TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Western, Revisionist Western, Road Movie, Psychological Western, Psychological Drama
Key Collaborators: Warren Oates (Leading Actor), Josep M. Civit (Cinematographer), Millie Perkins (Leading Character Actress), Fabio Testi (Leading Character Actor), Harry Dean Stanton (Leading Character Actor), Jack Nicholson (Leading Actor/Producer), Steven Gaydos (Screenwriter), Gregory Sandor (Cinematographer), Laurie Bird (Leading Character Actress), Brandon Carroll (Character Actor), B.J. Merholz (Character Actor), George Mitchell (Character Actor)

“Got his first chance to direct under the aegis of Roger Corman. Made a couple of poverty-row adventures in the Philippines with the unknown Jack Nicholson in 1964… He has, with very few films, retained his reputation as a maverick like his favourite actors, Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates.” - Ronald Bergan (A-Z of Movie Directors, 1983)

"It is characteristic of Hellman’s fringe career that The Shooting and Ride in the Whirlwind were made simultaneously, in the Utah desert, with a minimal crew, two cameras, and screenplays by Adrien Joyce and Jack Nicholson. Hellman has chosen to say of them that, “We thought they would be a couple more Roger Corman movies that would play on the second half of a double bill somewhere. So any thoughts about doing something different were for our own personal satisfaction. We never thought that anybody would ever notice.” In fact, their stark originality prevented either film from having a wide release in America, and contributed to making Hellman a cult figure." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2010)

"American director whose wilful, almost self-destructive independence has kept him in a cinematic wilderness for most of the last 20 years. Hellman's world peruses the deserts, highways, byways, backstreets and underbelly of American life. His stars are similarly independent-minded people, such as Jack Nicholson and Warren Oates. His films exude a raw power, even if they are barely likeable and sometimes not even easily understandable. They are, however, by and large, experiences worth undergoing, if not to be repeated." - David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors, 1999)

"At their best, Hellman’s films alight upon deeper, unspoken mysteries – especially the enigma of what drives his frequently obsessed characters, invariably blinded by their own passions and fixations. And when such troubled characters are embodied by Jack Nicholson (in his early roles) or Warren Oates (in his prime), it is hard to look away from the screen." - Adrian Martin, 2012

"A cult figure for European cinephiles but sadly neglected in his own country, Monte Hellman was the existentialist of the exploitation circuit. When both philosophies fell out of fashion in the 1980s, Hellman's career petered out." - Tom Charity (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)

"Monte Hellman stands out as something of an anomaly in the Roger Corman stable of film-makers. Corman's success and longevity in the exploitation field was largely a result of his shrewd commercial sense: keeping his budgets low and peppering the films with liberal sprinklings of sex, violence and teen appeal… Hellman's work, however, steadfastly ignores these commercial instincts. His budgets were equally low, but his are perhaps the most cryptic and esoteric films to have been produced by Corman, sitting more comfortably with the European art cinema tradition." - Andrew Syder (Contemporary North American Film Directors, 2002)

"I don’t mind being called an existentialist as there may be a little bit of truth to that; but my two westerns that are often called existential westerns, I don’t see that they relate to existentialism. People refer to them that way, and I guess it’s become an easy label, but I don’t see how it applies." - Monte Hellman, 2010