentary by Rob Hunter, detailing some amazingly honest and insightful things Paul Schrader talks about during the DVD commentary of "Blue Collar":
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