Blue Collar (film)
| Blue Collar | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Paul Schrader |
| Produced by | Don Guest |
| Written by | Paul Schrader Leonard Schrader |
| Based on | an article by Sydney A. Glass |
| Starring |
Richard Pryor Harvey Keitel Yaphet Kotto |
| Music by | Jack Nitzsche |
| Cinematography | Bobby Byrne |
| Edited by | Tom Rolf |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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114 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.7 million |
Blue Collar is a 1978 American crime drama film directed by Paul Schrader, in his directorial debut. It was written by Schrader and his brother Leonard and stars Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel and Yaphet Kotto.
The film is both a critique of union practices and an examination of life in a working-class Rust Belt enclave. Although it has minimal comic elements provided by Pryor, it is mostly dramatic.
Schrader, who was at the time a renowned screenwriter for his work on Taxi Driver (1976), recalls the shooting as a very difficult one because of the artistic and personal tension between himself and the actors as well as between the stars themselves, also stating that it was the only occasion he suffered an on-set mental breakdown, which made him seriously reconsider his career.
A trio of Detroit auto workers, two black—Zeke Brown (Pryor) and Smokey James (Kotto)—and one white—Jerry Bartowski (Keitel)—are fed up with mistreatment at the hands of both management and union brass. Smokey is in debt to a loan shark, Jerry works a second job to get by and finds himself unable to pay for the dental treatment that his daughter needs, and Zeke cheats money out of the IRS in order to improve his family’s income.
Coupled with the financial hardships on each man's end, the trio hatch a plan to rob a safe at union headquarters. They commit the caper but find only a few scant bills in the process. More importantly, they also come away with a ledger which contains evidence of the union's illegal loan operation and ties to organized crime syndicates. They attempt to blackmail the union with the information but the union retaliates strongly and begins to turn the tables on the three friends. A suspicious accident at the plant results in Smokey's death.
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