the biker film starring Austin Butler and Jodie Comer owes its title to a photography book

Jackets, leather boots and fights in the America of the 1960s. The biker film The Bikeridersbroadcast Thursday December 19 at 9:10 p.m. on Canal+, finds its primary inspiration in a cult documentary work.

Worn by the intimidating trio Austin Butler, Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer, the feature film The Bikeridersreleased in theaters last June, takes its title and inspiration from the eponymous photography book published in 1967 by Danny Lyon. This work, given to Jeff Nichols by his brother, served as a starting point for the story of the film, although the director took liberties by relying mainly on the emblematic clichés that he sometimes recreated on the screen. screen. “My brother showed it to me. My older brother Ben, who plays in a band called Lucero, was always the coolest one in the family and always listened to the best music. I found it on the floor of his apartment and was immediately smitten. The reason I am drawn to this book is that it is a toolkit for depicting a subculture“, explained the main interested party in a long interview with Screen Rant.

“You have these photographs that are super poetic and fascinating, but then you have these interviews that Danny did that take the veneer away. They are less romantic, more realistic, and you begin to see how these people’s brains work, why they are attracted to this community and a lifestyle like this.“, continued Jeff Nichols. In his feature film, Danny Lyon is played by Mike Faist, strengthening the link between this beautiful book and its film adaptation.

An intimate insight into the daily life of bikers

Danny Lyon’s book is a visual immersion into the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club, a motorcycle gang that still exists and remains a notorious rival of the Hell’s Angels. Published for the first time in France after eight American editions, this flagship work of documentary photography immerses the reader in the raw and marginal world of bikers. Enriched with portraits of the period, the work is not limited to its photos. As Jeff Nichols mentioned, it also includes a series of author-led interviews with gang members that capture the voices and experiences of these two-wheelers. Like the film, it is a tribute to these men and women on the margins of society, these freedom-loving rebels.