Bullitt dates itself in the soundtrack, the zooming lens, the costume design and the editing. It feels like a great 70's movie, which it is (okay, 1968.) But what dated it most for me was the hero himself. Steve McQueen is a mask, immovable and unreachable. He speaks only when he has to, and sometimes not even then. He's a cop doing a job and any need you have to understand him is your problem.
While watching it I thought of George Clooney's performance in The American. The American, like Bullitt, has strong formalistic frames and patient editing. Clooney, like McQueen, is meticulous, self-controlled and calculating. And yet, in the end of The American, Clooney cracks his callous shell. He says "I love you" to his girlfriend/prostitute. He acknowledges that life is precious, and that he has squandered it.
In both films, the audience knows that the main character lives in a self-created emotional prison. We like the strong, silent type as much now as we did 40 years ago. But these days it's not enough for us to know that the hero is emotionally doomed. We need the hero to know it, too.
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