ON THE ROADMOVIE MOVIE
ON THE ROADMOVIE SERIES

From John Ford's dustbowl Okies in The Grapes of Wrath to the Hollywood director character hoping to expose the suffering of the common man in Preston Sturges' SullivanвЂ™s Travels, railyards, jalopies and coach buses were the perfect forums in which to present a cross-section of humanity. TravellersвЂ™ misfortunes make great stories, and the mass movement of people around the US that the Great Depression triggered was fertile ground for socially conscious filmmakers. Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable played a mismatched pair (an heiress and an out-of-work reporter) who end up falling in love after hijinks and misfortune bring them together on a wacky trip from Miami to New York City. The first US motel вЂ“ literally вЂmotor hotelвЂ™ вЂ“ opened in 1925, and only nine years later Frank Capra released his best picture Oscar winner It Happened One Night.

The first American road pictures were produced in the 1930s, when the social changes brought about by the automobile were still relatively new.

ON THE ROADMOVIE MOVIE

This is one reason the road movie has remained consistently popular since the advent of sound cinema вЂ“ with detours and potholes here and there. But it is also enormously flexible: it can take in other genres, comment on political issues or set out a philosophical worldview. Whether it is a father-son connection or some other relationship dynamic, the road movie is above all a chance for character studies. Forte volunteers to drive his estranged father hundreds of miles to collect his вЂprizeвЂ™: it will be an opportunity to bond, to have some adventures and come away with a new understanding. The melancholy black-and-white film stars Will Forte as a directionless man exasperated by his increasingly senile and difficult father, played by Bruce Dern, who is convinced that a misleading junk mail flyer is a true promise of riches. The act of travelling, a literary theme that stretches all the way back to HomerвЂ™s Odyssey, is a search for connection and meaning that bring people closer as they travel farther.ДЄlexander PayneвЂ™s Nebraska is a road movie in the classical sense. That expedition is sometimes solo, but the best road movies usually feature a couple falling in love or family members shaking off accumulated dust to reconnect with one another.

ON THE ROADMOVIE SERIES

Through cross-country travel by car or motorcycle вЂ“ often set against gorgeously photographed images of the American West вЂ“ a series of adventures represents a journey inwards. A road movie can be funny, thrilling, or romantic, but its essence is always the same: an outward journey that triggers and signifies its charactersвЂ™ inward transformation. The road movie is one of the most beloved and enduring genres in Hollywood cinema.

On the roadmovie