I’ll have a second hilobrow.com piece out later this year. My earlier piece was on a prized object, as part of the site’s Fetish series (“Dummy Jack”). My new one will be about Michael Mann’s first feature film, Thief (he’d previously directed a TV movie, The Jericho Mile), for a series of essays on “action movies of the Seventies (1974-1983).”
Yes, I took a parenthetical moment to note the Tangerine Dream score, but I focus more on the tension between action and inaction. Which is to say, the aesthetics of ambient music are core, even if the subject is broader (and visual, and story-based). Meanwhile, check out the amazing lineup of Hilobrow authors and topics in this series:
Madeline Ashby on BLADE RUNNER | Erik Davis on BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA | Mimi Lipson on CONVOY | Luc Sante on BLACK SUNDAY | Josh Glenn on THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR | Lisa Jane Persky on SORCERER | Devin McKinney on THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE | Adam McGovern on QUINTET | Mandy Keifetz on DEATH RACE 2000 | Peter Doyle on SOUTHERN COMFORT | Jonathan Lethem on STRAIGHT TIME | Heather Kapplow on THE KILLER ELITE | Tom Nealon on EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE | Mark Kingwell on THE EIGER SANCTION | Sherri Wasserman on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK | Gordon Dahlquist on MARATHON MAN | David Levine on PARALLAX VIEW | Matthew Sharpe on ROLLERBALL | Ramona Lyons on ALIEN | Dan Piepenbring on WHITE LINE FEVER | Marc Weidenbaum on THIEF | Carolyn Kellogg on MAD MAX | Carlo Rotella on KUNG FU | Peggy Nelson on SMOKEY & THE BANDIT | Brian Berger on FRIDAY FOSTER.
The first few are already up, and you can read editor Joshua Glenn’s introduction now.