Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders

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The Bikeriders is an iconic work of modern photojournalism that gives a raw and lively insight into the biker culture of the 1960’s, captured between 1963 and 1967 when the young Danny Lyon immersed himself completely into the lives and culture of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club. Glynn, Jennifer (December 8, 2022). "Austin Butler's 'The Bikeriders' Wraps Filming". Collider . Retrieved February 6, 2023.

But damn if “The Bikeriders” doesn’t do a fine job of memorializing the world that Johnny is about to lose, even if Nichols’ first movie since 2016’s “Midnight Special” eventually forfeits the unique identity that its characters are so desperate to have for themselves. Nichols creates a wide tapestry with The Bikeriders, drawing upon midwestern nostalgia and crafting characters from photographs and song lyrics, but this is both its strength and its downfall as the emotional heart of the story gets lost amongst all its formal choices. Kroll, Justin (September 1, 2022). " 'The Bikeriders': Emory Cohen, Toby Wallace & Others Join Ensemble Of Jeff Nichols Pic". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved September 1, 2022.

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The thing I created more than anything was the love triangle and how interesting for it not to be these two guys fighting over a girl, but to be this woman and this leader of this club fighting over this young man.” Francine Maisler should win an Oscar for casting, if there was ever such a thing. The BAFTAs have a category for casting directors. But these later works also reveal the radical humanism of Lyon’s practice, which depends not only on immersive engagement but also on an ethical person-to-person commitment to specific individuals and their needs and interests. The Whitney exhibition includes a roughly four-by-nine-foot bulletin board from Lyon’s upstate New York studio, incorporating photographs, negatives, postcards, gallery announcements, and personal letters—an accumulation from two decades, 1985 to 2005. This remarkable collage, as definitively as any of his photographs or books or films, shows Lyon remaking the image of himself as a series of fragments, a sequence of pictures whose symbolism is at once public and private, broadly legible and narrowly subaltern. Intensely political, he portrays his own selfhood not with certainty, but as he has always depicted his outlaw others: as provisional, unstable, continually becoming. Photographer of all things rebellious and quietly wild, Phaidon's retrospective covers nearly 7 decades of Danny Lyon's work and includes some never-before-seen images and mixed media work, along with written commentary by the man behind the lens."— TIME LightBox Front and center are Butler as devastatinglyhandsome biker Benny; Comer as down-to-earth Kathy, unvarnished and clear-eyed, she sees through the biker bullshit; and Hardy as Johnny, the leader who kinda wants to be Benny.

Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. The Lyndhurst Series on the South. Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University; University of North Carolina, 1992. ISBN 9780807820544. Edited by Alex Harris. Well, you don’t want to say they’re cliché, which is women are drawn to the bad boys and that stuff, because we all are, because I’m as attracted to Benny as she is, not in a sexual way, but in that way…and that was honestly kind of the purpose,” Nichols said. In 1969, when Lyon returned from his work in Texas to New York City, and had no place to live, the photographer Robert Frank, famous by then for his 1958 book The Americans, took him in. Lyon had met Frank two years earlier, at the end of a Happening that Lyon was part of, in New York City. Lyon lived with the Frank family for six months in the city, in an apartment on West 86th St. [18] Director Jeff Nichols has been toying with the idea of a 1960s biker film for many years, and in 2022 his vision finally started becoming a reality, with a premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on 31 August 2023. It’s about to get its UK debut at the BFI London Film Festival, too, before arriving in cinemas before the end of the year. With a title taken from Danny Lyon’s 1967 photography book, the film unites Austin Butler (of recent Elvis acclaim) with our very own woman of many accents, Jodie Comer, in a sun-baked middle America populated by a rowdy biker gang. What Is The Bikeriders About?Patton, Phil (7 March 2013). "Two Looks at Danny Lyon's 'Bikeriders' Photos". Wheels.blogs.nytimes.com . Retrieved 28 November 2017. On a Lucero fan note, I'm noticing on this read through that Benny isn't even a central character in the text, but he's the most Lucero fan character, a born loser with a sort of charisma that makes him hard not to like. Dude was always getting into accidents, apparently. A poignant personal account of the remarkable 50 year career of one of America's most original photographers."— Juxtapoz

I’d go up to him and I’d be like, ‘See, you’ve got to stop smiling so much.’ He’d be like, ‘Oh, okay, Jeff.’ I’d be like, ‘No, you’re doing it again. Stop being so charming.’ But he has an aura around him. When you have that aura combined with the work ethic and the talent that guy’s going to the moon,” he declared. Nichols told me that he called Adam Driver, who starred with Comer in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, to ask what she was like to work with. Later, Lyon began creating his own books. His first was a study of outlaw motorcyclists in the collection The Bikeriders (1968), where Lyon photographed, traveled with and shared the lifestyle of bikers in the American Midwest from 1963 to 1967. [12] [13] Living in a rented apartment in Woodlawn, Chicago, Lyon followed the Chicago chapter of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club in an "attempt to record and glorify the life of the American bikerider". Seeking advice from Hunter S. Thompson, who spent a year with the Hells Angels for his own book, Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs, Thompson warned Lyon that he should "get to hell out of that club unless it's absolutely necessary for photo action." [14] [15] Lyon said of Thompson's response: "He advised me not to join the Outlaws and to wear a helmet. I joined the club and seldom wore a helmet". He was a full-fledged member of the Outlaws between 1966 and 1967. [15] On his time as an Outlaws member, Lyon said: "I was kind of horrified by the end. I remember I had a big disagreement with this guy who rolled out a huge Nazi flag as a picnic rug to put our beers on. By then I had realised that some of these guys were not so romantic after all". [14] Because even if you’re looking at a biker who’s all greasy and crazy looking, it’s like, ‘Yeah, but they sewed those patches on. They’re actually thinking about who they are.’ And they’ve put love into those bikes and it’s all an outward expression of some identity for themselves. But they’re also on the fringe. But because then it starts to become a social thing, a group thing, people start to have to put rules to it and kind of this structure to it. And as soon as you start that, it starts to die.” After being accepted as the photographer for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lyon was present at almost all of the major historical events during the Civil Rights Movement. [5]Anthony D'Alessandro (November 22, 2023). "Tom Hardy, Austin Butler & Jodie Comer New Regency Pic 'The Bikeriders' Zooms Over To Focus Features". Deadline. Danny Lyon: Message to the Future” will be on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June 17–Sept. 25; travels to the de Young Museum, San Francisco, Nov. 5, 2016–Mar. 12, 2017; Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, May 20–Aug. 27, 2017; C/O Berlin Foundation, Sept. 15–Dec. 10, 2017. More than just another monograph or retrospective photo book... A remarkably raw and compelling journey."— Faded and Blurred

Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. Santa Fe, NM: Twin Palms, 2010. ISBN 9781931885881. While it could be accused of romanticizing some pretty damaged characters (the real-life Benny abused his wife), “The Bikeriders” doesn’t pretend that motorcycle gangs can’t be dangerous. Still, it goes a long way to humanize figures who’ve been long misrepresented on film, while giving audiences privileged access to this inner world. Kathy, like Karen in “Goodfellas” or Kay in “The Godfather,” has entered into a marriage where it’s understood that she comes second to her husband’s true loves, which in this case are his bike and his buddies. While not quite homoerotic, the bond between Benny and Johnny is stronger than family. Kroll, Justin (August 17, 2022). "Michael Shannon, Boyd Holbrook and Damon Herriman Latest To Join Jeff Nichols The Bikeriders At New Regency". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved August 17, 2022. I didn’t grow up with that chip on my shoulder of, I hate small towns. I kind of love them, and I love the culture and the personalities,” he explained with a sense of pride in his voice.This unconventional monograph of the work of photographer, writer, and filmmaker Lyon is a revealing hybrid memoir in text and images... Reproductions of his striking photographs are interspersed with collages of documents and images, as well as evocative writing about the personal, political, and professional moments that defines his career."— Publishers Weekly The charismatic performances of the cast are undoubtedly key to The Bikeriders' charm, particularly Comer's fast-talking reluctant romantic and Hardy as a beleaguered boss realizing he can't keep up with a changing world. Newcomer Toby Wallace (who also makes an impression in Kitty Green's The Royal Hotel) is well-cast as a chillingly determined wannabe, while a well-timed cameo from Norman Reedus as zonked-out Californian biker Funny Sonny is delightful. If there's one complaint to be made about the ensemble, it's that there's simply not enough Michael Shannon screentime. Later on, his dad owned a piano store and then became a furniture salesman. Nichols found the land of his parents “beautiful and exotic” and he explained that his kin are “great storytellers and they’re great people. The inspiration behind the new film with Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, and Mike Faist Nichols left that meeting “kind of punch drunk,” to catch Comer in Prima Facieat the Harold Pinter Theatre in the West End.