Richard C. Sarafian's Zero Point (20th Century Fox, 1971) is the ultimate chase movie, with that little something extra that's hard to pin down. Written by the famous Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante under a pseudonym (Guillermo Cain), it's theoretically the epic tale of a Vietnam veteran on the run in a desperate Dodge Challenger. It's also a modern Western, a dystopian allegory of our surveillance society, and a love letter to the sports car.
It’s no surprise then that it’s become a cult film, adored and celebrated by Quentin Tarantino, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, Richard Prince, Alberto Moravia, Guns’n’Roses, Primal Scream, Audioslave, and countless others. More than fifty years after the film’s release, the story and legends surrounding it have grown like wildfire. Now, Robert M. Rubin’s Vanishing Point Forever brings together everything there is to know in one lavishly illustrated book.
A huge treat for anyone who loves film culture, Vanishing Point Forever explores the film’s profound impact on media, the arts, and the automotive world in pinpoint detail. Nearly 600 pages include a complete reproduction of the film’s final script, pages of Cabrera Infante’s early drafts, his own location photos (never before seen), and a treasure trove of production and publicity stills, ephemera, outtakes, reflections, and essays. Rubin details how the film came to be—from stars Barry Newman, Cleavon Little, and Charlotte Rampling (so enigmatic she was cut from the main release), to the groundbreaking stunts coordinated by Hollywood legend Carey Loftin, to its unique and remarkable half-life. In Sarafian’s words, the film “didn’t want to die.”
Rubin’s tribute also includes reflections, interviews, and quotes from a wide range of key figures, including Cabrera Infante, Prince, Moravia, J. Hoberman, cinematographer and director Janusz Kaminski, Raymond Chandler, Jean Baudrillard, Jack Kerouac, Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Lucy Sante, racing driver Sam Posey, and many more. Designed by COMA Amsterdam | New York, it is the latest graphic treasure from a long-standing collaboration with Rubin, whose most recent book, Richard Prince: Cowboy (Prestel, 2020), was an award-winning work.
