Walter Hill

Walter Hill came into cinema as an assistant director, working in 1968 on Bullitt and on The Thomas Crown Affair, and he was responsible for safety on the famous car chase in Bullitt. As a writer he wrote The Getaway, which Sam Peckinpah directed, and he worked with David Giler on the Alien screenplays. Directing, he moved back and forth between the western and dark crime: The Long Riders is a western, The Driver a film noir, and 48 Hrs. put Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte together. He takes action to be the foundation of cinema, and by his definition action is the capacity to shoot movement in the language of narrative and to draw meaning out of it. Southern Comfort, The Warriors and Hard Times stand with them in the catalogue.