Rich Hall's Continental Drifters

0:00:02 > 0:00:05This programme contains some strong language

0:00:05 > 0:00:09Know why there's never been a decent British road film? I'll tell you.

0:00:09 > 0:00:11Cos there's nothing exhilarating

0:00:11 > 0:00:14about having to eat a rancid chicken salad sandwich

0:00:14 > 0:00:19from a BP station at the Bolton West services on the M61, that's why.

0:00:19 > 0:00:23There's nothing romantic about having an Eddie Stobart truck

0:00:23 > 0:00:26with the name of some mail-order bride stencilled on the grille

0:00:26 > 0:00:30trying to ram itself up your ass at 80mph. Nothing!

0:00:30 > 0:00:34Have you ever been to a Happy Eater? No-one's happy!

0:00:34 > 0:00:37In America, the automobile invokes individualism.

0:00:37 > 0:00:40It's a manifestation of the pioneer spirit.

0:00:40 > 0:00:43In Britain, it's a source of frustration and defeat.

0:00:43 > 0:00:46What's the point of owning a fast, expensive car

0:00:46 > 0:00:48when there's nowhere to drive it?

0:00:48 > 0:00:51There's a reason Top Gear is so disgustingly popular in Britain.

0:00:51 > 0:00:53It's grown men watching other grown men do

0:00:53 > 0:00:57what they'll never get to do themselves. You know, road porn.

0:00:57 > 0:01:01They should make a British road film.

0:01:01 > 0:01:03It'd be two guys in an eight-mile tailback

0:01:03 > 0:01:05waiting for roadworks to end.

0:01:05 > 0:01:08You won't even need dialogue. It'll just sound like this.

0:01:08 > 0:01:11HORN BLARES

0:01:13 > 0:01:16HORN STILL BLARING

0:01:17 > 0:01:19HE LAUGHS

0:01:19 > 0:01:24# The open road, where the hopeless come

0:01:24 > 0:01:28# To see if hope still runs

0:01:28 > 0:01:32# One by one they bring their broke-down loads

0:01:32 > 0:01:36# And leave 'em where the hobo dreams are stowed

0:01:37 > 0:01:40# Out on the open road

0:01:41 > 0:01:43# Out on the open road... #

0:01:50 > 0:01:53Badlands. Sugarland Express.

0:01:53 > 0:01:57Thelma & Louise. The Straight Story.

0:01:57 > 0:02:01Bonnie and Clyde. Five Easy Pieces.

0:02:01 > 0:02:03As a rule, road movies end badly.

0:02:03 > 0:02:07The main characters either die or they go home.

0:02:07 > 0:02:09The happy parts are in the middle.

0:02:09 > 0:02:12But the one defining feature of every road movie

0:02:12 > 0:02:14is that moment where the road opens up

0:02:14 > 0:02:17and we see endless possibilities on the horizon.

0:02:17 > 0:02:20We get that sense of space that America has to offer,

0:02:20 > 0:02:23and with that sense of space comes hope.

0:02:23 > 0:02:26In a road movie, this is the money shot.

0:02:28 > 0:02:30This is what makes road movies seductive -

0:02:30 > 0:02:33the sense of privilege.

0:02:33 > 0:02:34In a road movie, at some point,

0:02:34 > 0:02:38sheer movement becomes the characters' primary force of existence.

0:02:38 > 0:02:42Problems, anxieties, constriction, economics,

0:02:42 > 0:02:46ennui, the Middle East, the Dow Jones industrial average,

0:02:46 > 0:02:51inflation, Third World creep, nuclear extinction,

0:02:51 > 0:02:53the whole past, the whole stinking past

0:02:53 > 0:02:57and the whole lousy future converge into one endless horizon.

0:02:57 > 0:03:01In art, there's a term for this. It's called the vanishing point.

0:03:31 > 0:03:33Now, is a road movie

0:03:33 > 0:03:36about characters getting from point A to point B?

0:03:36 > 0:03:38Because if it is, then technically

0:03:38 > 0:03:42everything from It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World to Apocalypse Now

0:03:42 > 0:03:44is a road movie.

0:03:44 > 0:03:47But a true road movie - and I'm being somewhat arbitrary here -

0:03:47 > 0:03:49is about escape from oppression.

0:03:49 > 0:03:52It's a literal portrayal of rebellion.

0:03:52 > 0:03:54If we identify with that rebellion, it's a good road movie,

0:03:54 > 0:03:58which is why Thelma & Louise is a good road movie

0:03:58 > 0:04:00but the film called Road Trip is a celluloid turd.

0:04:00 > 0:04:04Some good films have been made about two guys driving in a car.

0:04:04 > 0:04:07Sideways. Paris, Texas.

0:04:07 > 0:04:11And, uh... Yeah, what about Dumb & Dumber?

0:04:11 > 0:04:12Yeah, what about it?

0:04:12 > 0:04:17Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world?

0:04:17 > 0:04:21HE SQUAWKS

0:04:21 > 0:04:23Guys! Guys! Guys!

0:04:23 > 0:04:26If they each had half a brain...

0:04:26 > 0:04:28they'd still only have...

0:04:30 > 0:04:31..half a brain.

0:04:31 > 0:04:33The general rule of thumb is,

0:04:33 > 0:04:35as soon as you add a third guy it turns to shit.

0:04:35 > 0:04:39The film Coupe de Ville puts a third guy in the back seat of the car

0:04:39 > 0:04:42and wit of the most sublime order ensues.

0:04:42 > 0:04:46- I'm going to throw up. - No! That is a negative! - Swallow! Gulp in the air!

0:04:46 > 0:04:50You're swallowing your own throw-up. You know that, don't you?

0:04:52 > 0:04:55A true road film begins with a character or set of characters

0:04:55 > 0:04:58who have become disenfranchised from society.

0:04:58 > 0:05:01It might be on racial or sexual grounds,

0:05:01 > 0:05:04it might be because of economics. Maybe a crime has been committed.

0:05:04 > 0:05:08Or maybe it's just a need for self-discovery and self-preservation.

0:05:08 > 0:05:10It could be that simple.

0:05:10 > 0:05:13Welfare's come and taken baby Langston forever!

0:05:13 > 0:05:15He's in that foster home!

0:05:15 > 0:05:17I want my baby back!

0:05:17 > 0:05:19Are you going to help me or not?

0:05:19 > 0:05:21- Well, where is he now? - Over in Sugarland.

0:05:21 > 0:05:25In essence, of course, the road movie has always been there.

0:05:25 > 0:05:30And in cinema, it's existed since some Technicolor midgets

0:05:30 > 0:05:32shouted out directions to it to Dorothy.

0:05:32 > 0:05:35An estranged character wanders away from home

0:05:35 > 0:05:37and accumulates a makeshift family of drifters,

0:05:37 > 0:05:40all of them intent on finding some godhead.

0:05:40 > 0:05:43It's pretty much the same plot as Apocalypse Now.

0:05:43 > 0:05:47The central conceit of The Wizard of Oz is, of course,

0:05:47 > 0:05:52- clearly delineated in the ending. - There's no place like home.

0:05:54 > 0:05:58The central conceit of all modern road movies since underscores this.

0:05:58 > 0:06:02In essence, that message is "go home or die".

0:06:12 > 0:06:15The highway was invented by a Scotsman, John Macadam.

0:06:15 > 0:06:18It was mythologised by John Steinbeck,

0:06:18 > 0:06:19indulged by Jack Kerouac

0:06:19 > 0:06:22and modernised by President Dwight David Eisenhower.

0:06:22 > 0:06:26It was cinematically imprinted on filmgoers in the early '70s,

0:06:26 > 0:06:28first by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper

0:06:28 > 0:06:30and later by fledgling directors

0:06:30 > 0:06:35like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg.

0:06:35 > 0:06:38In fact, every celebrated US film director

0:06:38 > 0:06:41has at least one road movie in his CV.

0:06:52 > 0:06:57The natural tendency of the film camera is to want to capture motion.

0:06:57 > 0:07:00The film camera was invented at nearly the same time as the automobile

0:07:00 > 0:07:03and, curiously enough, psychoanalysis.

0:07:03 > 0:07:06When people are moving, they're not trying to be interesting.

0:07:06 > 0:07:11They are trying to get somewhere or away from something.

0:07:11 > 0:07:15And in fact, they seldom get what they thought they were after.

0:07:21 > 0:07:24Every film scene that you've ever watched that takes place

0:07:24 > 0:07:28at a diner or a run-down motel or an old-timey service station

0:07:28 > 0:07:32exists because, miraculously, in the early part of last century,

0:07:32 > 0:07:35the individual US states and the federal government

0:07:35 > 0:07:38realised they were going to have to work together

0:07:38 > 0:07:42to keep up with the big chrome giants spilling out of Detroit.

0:07:44 > 0:07:48Roads ran through states, but they connected the nation.

0:07:48 > 0:07:51So who was supposed to shell out to build and maintain them?

0:07:51 > 0:07:55What towns should they pass through? What businesses should they benefit?

0:07:55 > 0:07:58Yep, it was a bureaucratic shit fight,

0:07:58 > 0:08:01replete with graft, payoffs, back-scratching,

0:08:01 > 0:08:04muckraking and pork-barrel politicking.

0:08:04 > 0:08:07In 1912, primarily through the efforts

0:08:07 > 0:08:11of a geologist and engineer named Logan Waller Page,

0:08:11 > 0:08:13the federal and state governments

0:08:13 > 0:08:15formed a partnership to expand America's highways.

0:08:15 > 0:08:18That partnership levied taxes

0:08:18 > 0:08:21on transport, bridges, gasoline, tyres,

0:08:21 > 0:08:23oil, windshield wipers,

0:08:23 > 0:08:25even driver's licences.

0:08:25 > 0:08:28It was a bureaucratic nightmare organisation

0:08:28 > 0:08:32called the American Association of State Highway Officials,

0:08:32 > 0:08:35or, more colloquially, AASHO.

0:08:35 > 0:08:39Logan Waller Page believed that scientific expertise

0:08:39 > 0:08:42should supersede bullshit politics when it came to road making.

0:08:42 > 0:08:47And so began an expansive decade of very aggressive road engineering.

0:08:47 > 0:08:51They experimented with all kinds of surfaces -

0:08:51 > 0:08:54limestone, brick, granite, asphalt,

0:08:54 > 0:08:56even clam shells.

0:08:56 > 0:08:58They covered the surfaces in clay or sand or oil

0:08:58 > 0:09:03in an attempt to waterproof them. They bought the right of way both sides of the road.

0:09:03 > 0:09:05And by the beginning of the Great Depression,

0:09:05 > 0:09:08an amazing network of American roads existed

0:09:08 > 0:09:11for the disenfranchised to venture upon.

0:09:18 > 0:09:23# I'm a rollin' stone All alone... '

0:09:23 > 0:09:25By the early 1930s, the American government

0:09:25 > 0:09:29had categorised over 60% of Americans as poor.

0:09:29 > 0:09:31Over one million families had lost their farms,

0:09:31 > 0:09:36and that in turn caused millions of homeless to migrate around America.

0:09:36 > 0:09:39The highway became incredibly significant to these people,

0:09:39 > 0:09:42who sought transience and escape as the only option.

0:09:42 > 0:09:45It was captured in all its essence by one character.

0:09:46 > 0:09:50Henry Fonda's Tom Joad was the first film character

0:09:50 > 0:09:52to see the highway as a revelation.

0:09:52 > 0:09:56Based on John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes Of Wrath,

0:09:56 > 0:10:00it's a visual representation of the Great Depression

0:10:00 > 0:10:02and all its psychological devastation.

0:10:02 > 0:10:05- Where's my folks, Muley? - Why, they gone!

0:10:05 > 0:10:07I know they're gone, but where?

0:10:07 > 0:10:10Everybody's leaving, going out to California.

0:10:10 > 0:10:13Your folks, my folks, everybody's folks.

0:10:13 > 0:10:17Everybody except me. I ain't getting off.

0:10:17 > 0:10:18Who done it?

0:10:18 > 0:10:23Released in 1940, it was a film about the recent past

0:10:23 > 0:10:26the soil erosion and windstorms of the Dust Bowl,

0:10:26 > 0:10:30a period in the American prairie that lasted through the '30s

0:10:30 > 0:10:31up to the film's release.

0:10:31 > 0:10:35The topsoil of the Midwest had been overtilled and had blown away.

0:10:35 > 0:10:39Stock prices were in freefall. Banks were faltering.

0:10:39 > 0:10:41Four million people were unemployed.

0:10:41 > 0:10:43Sound familiar?

0:10:43 > 0:10:47# Tom Joad got out of the old McAllister Pen

0:10:47 > 0:10:50# There he got his parole... #

0:10:50 > 0:10:54Nowadays, this seems like a quaint era in US history.

0:10:54 > 0:10:58Why, you can even buy CDs of songs about it at Starbucks.

0:10:58 > 0:11:01There are photographs from that era that young urban couples use

0:11:01 > 0:11:03to decorate the walls of their condos.

0:11:03 > 0:11:07But if every eighth-grader in the US had had to read The Grapes Of Wrath

0:11:07 > 0:11:10instead of Of Mice And Men, which is what I had to read in eighth grade,

0:11:10 > 0:11:13probably because it's less text-heavy,

0:11:13 > 0:11:16America might be a very different country now.

0:11:16 > 0:11:20- The Grapes Of Wrath, please.- I'll have to put you on the waiting list.

0:11:20 > 0:11:22We've never had such a demand for a book.

0:11:22 > 0:11:25- Do you have a copy of Grapes Of Wrath?- Sorry, we're all sold out.

0:11:25 > 0:11:30The Grapes Of Wrath, I think, is one of the most significant books

0:11:30 > 0:11:31of the 20th century.

0:11:31 > 0:11:34To have a book where there's a national dialogue,

0:11:34 > 0:11:38you have the First Lady weighing in and Congressmen talking about it

0:11:38 > 0:11:40and lines in libraries

0:11:40 > 0:11:42and it's selling hundreds of thousands of copies,

0:11:42 > 0:11:45the movie comes out and it all begins again.

0:11:45 > 0:11:47- Grapes Of Wrath!- Grapes Of Wrath!

0:11:47 > 0:11:49As sales skyrocket,

0:11:49 > 0:11:52The Grapes Of Wrath becomes the book of the nation.

0:11:52 > 0:11:56Everyone everywhere joins in the discussion of its vital problems.

0:11:56 > 0:12:00The power of The Grapes Of Wrath is in using an individual character

0:12:00 > 0:12:02to illustrate the socialist themes of the time.

0:12:02 > 0:12:07Tom Joad is from a family of sharecroppers in Oklahoma.

0:12:07 > 0:12:10He's done a little time in prison for murder in self-defence.

0:12:10 > 0:12:13He gets paroled early, comes back to the family's farm,

0:12:13 > 0:12:16only to discover they've all headed to California,

0:12:16 > 0:12:20where supposedly there's lots of farming jobs that still exist.

0:12:20 > 0:12:22Tom catches up with his family

0:12:22 > 0:12:25just as the authorities are demolishing his house,

0:12:25 > 0:12:27and they all head west in a big old crappy truck

0:12:27 > 0:12:32that will return years later carrying the Beverly Hillbillies.

0:12:32 > 0:12:36And now at last The Grapes Of Wrath is ready for the screen,

0:12:36 > 0:12:39as the motion picture captures all the drama,

0:12:39 > 0:12:42suspense, action, tears and laughter

0:12:42 > 0:12:45of the story that's stirred a nation.

0:12:45 > 0:12:48The Grapes Of Wrath was banned in some municipal libraries in the US

0:12:48 > 0:12:50as late as the 1990s.

0:12:50 > 0:12:54Some people considered it a fictionalised version of the Communist Manifesto,

0:12:54 > 0:12:59and its anticapitalism stance or what you people call socialism

0:12:59 > 0:13:01is pretty blatant.

0:13:02 > 0:13:06Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat,

0:13:06 > 0:13:08I'll be there.

0:13:08 > 0:13:12Wherever there's a cop beating up a guy, I'll be there.

0:13:14 > 0:13:18I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad.

0:13:18 > 0:13:20I'll be in the way kids laugh

0:13:20 > 0:13:23when they're hungry and they know supper's ready.

0:13:23 > 0:13:26The speech is what everybody remembers.

0:13:26 > 0:13:28It says if the people are treated this way,

0:13:28 > 0:13:31they're going to become angry and something's going to happen.

0:13:31 > 0:13:34# I'm a-blowing down this old dusty road, Lord, Lord

0:13:34 > 0:13:37# And I ain't a-going to be treated this way... #

0:13:37 > 0:13:41They can't keep pushing people down and cutting wages

0:13:41 > 0:13:45without them at some point wanting to grab power,

0:13:45 > 0:13:50and so that's threatening to Americans' sense of identity,

0:13:50 > 0:13:52of the roots of the American self.

0:13:54 > 0:13:59The story is about how humans, when faced with natural disaster

0:13:59 > 0:14:02and social structures that destroy their ability to earn a living,

0:14:02 > 0:14:05press on with dignity and hope.

0:14:05 > 0:14:08And as the movie progresses, the road and the notion of mobility

0:14:08 > 0:14:12slowly changes from dystopia to something to be admired.

0:14:12 > 0:14:16The Grapes Of Wrath ultimately romanticises wandering,

0:14:16 > 0:14:20and it treats perpetual rootlessness as a happy ending.

0:14:20 > 0:14:24It's also the first film to romanticise automobile travel.

0:14:26 > 0:14:30The cinematographer, Gregg Toland, used lots of low-camera angles

0:14:30 > 0:14:35to give cars and flowing traffic a kind of mythical quality.

0:14:35 > 0:14:37In fact, he's the first cameraman

0:14:37 > 0:14:39to mount a camera to the front of a car,

0:14:39 > 0:14:42thus making the viewers feel as if they're moving as well.

0:14:46 > 0:14:48The Grapes Of Wrath probably reverberates

0:14:48 > 0:14:50more than any other John Ford film,

0:14:50 > 0:14:53mainly because the world it predicted has come to pass.

0:14:53 > 0:14:57Bank foreclosures are pushing families out of their homes.

0:14:57 > 0:15:00Whether you like it or not, we're going through a depression

0:15:00 > 0:15:02marked by catastrophic climate change.

0:15:02 > 0:15:05Disasters like Katrina, both the natural one

0:15:05 > 0:15:09and the man-made one that followed have created an army of migrants.

0:15:09 > 0:15:12We don't pay as much attention to displaced people nowadays,

0:15:12 > 0:15:16mostly because they aren't white like the Joads.

0:15:16 > 0:15:19A few years ago, a film called Little Miss Sunshine

0:15:19 > 0:15:22won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay.

0:15:22 > 0:15:24It was a road film and its similarities

0:15:24 > 0:15:26to The Grapes Of Wrath are somewhat notable.

0:15:29 > 0:15:33A family packs itself into a caravan and heads to California.

0:15:33 > 0:15:35Along the way, Grandpa kicks the bucket,

0:15:35 > 0:15:38so they have to give him a dirt nap.

0:15:38 > 0:15:42They break down. They recover. They press on.

0:15:42 > 0:15:44And when they arrive in California,

0:15:44 > 0:15:47they discover promises built on sand.

0:15:47 > 0:15:51The main difference is that what constituted a rotten dream in 1940

0:15:51 > 0:15:53was inhumane working conditions.

0:15:53 > 0:15:57By 2005, it's the vulgarity of a children's beauty contest.

0:15:57 > 0:16:01Which goes to show just how far America's Misery Index

0:16:01 > 0:16:03has actually progressed in 70 years.

0:16:05 > 0:16:08After The Grapes Of Wrath, the Great American Depression

0:16:08 > 0:16:11became nothing more than a backdrop for gangster films

0:16:11 > 0:16:14and those gold-digger musicals where lots of female dancers

0:16:14 > 0:16:18would spread their legs to make dazzling kaleidoscopic patterns.

0:16:20 > 0:16:23# There was a chill that night

0:16:23 > 0:16:26# In the hobo jungle... #

0:16:28 > 0:16:32To be rootless and to be homeless are two distinctly different things.

0:16:32 > 0:16:35Not all those who wander are lost.

0:16:35 > 0:16:38Most people think that the era of the hobo ended with the Depression.

0:16:38 > 0:16:39It didn't.

0:16:43 > 0:16:48As a kid, I became infatuated with Woody Guthrie and his songs

0:16:48 > 0:16:54and I just wondered what it was like to actually hop a train.

0:16:54 > 0:16:56You're singing songs about it,

0:16:56 > 0:16:59let's put down the guitar and see what it's like.

0:17:00 > 0:17:04Ever since Dick Dillof was 19, he had a desire to move,

0:17:04 > 0:17:07not because of a need to work but because, for 40 years,

0:17:07 > 0:17:11it fit in with his desire to be a compulsive wanderer.

0:17:14 > 0:17:17# Train on the island Can't they hear it blow?

0:17:19 > 0:17:22# Won't you tell my little gal I'm sick and I must go

0:17:22 > 0:17:25# Sick and I must go, boy Sick and I must go. #

0:17:29 > 0:17:36There's just something about moving in those big heavy metal boxcars

0:17:36 > 0:17:42and the rhythm of the cars shaking back and forth and the trucks.

0:17:43 > 0:17:49'You see a lot, you see things that people don't see from the road.'

0:17:49 > 0:17:53You're seeing a life from a boxcar door. And maybe...

0:17:53 > 0:17:59Maybe in some ways, it's something primal that is activated in you,

0:17:59 > 0:18:02something set off and you feel like...

0:18:04 > 0:18:08..not a dog or a hound, but a coyote,

0:18:08 > 0:18:11you feel like a wolf, you feel like you're some feral creature

0:18:11 > 0:18:14who is looking in at the world from the outside.

0:18:22 > 0:18:27It's almost like there's people who wander and people who hike.

0:18:27 > 0:18:32There's people who are whittling and sculpting - different.

0:18:32 > 0:18:34And drifting and roaming and rambling

0:18:34 > 0:18:39is different than planning a vacation or even a planned adventure.

0:18:39 > 0:18:41You can't control the train,

0:18:41 > 0:18:44there's no schedule you have in your back pocket.

0:18:44 > 0:18:46You don't know where you're going to end up.

0:18:46 > 0:18:49Uncertainty is a big word there.

0:18:52 > 0:18:59Rich really is inspiring me, just with his general feral presence...

0:18:59 > 0:19:04to pull out all kinds of stuff that I normally wouldn't pull out.

0:19:12 > 0:19:14I have noticed the difference.

0:19:14 > 0:19:17I'm sure many people who've travelled around in the old days

0:19:17 > 0:19:19have seen things change quite a bit.

0:19:19 > 0:19:22It seems like transient life is on the decline.

0:19:22 > 0:19:25I don't think I'd do it now. It's a funny thing,

0:19:25 > 0:19:28even hitchhiking is difficult to do at this time.

0:19:28 > 0:19:33There's nobody, even old hitchhikers don't pick up new ones.

0:20:01 > 0:20:03Highways transformed America's landscape

0:20:03 > 0:20:06more than anything else in its past.

0:20:06 > 0:20:10More than architecture, more than politics, more than war

0:20:10 > 0:20:13and in an incredibly compressed amount of time.

0:20:13 > 0:20:17The film Detour, made in 1945,

0:20:17 > 0:20:20shows a cynical view of post-World War II America,

0:20:20 > 0:20:23one that was already beginning to litter its highway

0:20:23 > 0:20:26with psychological wrecks. Much like The Grapes Of Wrath,

0:20:26 > 0:20:29it's about trying to get to the Promised Land, California.

0:20:29 > 0:20:32In The Grapes Of Wrath, the road unifies its characters.

0:20:32 > 0:20:34In Detour, it alienates them.

0:20:36 > 0:20:40Let's have something quieter this time, Joe, my head is splitting.

0:20:40 > 0:20:42Is that what's wrong with it?

0:20:44 > 0:20:48- Done with your coffee?- No. And don't rush me, will ya?

0:20:48 > 0:20:50MUSIC PLAYS ON JUKEBOX

0:20:54 > 0:20:57Hey, turn that off! Will ya turn that thing off?

0:20:57 > 0:20:59- What's eatin' you now? - What's eatin' you?

0:20:59 > 0:21:02- That music - it stinks.- You don't like it, huh?- No. Turn it off!

0:21:02 > 0:21:05Wait a minute, pal. That was my nickel, see?

0:21:05 > 0:21:09This is a free country and I play whatever I want to.

0:21:09 > 0:21:12A pianist named Al Roberts decides to hitchhike across America

0:21:12 > 0:21:16to meet up with his girlfriend in California. He accepts a ride

0:21:16 > 0:21:19from a pill-popping, conman stranger named Haskell.

0:21:19 > 0:21:22Haskell suddenly dies of a heart attack,

0:21:22 > 0:21:25leaving Al looking awfully suspicious.

0:21:25 > 0:21:27'So, what else was there to do but hide the body

0:21:27 > 0:21:30'and get away in the car? I couldn't leave the car there,

0:21:30 > 0:21:33'with him in the gully. That would be like erecting a tombstone.'

0:21:37 > 0:21:40Al ends up taking Haskell's wallet, clothes and car -

0:21:40 > 0:21:42essentially he steals his identity.

0:21:42 > 0:21:44This same theme will reappear years later

0:21:44 > 0:21:47in Michael Antonioni's The Passenger.

0:21:48 > 0:21:50Then comes more trouble,

0:21:50 > 0:21:52in the shape of a skirt and two getaway sticks.

0:21:52 > 0:21:56- What's your name? - You can call me Vera, if you like.

0:21:56 > 0:22:00- You live in Los Angeles?- No.

0:22:00 > 0:22:04- Where you coming from? - Oh, back there.- Needles?- No.

0:22:04 > 0:22:06Needles isn't a heroin reference.

0:22:06 > 0:22:07It's a place in California.

0:22:07 > 0:22:09Vera's previously been in Haskell's car,

0:22:09 > 0:22:11knows who he is, believes Al killed him

0:22:11 > 0:22:14and she's in a position to manipulate him at will.

0:22:14 > 0:22:17- You've got all the earmarks of a cheap crook.- Now, wait a minute!

0:22:17 > 0:22:19Shut up! You're a cheap crook and you killed him.

0:22:19 > 0:22:22For two cents, I'd change my mind and turn you in. I don't like you!

0:22:22 > 0:22:24All right, don't get sore.

0:22:24 > 0:22:27I'm not getting sore, but just remember who's boss around here.

0:22:27 > 0:22:29If you shut up and don't give me any arguments,

0:22:29 > 0:22:32you'll have nothing to worry about. But if you act wise, well,

0:22:32 > 0:22:35you'll pop into jail so fast it'll give you the bends.

0:22:35 > 0:22:37- I'm not arguing. - Well, see that you don't!

0:22:37 > 0:22:40Edgar G Ulmer shot Detour in only six days.

0:22:40 > 0:22:42It was made roughly a quarter of a century

0:22:42 > 0:22:44before the spate of low-budget road movies

0:22:44 > 0:22:46that dominated the early '70s.

0:22:46 > 0:22:49It's also the first psychological road movie.

0:22:49 > 0:22:51The Grapes Of Wrath was about enlightenment

0:22:51 > 0:22:55but Detour shows the road as a dismal dead end. Why?

0:22:55 > 0:22:56I'll tell you why -

0:22:56 > 0:22:59because Al is going to end up killing Vera, that's why.

0:22:59 > 0:23:01He's going to spend the rest of his life on the run.

0:23:01 > 0:23:03That's a detour of his dreams.

0:23:03 > 0:23:06In 1945, the general perception

0:23:06 > 0:23:08was that a woman's place was in the home.

0:23:08 > 0:23:11But Ulmer shows the car as the great equalizer,

0:23:11 > 0:23:14because it gives everyone equal mobility.

0:23:14 > 0:23:18And when women leave the house, bad shit starts to happen.

0:23:18 > 0:23:22- You know, there ought to be a law against dames with claws.- Yeah.

0:23:22 > 0:23:24I tossed her out of the car on her ear.

0:23:24 > 0:23:26Was I wrong?

0:23:26 > 0:23:28You give a lift to a tomato,

0:23:28 > 0:23:31- you expect her to be nice, don't you?- Yeah.

0:23:31 > 0:23:32After all, what kind of dames thumb rides?

0:23:32 > 0:23:35- Sunday school teachers(?)- Yeah.

0:23:35 > 0:23:40# See the USA In your Chevrolet

0:23:40 > 0:23:43# America's asking you to call

0:23:43 > 0:23:47# Drive your Chevrolet Through the USA

0:23:47 > 0:23:49# America's the greatest land of all... #

0:23:49 > 0:23:52While the European New Wave cinema movement of the '50s

0:23:52 > 0:23:55was making noirish, cynical road films

0:23:55 > 0:23:58like La Strada and Wages of Fear,

0:23:58 > 0:24:01America was comfortably ensconced

0:24:01 > 0:24:05in a, uh...bedrock of conformability and consumerism.

0:24:05 > 0:24:08The fact that Dinah Shore felt compelled to sing about Chevrolets

0:24:08 > 0:24:12was a sure sign that Detroit was entering its Golden Age.

0:24:12 > 0:24:15Henry Ford's assembly line approach to making cars

0:24:15 > 0:24:18stretched to every facet of consumerism.

0:24:18 > 0:24:21Come on now, I want you to meet a great new star.

0:24:23 > 0:24:27The new 1953 Chevrolet. Isn't that a sight to take your breath away?

0:24:27 > 0:24:29There I go getting carried away again!

0:24:29 > 0:24:31I could just talk about it all day!

0:24:35 > 0:24:38The '50s saw the rise of mass-produced neighbourhoods

0:24:38 > 0:24:39like Levittown, Long Island,

0:24:39 > 0:24:43where a family could purchase a custom model home,

0:24:43 > 0:24:46replete with built-in appliances and a garage,

0:24:46 > 0:24:48available in either Cape Cod or Ranch model.

0:24:48 > 0:24:51It's amazing the houses themselves

0:24:51 > 0:24:54didn't have tailfins and chrome porches.

0:24:54 > 0:24:57# ..And a feeling of spring in the air. #

0:24:57 > 0:25:00In 1952, America was good but its roads weren't.

0:25:00 > 0:25:03And in a nation grateful to be free of war,

0:25:03 > 0:25:0750,000 people a year were dying on its highways.

0:25:07 > 0:25:11They were cramped, badly signposted and horribly maintained.

0:25:11 > 0:25:14# If you ever plan to motor west... #

0:25:14 > 0:25:17America's main highway, Route 66,

0:25:17 > 0:25:20had turned into something resembling a human artery

0:25:20 > 0:25:24trying to push chunks of butter from Chicago to Los Angeles.

0:25:24 > 0:25:27Route 66 had this wonderful history

0:25:27 > 0:25:32of taking America into a new direction, into its modern self.

0:25:32 > 0:25:35People started piling on this road, mostly in Chicago

0:25:35 > 0:25:39and moving down it to the Southwest of the United States.

0:25:39 > 0:25:43It was this movement down Route 66 that I think personifies

0:25:43 > 0:25:46what America means and what highways mean to America

0:25:46 > 0:25:49and what America means to the road culture and the world.

0:25:49 > 0:25:54And 66 caught the Americans' romance and desire

0:25:54 > 0:25:57to get out and move along this romantic road.

0:25:57 > 0:26:02# Get your kicks on Route 66. #

0:26:02 > 0:26:04It was romantic in name only.

0:26:04 > 0:26:08Despite or perhaps because of Nat King Cole's song,

0:26:08 > 0:26:11Route 66 quickly became a clogged, tourist hellhole,

0:26:11 > 0:26:14festering with rancid eateries, alligator farms,

0:26:14 > 0:26:16malaria pit motor courts, rubber tomahawk stands

0:26:16 > 0:26:20and roadside zoos where shrieking hypoglycaemic children

0:26:20 > 0:26:24stuffed jelly beans into the nostrils of terrified ungulates.

0:26:24 > 0:26:25Something had to change.

0:26:25 > 0:26:28What was the point of owning a sleek, automotive marvel

0:26:28 > 0:26:31of design and function when there was nowhere to go with it?

0:26:37 > 0:26:41The most popular road movie of the '50s, The Long, Long Trailer,

0:26:41 > 0:26:44was a sanitized mockery of the real highway system.

0:26:44 > 0:26:47It amounted to a two-hour travel infomercial.

0:26:47 > 0:26:50All hilarity breaks loose as we hit the road

0:26:50 > 0:26:52in a blaze of glorious matrimony.

0:26:52 > 0:26:55I didn't tell you to turn right!

0:26:55 > 0:26:58You said, "Turn right here," and I turned right!

0:26:58 > 0:27:01You didn't let me finish, I was trying to tell you to turn left.

0:27:01 > 0:27:04What I was trying to is, "You turn right here, left."

0:27:09 > 0:27:11Fortunately, one man had a vision.

0:27:11 > 0:27:16It's always the case, isn't it? President Dwight David Eisenhower.

0:27:16 > 0:27:19Back when he was Supreme Allied Commander of European Forces

0:27:19 > 0:27:22during World War II, Ike had noticed something

0:27:22 > 0:27:24while chasing Hitler up and down Germany -

0:27:24 > 0:27:27the country seemed to have amazing roads.

0:27:27 > 0:27:30The autobahn was an impressive piece of physical propaganda.

0:27:30 > 0:27:32It was supposed to convince the world

0:27:32 > 0:27:35Germany had an unrivalled transport infrastructure.

0:27:35 > 0:27:39It was clean and wide, with streamlined access ramps,

0:27:39 > 0:27:42magnificently cantilevered overpasses,

0:27:42 > 0:27:44designed for speeds of up to 100 mph.

0:27:44 > 0:27:48And it led...nowhere. Most of it lay unfinished

0:27:48 > 0:27:51and the stretches that did work were captured by the Allies,

0:27:51 > 0:27:55who used it to chase Hitler back to Berlin...at speeds of up to 100 mph.

0:27:55 > 0:27:58When Eisenhower became President,

0:27:58 > 0:28:01his foremost agenda was to improve America's roads.

0:28:01 > 0:28:04While AASHO was still trying to figure out

0:28:04 > 0:28:05how to improve the existing roads,

0:28:05 > 0:28:08Eisenhower just bypassed the whole shebang

0:28:08 > 0:28:12and instituted the Federal Aid Highway Act,

0:28:12 > 0:28:16which called for 40,000 miles of autobahn-grade road

0:28:16 > 0:28:19to be built over the next 12 years.

0:28:19 > 0:28:23This was the beginning of the American interstate system.

0:28:23 > 0:28:27American highway travel was coming out of the stone age,

0:28:27 > 0:28:30which is a cheap reference... to the background behind me.

0:28:36 > 0:28:40Nothing before or since has had a more profound impact

0:28:40 > 0:28:43on how Americans transport themselves.

0:28:43 > 0:28:47It connected farms to cities. It connected cities to other cities.

0:28:47 > 0:28:50It was directly responsible for the explosion

0:28:50 > 0:28:54of megalopolises like Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas.

0:28:54 > 0:28:57It homogenized America. A nation that up to then

0:28:57 > 0:29:00had been more or less growing vertically, went horizontal.

0:29:00 > 0:29:04He had a mission and it was to modernise America,

0:29:04 > 0:29:05improve the quality of life,

0:29:05 > 0:29:09and he pursued that down the American highway.

0:29:09 > 0:29:14It was his goal to build what he called wider ribbons across the land.

0:29:14 > 0:29:16He knew that we had poor roads.

0:29:16 > 0:29:20He knew what good roads that he'd seen in Germany could do

0:29:20 > 0:29:22and he wanted that for America.

0:29:22 > 0:29:24Over the next ten years,

0:29:24 > 0:29:29the amount of dirt removed to build America's interstate systems

0:29:29 > 0:29:31was 42 billion cubic yards.

0:29:31 > 0:29:34That's the equivalent of digging both the Suez

0:29:34 > 0:29:37and the Panama Canal 33 times over.

0:29:37 > 0:29:39Even as the interstates were being built,

0:29:39 > 0:29:41men like Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonalds,

0:29:41 > 0:29:44and Kemmons Wilson, founder of Holiday Inn,

0:29:44 > 0:29:47were flying the length and breadth of it in their planes,

0:29:47 > 0:29:49making note of every access ramp

0:29:49 > 0:29:53and plotting the death of variety, individualism

0:29:53 > 0:29:56and small business practices here in the good old US of A.

0:30:03 > 0:30:05# How can you keep on movin'

0:30:05 > 0:30:08# Unless you migrate too?

0:30:08 > 0:30:10# They tell you to keep on movin'

0:30:10 > 0:30:12# But migrate you must not do

0:30:12 > 0:30:15# The only reason for moving

0:30:15 > 0:30:17# And the reason that I roam

0:30:17 > 0:30:20# Is to go a new location

0:30:20 > 0:30:23# And find myself a home... #

0:30:23 > 0:30:26Modern Road films - that is, films about restlessness -

0:30:26 > 0:30:28began to gestate in the '50s.

0:30:28 > 0:30:31Poets like Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti

0:30:31 > 0:30:35turned drift and disaffection into a literary movement.

0:30:35 > 0:30:37They were the beaten down generation.

0:30:37 > 0:30:39Or "beats" as they were called.

0:30:39 > 0:30:42Maybe it was a lot of self-indulgent tripe, who knows?

0:30:42 > 0:30:44But even rich white kids need some kind of an outlet.

0:30:46 > 0:30:49I saw the best minds of my generation

0:30:49 > 0:30:51destroyed by madness,

0:30:51 > 0:30:54starving, hysterical, naked,

0:30:54 > 0:30:57dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn,

0:30:57 > 0:30:59looking for an angry fix.

0:30:59 > 0:31:01Angel-headed hipsters...

0:31:01 > 0:31:05Purists and literary scholars called beat poetry trash.

0:31:05 > 0:31:09To younger people, no higher commendation could be awarded.

0:31:09 > 0:31:11Beat was a movement that challenged everything

0:31:11 > 0:31:14the bland, insipid Eisenhower generation represented.

0:31:14 > 0:31:18The Beatnik scene celebrated spontaneity over craftsmanship

0:31:18 > 0:31:22and Jack Kerouac's novel On The Road was its manifesto.

0:31:22 > 0:31:24People were afraid of it. They were afraid of

0:31:24 > 0:31:27the subject matter and the drugs.

0:31:27 > 0:31:30I mean, in 1947 or 8, when he wrote it...

0:31:30 > 0:31:33It wasn't published until '57,

0:31:33 > 0:31:37so the drug use was really not something that people wrote about.

0:31:37 > 0:31:40On the road is a story about two young men -

0:31:40 > 0:31:42Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty -

0:31:42 > 0:31:45who travel frantically back and forth across America

0:31:45 > 0:31:47seeking vicarious thrills.

0:31:47 > 0:31:50The novel is actually a thinly-veiled account

0:31:50 > 0:31:52of Keroauc's own life in the late 1940s -

0:31:52 > 0:31:55a breathless, almost celestial celebration of

0:31:55 > 0:31:57the bohemian lifestyle.

0:31:58 > 0:32:01Having read Kerouac, it just seemed so enticing

0:32:01 > 0:32:05to stick out my thumb at the other side of the Holland Tunnel

0:32:05 > 0:32:06and head for California.

0:32:06 > 0:32:09And so there, you know, a week later,

0:32:09 > 0:32:12having travelled Route 66 from Chicago to LA,

0:32:12 > 0:32:14just like the song, you know,

0:32:14 > 0:32:18and having met incredible, weird people along the way.

0:32:18 > 0:32:20People that I didn't know existed.

0:32:20 > 0:32:23I thought all the nuts were in the city of New York

0:32:23 > 0:32:26but, my God, Oklahoma had its fair share.

0:32:27 > 0:32:31Kerouac's writing fostered a raft of legends.

0:32:31 > 0:32:33Kerouac doesn't slow down for punctuation.

0:32:33 > 0:32:35Kerouac can write a novel in a week,

0:32:35 > 0:32:38cranked up on Benzedrine, cigarettes and gin.

0:32:38 > 0:32:40A single draft is all Kerouac ever needs.

0:32:40 > 0:32:44His spontaneous hep-cat style inspired literature

0:32:44 > 0:32:48and the film-making of French New Wave directors like Jean Luc Godard

0:32:48 > 0:32:50and Francois Truffaut.

0:32:50 > 0:32:52Its overriding ideal was this -

0:32:52 > 0:32:56the first thought is the most important thought.

0:32:56 > 0:32:58Rewriting kills instinctual purity.

0:32:58 > 0:33:00The manuscript for On The Road

0:33:00 > 0:33:03was written on a single 200-yard teletype roll,

0:33:03 > 0:33:06to save Kerouac the effort of changing typing paper.

0:33:06 > 0:33:09Its existence acquired mythical proportions,

0:33:09 > 0:33:11like a Dead Sea Scroll.

0:33:13 > 0:33:15But it was all a bit pre-calculated.

0:33:15 > 0:33:20Jack Kerouac did not write On The Road in six days or two weeks.

0:33:20 > 0:33:21It took him ten years.

0:33:21 > 0:33:24Scores of drafts of the book have been uncovered.

0:33:24 > 0:33:25One of them is in French.

0:33:25 > 0:33:28The Beat writers wanted people to believe

0:33:28 > 0:33:30that they were artistically exalted, spontaneous,

0:33:30 > 0:33:32off the cuff, non-revisionists.

0:33:32 > 0:33:36What Allan Ginsberg described as "angel-headed hipsters

0:33:36 > 0:33:38"burning for the ancient heavenly connection."

0:33:40 > 0:33:43They were high. They wanted to kick the ladder out from underneath them.

0:33:46 > 0:33:48Kerouac never made much money off of his books,

0:33:48 > 0:33:51which preserved his literary status.

0:33:51 > 0:33:53He also drank himself to death.

0:33:53 > 0:33:55That's good for pickling your reputation.

0:33:55 > 0:33:58The purported "holy scroll" for On The Road

0:33:58 > 0:33:59was eventually purchased at auction

0:33:59 > 0:34:03by the owner of the Indianapolis Colts Pro Football Team

0:34:03 > 0:34:06for 2.2 million.

0:34:06 > 0:34:10That's about 500 times more than he was ever paid in advance royalties.

0:34:10 > 0:34:14Incidentally, the scroll was perfectly punctuated.

0:34:14 > 0:34:17Kerouac went home to mama. He was always a bit of a mama's boy

0:34:17 > 0:34:21and he went home to mama and boozed it up in Florida, voted Republican,

0:34:21 > 0:34:24was sort of a big, fat drunk with his liver giving out.

0:34:24 > 0:34:30And he sort of put down all of his former comrades at the end.

0:34:30 > 0:34:33So it's hard to live that outlaw life forever, you know?

0:34:34 > 0:34:38# Well, God said to Abraham, Kill me a son

0:34:38 > 0:34:42# Abe said, man, You must be putting me on

0:34:42 > 0:34:44# God said, no

0:34:44 > 0:34:45# Abe said, what?

0:34:45 > 0:34:49# God said you can do what you want, Abe, but

0:34:49 > 0:34:54# The next time you see me coming You better run... #

0:34:58 > 0:35:02# ..Well, Abe said, all right, where do you want this killing done?

0:35:02 > 0:35:06# God said on Highway 61... #

0:35:09 > 0:35:12The influence of New Wave directors

0:35:12 > 0:35:17like Godard and Truffaut on American Cinema in 1967

0:35:17 > 0:35:22explains why they were both offered Bonnie And Clyde to direct.

0:35:22 > 0:35:25They both turned it down. Arthur Penn accepted the offer.

0:35:25 > 0:35:28He made a film that would change American cinema forever.

0:35:35 > 0:35:37Bonnie and Clyde takes place in the '30s

0:35:37 > 0:35:39but it speaks for the stultifying tedium of youth

0:35:39 > 0:35:42trapped in nowhere places anywhere in the world.

0:35:42 > 0:35:45In the opening scene, when Bonnie first meets Clyde,

0:35:45 > 0:35:47he is stealing a car.

0:35:47 > 0:35:50Rather than be repelled by this, she is attracted.

0:35:50 > 0:35:52It creates a new cinematic reason for leaving -

0:35:52 > 0:35:57boredom - the great oppression of the modern age.

0:35:57 > 0:36:00GUNSHOTS

0:36:03 > 0:36:05It's this desire to escape,

0:36:05 > 0:36:08from what for all the world looks like comfort, that propels the film.

0:36:08 > 0:36:12There's a car visible in almost every scene of Bonnie And Clyde.

0:36:12 > 0:36:14It's there at the beginning, when he tries to steal one,

0:36:14 > 0:36:16and it's there in the final frame.

0:36:19 > 0:36:23Bonnie And Clyde is a film where driving is central to the plot,

0:36:23 > 0:36:26where character and car become more or less inseparable

0:36:26 > 0:36:28because their forward momentum depends on it.

0:36:28 > 0:36:31Bonnie And Clyde elevated vehicles to star status.

0:36:35 > 0:36:38Throughout the film, the story fills up with characters

0:36:38 > 0:36:41all wanting to join the Barrow Gang -

0:36:41 > 0:36:44a kind of placebo family unit,

0:36:44 > 0:36:47not unlike the one that comes together in The Wizard Of Oz.

0:36:47 > 0:36:51Every one of them seduced by the notion of mobility.

0:36:51 > 0:36:54A gas station attendant named CJ Moss joins the gang

0:36:54 > 0:36:57while he's filling up their car with gas.

0:36:57 > 0:37:01He's followed by Clyde's brother and sister-in-law, Buck and Blanche.

0:37:01 > 0:37:04Even when the Barrow Gang takes hostages,

0:37:04 > 0:37:06it doesn't take long for mobility to transform them

0:37:06 > 0:37:09from prisoners into travelling companions.

0:37:09 > 0:37:12'Their paths crossed like two hot wires.

0:37:13 > 0:37:18'They roared off on what might easily have been a wild, romantic lark.'

0:37:18 > 0:37:20GUNSHOTS

0:37:20 > 0:37:24'But almost before they knew it, with giggles still in their ears,

0:37:24 > 0:37:27'they had bloodied up four states.'

0:37:27 > 0:37:32Even though it's set in the past, Bonnie And Clyde captured perfectly

0:37:32 > 0:37:34the counter-culture mindset of 1967.

0:37:34 > 0:37:37It tried to show that physical movement

0:37:37 > 0:37:41was preferable to the comfort and stability of staying at home.

0:37:41 > 0:37:44It was a radical movie but, like most radical movies,

0:37:44 > 0:37:48it ends with a conservative point of view - The Wizard Of Oz motto -

0:37:48 > 0:37:50there's no place like home

0:37:50 > 0:37:53and to leave will result in tragedy.

0:37:53 > 0:37:56You know, you could get shot... repeatedly.

0:37:56 > 0:37:58426 times.

0:37:58 > 0:38:00HAIL OF BULLETS

0:38:04 > 0:38:08Bonnie And Clyde was followed a year and a half later by Easy Rider.

0:38:08 > 0:38:11And Easy Rider was directed by a man so high on drugs

0:38:11 > 0:38:15he actually thought he was a French New Wave film director.

0:38:15 > 0:38:18Dennis Hopper's film - God rest his soul -

0:38:18 > 0:38:21moves way beyond Bonnie And Clyde as an expression of rebellion.

0:38:21 > 0:38:26Billy and Wyatt are both as mobile as other Americans

0:38:26 > 0:38:29but because they're bikers, they're outsiders.

0:38:29 > 0:38:33This was a cinematic trope that was first developed

0:38:33 > 0:38:36by the Roger Corman AIP-type biker films of the '50s.

0:38:36 > 0:38:40Not coincidentally, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda

0:38:40 > 0:38:44and Dennis Hopper had all previously starred in low-budget biker films.

0:38:44 > 0:38:46Hey, you got a room?

0:38:49 > 0:38:51Hey, man?!

0:38:51 > 0:38:55Easy Rider is probably the greatest example ever of a bad film

0:38:55 > 0:38:57being made at just the right time.

0:38:57 > 0:39:00American culture in 1969 was having a hard time

0:39:00 > 0:39:02figuring out just what it was supposed to be.

0:39:02 > 0:39:04Young audiences embraced Easy Rider

0:39:04 > 0:39:06because in its muddled way it made sense.

0:39:06 > 0:39:09Also it had a cool soundtrack -

0:39:09 > 0:39:12a last-minute decision - that cost eight times as much as the film.

0:39:12 > 0:39:14But for budding directors,

0:39:14 > 0:39:17many from the first crop of film school matriculation

0:39:17 > 0:39:20at NYU and UCLA,

0:39:20 > 0:39:24Easy Rider made film-making look DIY possible.

0:39:24 > 0:39:27I never really thought of myself as a freak, you know?

0:39:27 > 0:39:29But I love to freak.

0:39:29 > 0:39:31In Easy Rider, the two main characters

0:39:31 > 0:39:34and their Harleys are completely fused.

0:39:34 > 0:39:36Dennis Hopper's bike is full of cocaine.

0:39:36 > 0:39:37So was Dennis Hopper at the time.

0:39:37 > 0:39:42I've got to get out of here, man. We've got things we want to do, man.

0:39:42 > 0:39:46Like, I... I got to get out of here, man.

0:39:47 > 0:39:48# The river flows... #

0:39:48 > 0:39:52It's a fairly well-known fact that Dennis Hopper was a little amped up

0:39:52 > 0:39:54during the filming of Easy Rider

0:39:54 > 0:39:56and smashed a guitar over the cameraman's head.

0:39:56 > 0:39:58Laszlo Kovacs was brought on board

0:39:58 > 0:40:02and that's probably the best thing that could have happened to the film

0:40:02 > 0:40:06because his expansive style set the standard for future road movies.

0:40:06 > 0:40:09Like Bonnie and Clyde, the heroes of Easy Rider

0:40:09 > 0:40:11make sure that they get themselves killed at the end.

0:40:11 > 0:40:14Well, I don't think they'll make the parish line.

0:40:14 > 0:40:15Hey, look at them goons!

0:40:15 > 0:40:18Pull alongside. We'll scare the hell out of them.

0:40:18 > 0:40:20This will be the action of choice

0:40:20 > 0:40:23for the majority of road films that followed.

0:40:23 > 0:40:26It's seminally important, when portraying a rebel,

0:40:26 > 0:40:29to make sure you're martyred at the end of the film.

0:40:29 > 0:40:31Bonnie And Clyde and Easy Rider

0:40:31 > 0:40:34brought road movies to a kind of fork in the road.

0:40:34 > 0:40:37Bonnie And Clyde was an outlaw road movie.

0:40:37 > 0:40:40Easy Rider was kind of a quest road movie.

0:40:40 > 0:40:43From here on in, most road movies had to choose one fork or the other.

0:40:43 > 0:40:46That's probably enough with the fork in the road metaphors.

0:40:46 > 0:40:50But more importantly, both movies represent a kind of malaise

0:40:50 > 0:40:53that was beginning to grip America at the time.

0:40:53 > 0:40:56In both movies, the main characters die in the end. You see there?

0:40:56 > 0:40:59That's kind of a representation of the dying human spirit,

0:40:59 > 0:41:02the rebellious zeitgeist, the hippie ideal.

0:41:02 > 0:41:04This is 1969 we're talking about

0:41:04 > 0:41:06and 1969 was a year in America

0:41:06 > 0:41:08where you could look at a lot of things

0:41:08 > 0:41:12and clearly delineate that they were turning to shit.

0:41:12 > 0:41:16MUSIC: "Ohio" by Neil Young

0:41:17 > 0:41:22By 1970, the '60s zeitgeist that had spurned hippy culture

0:41:22 > 0:41:23seemed to be on the wane.

0:41:23 > 0:41:26Events at Altamont shocked many Americans,

0:41:26 > 0:41:29as did the Sharon Tate murders committed by Chucky Manson

0:41:29 > 0:41:30and his family of followers.

0:41:30 > 0:41:34For many Americans, the '70s became a decade of transition

0:41:34 > 0:41:36marked by confusion.

0:41:36 > 0:41:37The Vietnam war and Watergate

0:41:37 > 0:41:41damaged America's faith in their government and their leaders.

0:41:41 > 0:41:43There were anti-war demonstrations and marches,

0:41:43 > 0:41:46which saw students massacred at Kent State University.

0:41:46 > 0:41:49The feeling was that America had lost its direction

0:41:49 > 0:41:52and the American dream was becoming a nightmare.

0:41:54 > 0:41:56America seemed befogged. Is that a word?

0:41:56 > 0:42:00You know, pulled in too many different directions.

0:42:00 > 0:42:02The low-budget indie films of the time

0:42:02 > 0:42:06worked as an antidote to President Nixon's conformist silent majority.

0:42:06 > 0:42:08They were cynical films.

0:42:08 > 0:42:11Vanishing Point and Two-Lane Blacktop

0:42:11 > 0:42:14were two films that kind of marry

0:42:14 > 0:42:16man and vehicle into a single character.

0:42:16 > 0:42:19And although the films are about movement,

0:42:19 > 0:42:23the movement is just for the sake of movement.

0:42:23 > 0:42:25You know...drift.

0:42:28 > 0:42:30What are you trying to do? Blow my mind?

0:42:30 > 0:42:32Two-Lane Blacktop is a movie

0:42:32 > 0:42:35that seems to embrace the hippy mindset of the late '60s

0:42:35 > 0:42:37and refute it at the same time.

0:42:37 > 0:42:39Directed by Monte Hellman,

0:42:39 > 0:42:43it's basically a race between a souped-up, rebuilt 55 Chevy

0:42:43 > 0:42:47and a brand-new factory-fresh Pontiac GTO.

0:42:47 > 0:42:51Or, more specifically, about the guys who drive them.

0:42:51 > 0:42:54Thus it's possible to read into this some kind of showdown

0:42:54 > 0:42:56between individual versus automation.

0:42:58 > 0:43:02- Sure we'll race? You're damn right we'll race.- For pinks?

0:43:03 > 0:43:06Pink slips? You mean for cars?

0:43:06 > 0:43:09- Where to?- You name it.

0:43:09 > 0:43:10Washington DC.

0:43:10 > 0:43:14Two-Lane Blacktop is full of revving motors and grinding gears,

0:43:14 > 0:43:18as if that's more important than anything the characters have to say.

0:43:18 > 0:43:22In fact, the characters are frustratingly inarticulate.

0:43:22 > 0:43:26There's these long, quasi-European lapses of silence.

0:43:26 > 0:43:30We keep wanting these characters to explain their backgrounds,

0:43:30 > 0:43:33what they want, even tell us their names,

0:43:33 > 0:43:37but a car isn't a psychiatrist's couch.

0:43:37 > 0:43:38Besides, it's realistic

0:43:38 > 0:43:41because if someone did rattle on incessantly

0:43:41 > 0:43:43for more than a couple of hours on a road trip,

0:43:43 > 0:43:45you'd throw them out the door and into a ditch.

0:43:45 > 0:43:48So we get James Taylor in the lead role.

0:43:48 > 0:43:50That's right, James Taylor -

0:43:50 > 0:43:52the guy who's witnessed both fire and rain

0:43:52 > 0:43:54and felt the need to sing about it.

0:43:54 > 0:43:58James Taylor. Remember, if you need a friend,

0:43:58 > 0:44:00you've got a friend with James Taylor.

0:44:00 > 0:44:02And the sky is dark and full of clouds

0:44:02 > 0:44:05and that old north wind begins to blow, yeah, call James Taylor.

0:44:05 > 0:44:09He's standing by the phone, you big pussy. It's weather - deal with it.

0:44:09 > 0:44:13Anyway, you get James Taylor giving us a masterclass

0:44:13 > 0:44:15in how not to act at all.

0:44:23 > 0:44:26- Well, don't get any splinters. - You bore me.

0:44:30 > 0:44:35Monte Hellman is interested in projecting aimlessness and drift,

0:44:35 > 0:44:37and the emptiness of the hippy ethic.

0:44:37 > 0:44:40After all, this was a time when a hippy chick,

0:44:40 > 0:44:44apropos of any introduction whatsoever, would just park herself

0:44:44 > 0:44:47in the back seat of any vehicle that would move her along.

0:44:49 > 0:44:52You know what? That never happened.

0:44:52 > 0:44:57Not even at the pinpoint apex of the age of free love,

0:44:57 > 0:45:01"Hey, hey, you, you, get off of my cloud", age of Aquarius,

0:45:01 > 0:45:04"If you're going to San Francisco wear some flowers in your hair",

0:45:04 > 0:45:08"New York State Freeway is closed", free love, acid movement pinpoint

0:45:08 > 0:45:11did a hippy chick, with all her belongings,

0:45:11 > 0:45:14climb into the back seat of a car and just wait to see who owned it

0:45:14 > 0:45:16and what would happen next.

0:45:16 > 0:45:20This is Hollywood's myopic version of the hippy movement.

0:45:24 > 0:45:28Ultimately Two-Lane Blacktop is about characters who can't relate to each other.

0:45:28 > 0:45:31It's a pretty accurate reading of America at the time.

0:45:31 > 0:45:35Lots of self-expression but no-one listening.

0:45:37 > 0:45:41Fortunately the '80s were just over the horizon.

0:45:41 > 0:45:44No more of that sappy music.

0:45:44 > 0:45:46Music rocked in the '80s.

0:45:47 > 0:45:49Kick-ass music.

0:45:52 > 0:45:59MUSIC: "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas

0:46:04 > 0:46:08# Everybody was kung-fu fighting

0:46:08 > 0:46:12# Those kicks were fast as lightning

0:46:12 > 0:46:15# In fact it was little bit frightening... #

0:46:15 > 0:46:18Many of the early '70s road movies focused on speed,

0:46:18 > 0:46:21and the perfect car to use was the muscle car.

0:46:21 > 0:46:23ANNOUNCER: Mustang, the original.

0:46:23 > 0:46:27America's favourite sports car, with three new models.

0:46:27 > 0:46:31A muscle car is exactly what the name implies.

0:46:31 > 0:46:33It's a small car with a big engine.

0:46:33 > 0:46:36It's designed for straight-away highway speeds,

0:46:36 > 0:46:38blowing the doors off of other cars

0:46:38 > 0:46:42and inviting their drivers to dine on your dust.

0:46:42 > 0:46:46ANNOUNCER: Take the Mustang pledge. No telling where it will lead.

0:46:46 > 0:46:49You're ahead in a Ford, all the way.

0:46:56 > 0:47:00# I'm going to get up in the morning

0:47:00 > 0:47:04# I'm going to hit Highway 49

0:47:04 > 0:47:07# I'm going to get up in the morning

0:47:07 > 0:47:10# I'm going to hit Highway 49... #

0:47:10 > 0:47:13This is a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

0:47:13 > 0:47:15380 longblock.

0:47:15 > 0:47:18It's called a muscle car.

0:47:18 > 0:47:20Now, Jeremy Clarkson,

0:47:20 > 0:47:24your ill-informed and over-hyped God of all things automotive and British,

0:47:24 > 0:47:27will tell you that muscle cars are gutless,

0:47:27 > 0:47:30that they can't handle the curves,

0:47:30 > 0:47:33that they have no finesse and no style.

0:47:33 > 0:47:36He'll tell you that a GTO or a Cutlass can't compare

0:47:36 > 0:47:38to a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.

0:47:38 > 0:47:41What he doesn't bother to tell you is that muscle cars were made

0:47:41 > 0:47:46for young working American men who put in a bit of overtime

0:47:46 > 0:47:49so they could have one decent thing in their life.

0:47:49 > 0:47:53A Ferrari is for a guy with too much money, a mid-life crisis

0:47:53 > 0:47:56and a comb-over.

0:47:56 > 0:47:58Comparing a muscle car to a Ferrari

0:47:58 > 0:48:02is like comparing Jeremy Clarkson to a real television host.

0:48:02 > 0:48:06If this car was a woman it'd be Elizabeth Taylor.

0:48:06 > 0:48:09If Jeremy Clarkson were a woman,

0:48:09 > 0:48:12I wouldn't be a God-damn bit surprised.

0:48:12 > 0:48:13ROAR OF MOTOR ENGINES

0:48:13 > 0:48:15'Name - Kowalski.

0:48:15 > 0:48:20'Occupation - driver, transporting a super-charged Dodge Challenger

0:48:20 > 0:48:22'from Denver to San Francisco.

0:48:22 > 0:48:25'Background - Medal of Honour in Vietnam.

0:48:25 > 0:48:27'Former stock and fight racer.

0:48:27 > 0:48:30'Former cop, dishonourably discharged.

0:48:30 > 0:48:35'Now he uses speed to get himself up, to get himself gone.'

0:48:40 > 0:48:43Vanishing Point is about a car-delivery driver

0:48:43 > 0:48:46known only as Kowalski who bets his Benzedrine dealer

0:48:46 > 0:48:50he can drive from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours.

0:48:50 > 0:48:54The trip serves as an exploration of terrain and psyche.

0:48:54 > 0:48:57Despite his occasional lapses of tolerance,

0:48:57 > 0:49:01Kowalski's a kind of counterculture hold-out, trying to outrun the police.

0:49:01 > 0:49:03Maybe killed somebody.

0:49:03 > 0:49:07Maybe stole that big dude of his. Maybe both.

0:49:07 > 0:49:11He's abetted by a mystical small-town DJ named Supersoul

0:49:11 > 0:49:14who turns the ensuing police chase into a folk hero drama.

0:49:14 > 0:49:17'There goes the Challenger,

0:49:17 > 0:49:20'being chased by the blue, blue meanies on wheels.

0:49:20 > 0:49:24'The vicious swag cars are after ours own driver.

0:49:24 > 0:49:27'The super driver of the Golden West!

0:49:28 > 0:49:31'The police numbers are getting closer, closer,

0:49:31 > 0:49:33'closer to our soul hero.

0:49:33 > 0:49:36'It is so real. They're going to kill him, smash him,

0:49:36 > 0:49:39'rip the last American hero.'

0:49:39 > 0:49:43Vanishing Point is a vision of post-hippy anxiety.

0:49:43 > 0:49:45It was made in 1972.

0:49:45 > 0:49:47That's five years after the Summer of Love.

0:49:47 > 0:49:51Ronald Reagan had been installed as the Governor of California.

0:49:51 > 0:49:54There were DEA planes circling the skies,

0:49:54 > 0:49:59looking for the kind of drug dealers the heroes of Easy Rider portrayed.

0:49:59 > 0:50:04Vanishing Point puts to rest the idea that racial tension,

0:50:04 > 0:50:07class struggles and ideological conflicts can be solved

0:50:07 > 0:50:10with simple, hippy wishful thinking.

0:50:12 > 0:50:14'Everybody's after Kowalski...'

0:50:14 > 0:50:18- Because they think we're queers. - '..for one reason or another.'

0:50:18 > 0:50:19Is there something I can do for you?

0:50:19 > 0:50:23- Like what?- Like anything you want.

0:50:23 > 0:50:26'Everybody wants a piece of his hide.'

0:50:26 > 0:50:29# I got to getcha

0:50:29 > 0:50:31# I got to getcha... #

0:50:31 > 0:50:34The early '70s brought a flood of road movies,

0:50:34 > 0:50:37most of them bearing the uneasy mark of recalcitrance.

0:50:37 > 0:50:39They weren't about character development,

0:50:39 > 0:50:43they were about the journey itself. Motion, not emotion.

0:50:43 > 0:50:47Vanishing Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, Easy Rider.

0:50:47 > 0:50:49These were films that young people embraced.

0:50:49 > 0:50:54They were screened repeatedly at university campuses and drive-in movies.

0:50:54 > 0:50:56They had a certain diffidence about them.

0:50:56 > 0:50:59The Spy Who Came In From The Cold doesn't really work

0:50:59 > 0:51:02after ingesting a big chunk of Lebanese hash,

0:51:02 > 0:51:04but Vanishing Point does.

0:51:04 > 0:51:07You could get high at a Midnight Madness movie-screening with your buddies,

0:51:07 > 0:51:12and watch Easy Rider the way a dog watches an executive desk toy.

0:51:12 > 0:51:17They reflected Hollywood's understanding of the counterculture.

0:51:17 > 0:51:21But in truth, they were somewhat conservative

0:51:21 > 0:51:24and even...regressive.

0:51:39 > 0:51:45Now, the 70's wasn't all about drug-fuelled road journeys and V8 engine muscle cars.

0:51:45 > 0:51:48We also started to see road movies with intelligent narrative

0:51:48 > 0:51:51and powerful performances.

0:51:53 > 0:51:56Long before Bono started bleating incessantly

0:51:56 > 0:51:59about not being able to find what he was looking for,

0:51:59 > 0:52:03Jack Nicholson portrayed a character with a similar plight.

0:52:03 > 0:52:05The character's name was Bobby Dupea,

0:52:05 > 0:52:08the film was called Five Easy Pieces.

0:52:09 > 0:52:11# Stand by your man... #

0:52:11 > 0:52:14ANNOUNCER: The triple-award winner is back.

0:52:14 > 0:52:16Five Easy Pieces,

0:52:16 > 0:52:18Best Picture of the Year.

0:52:18 > 0:52:22Five Easy Pieces invokes images of dehumanisation by machinery

0:52:22 > 0:52:24in its very opening scene.

0:52:24 > 0:52:27Bobby works on an oil rig,

0:52:27 > 0:52:31and much like the bulldozers in The Grapes Of Wrath that destroys the Joads' home,

0:52:31 > 0:52:36the oil rigs may represent progress but they are actually destroying the human spirit.

0:52:36 > 0:52:39Keep tellin' me about the good life, Elton, cos it makes me puke.

0:52:39 > 0:52:42Bobby leads a nowhere life.

0:52:42 > 0:52:47He isn't a hippy. He's actually from a family of classically-trained musicians whom he's rejected.

0:52:47 > 0:52:50They wanted to hire a detective and I talked them out of it

0:52:50 > 0:52:54cos I felt whatever you were doing, you had a perfect right to do,

0:52:54 > 0:52:56no matter how nonsensical your ventures might be.

0:52:56 > 0:53:00Now he's hanging out with a trailer-park girlfriend named Rayette,

0:53:00 > 0:53:03played by Karen Black, a fantastic actress from an era

0:53:03 > 0:53:07when actresses were cast because they were striking and interesting.

0:53:07 > 0:53:10I'll do anything that you like for me to do

0:53:10 > 0:53:13if you would tell me that you love me.

0:53:13 > 0:53:16Bobby's life consists primarily of bowling, drinking

0:53:16 > 0:53:19and screwing around on his shrill girlfriend.

0:53:19 > 0:53:21He's like an automobile trapped in traffic.

0:53:21 > 0:53:24Inside is a man desperate to escape,

0:53:24 > 0:53:26who doesn't know how to channel his frustration.

0:53:28 > 0:53:30When he finds out his father is gravely ill

0:53:30 > 0:53:33he has to return to Washington State.

0:53:33 > 0:53:35He's just found out Rayette is pregnant.

0:53:35 > 0:53:38This seems like a golden opportunity to dump her.

0:53:38 > 0:53:40But he feels too guilty about it,

0:53:40 > 0:53:44and again, we see the automobile serving as a physical manifestation

0:53:44 > 0:53:47of the emotional cage that he's trapped in.

0:53:47 > 0:53:52HE SHOUTS IN FRUSTRATION

0:53:54 > 0:53:56I move around a lot.

0:53:58 > 0:54:02Not because I'm looking for anything really but...

0:54:03 > 0:54:10..cos I'm getting away from things that get bad...if I stay.

0:54:10 > 0:54:14Five Easy Pieces spends a lot of time stacking the tension

0:54:14 > 0:54:16that will convince Bobby to split.

0:54:16 > 0:54:19The road journey takes place about halfway through the film.

0:54:19 > 0:54:21It only lasts for about ten minutes

0:54:21 > 0:54:24but it contains one of the most memorable scenes in modern cinema.

0:54:24 > 0:54:26A Number Two, chicken salad san.

0:54:26 > 0:54:29Hold the butter, the lettuce and the mayonnaise.

0:54:29 > 0:54:32And a cup of coffee. Anything else?

0:54:32 > 0:54:36Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast,

0:54:36 > 0:54:40give me a cheque for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.

0:54:40 > 0:54:42You want me to hold the chicken, huh?

0:54:42 > 0:54:45I want you to hold it between your knees.

0:54:45 > 0:54:47THEY LAUGH

0:54:47 > 0:54:49You see that sign, sir?

0:54:49 > 0:54:54Yes, y'all have to leave. I'm not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm.

0:54:54 > 0:54:56You see this sign?

0:54:58 > 0:55:01In 1970, most Americans weren't up for robbing banks

0:55:01 > 0:55:04or riding Harleys across America to express their rebellion.

0:55:04 > 0:55:07But that gesture is something they could identify with,

0:55:07 > 0:55:09even articulate if they wanted to.

0:55:09 > 0:55:14It paved the way for the cool sarcasm of so many '70s films that followed,

0:55:14 > 0:55:17the satire of disillusionment. In fact, it did more than that.

0:55:17 > 0:55:20That diner scene marks the point

0:55:20 > 0:55:23where the revolutionary ideals of the '60s figuratively die,

0:55:23 > 0:55:26cos from here on in, there won't be any more rebels,

0:55:26 > 0:55:29just dissatisfied customers.

0:55:32 > 0:55:34At the end of Five Easy Pieces,

0:55:34 > 0:55:37Bobby Dupea pulls into a gas station with Rayette.

0:55:37 > 0:55:41He has a moment of reflection and decides to change his life forever.

0:55:41 > 0:55:45He goes back outside and takes a ride with a passing truck driver.

0:55:45 > 0:55:50He leaves Rayette at the service station and his whole past behind him.

0:55:50 > 0:55:53Psychologically, emotionally and physically,

0:55:53 > 0:55:55he drops off the planet.

0:55:56 > 0:56:00Now, whether this represents a death or a rebirth

0:56:00 > 0:56:02is open to interpretation.

0:56:02 > 0:56:06Interestingly, this is not the original ending to the film.

0:56:06 > 0:56:08It's an ending suggested by Jack Nicholson.

0:56:08 > 0:56:11The original ending to Five Easy Pieces

0:56:11 > 0:56:15had Bobby and Rayette driving their car off a cliff

0:56:15 > 0:56:18and freezing the scene in mid-air.

0:56:18 > 0:56:21We'd have to wait another 21 years for THAT to crop up.

0:56:39 > 0:56:42Badlands is what Bonnie And Clyde would have been

0:56:42 > 0:56:44if it'd been made strictly for adults.

0:56:44 > 0:56:46It was Terence Malik's first film.

0:56:46 > 0:56:51'He was 25 years-old. He combed his hair like James Dean.

0:56:51 > 0:56:53'He was very fastidious.

0:56:53 > 0:56:55'People who littered bothered him.

0:56:57 > 0:57:01'She was 15. She took music lessons and could twirl a baton.'

0:57:01 > 0:57:05I'm Kit. I'm not keeping you from anything important, am I?

0:57:05 > 0:57:06No.

0:57:06 > 0:57:08'She wasn't very popular at school...'

0:57:08 > 0:57:12Sissy Spacek plays a small-town girl where boredom prevails over good judgment.

0:57:12 > 0:57:15She's distracted by a good-looking psychopath

0:57:15 > 0:57:17the way some people were distracted by a shiny car.

0:57:17 > 0:57:21I don't want to see you again. Understand?

0:57:21 > 0:57:24'They ain't sure not dead, then I'd have been running around behind his back.

0:57:24 > 0:57:27'He was madder than I'd ever seen him.'

0:57:27 > 0:57:31The film's underpinning of violence is astoundingly ambiguous.

0:57:31 > 0:57:36Malik is the kind of director who cuts to a hummingbird when someone is being shot in the eyeball.

0:57:36 > 0:57:39Throughout the film Holly narrates

0:57:39 > 0:57:42in a very matter-of-fact, dispassionate way,

0:57:42 > 0:57:46as if she were reading a What I Did Last Summer essay to classmates.

0:57:46 > 0:57:49'He made me take extra music lessons every day after school

0:57:49 > 0:57:51'and wait there till he came to pick me up.

0:57:51 > 0:57:54'He said if the piano didn't keep me off the streets,

0:57:54 > 0:57:56'maybe the clarinet would.'

0:57:56 > 0:57:59It's this nonchalance that makes the brutality on screen

0:57:59 > 0:58:02seem like some kind of emotional practical joke.

0:58:03 > 0:58:05My girl Holly and I decided to kill ourselves.

0:58:05 > 0:58:08The same way I did her dad.

0:58:10 > 0:58:15'Nobody's coming out of this thing happy. Especially not us.

0:58:15 > 0:58:18'I can't deny we've had fun, though.'

0:58:18 > 0:58:20Much the same as Bonnie and Clyde,

0:58:20 > 0:58:23the cult hero status that Kit and Holly acquire

0:58:23 > 0:58:26as they race through the Badlands trying to evade capture,

0:58:26 > 0:58:28also dooms them.

0:58:28 > 0:58:30The more famous they become,

0:58:30 > 0:58:33the less chance of escape.

0:58:33 > 0:58:34Hey.

0:58:34 > 0:58:39GUNSHOTS

0:58:39 > 0:58:41Admittedly, it's pretty hard to watch

0:58:41 > 0:58:44Easy Rider or Vanishing Point nowadays

0:58:44 > 0:58:47and understand what all the fuss was about.

0:58:47 > 0:58:49Those communications and rhythms are gone.

0:58:49 > 0:58:52Those films look brittle, like artefacts.

0:58:52 > 0:58:56But Badlands holds up because it's beautifully photographed,

0:58:56 > 0:58:59it's amazingly well acted,

0:58:59 > 0:59:01and it's about the banality of evil.

0:59:01 > 0:59:05And the world is a lot more evil today than it was in 1973.

0:59:05 > 0:59:10It's an ironic comment on how the media anoints celebrity status

0:59:10 > 0:59:12to just about anybody who asks for it.

0:59:12 > 0:59:15And in the end, the Hollywood mindset,

0:59:15 > 0:59:19the conservative ethic, wins again.

0:59:19 > 0:59:21Listen to your parents and teachers.

0:59:21 > 0:59:24They got a line on most things - they ain't enemies.

0:59:24 > 0:59:26There's always a chance you can learn something.

0:59:29 > 0:59:31Try to keep an open mind.

0:59:31 > 0:59:34Try to understand the viewpoints of others.

0:59:38 > 0:59:39Think I got 'em?

0:59:39 > 0:59:42- I don't know.- Well, I'm not going down there to look!

0:59:45 > 0:59:49Like Hopper and Fonda, Terence Malik had no idea what he was doing

0:59:49 > 0:59:50when he made Badlands.

0:59:50 > 0:59:52The entire film crew quit on him,

0:59:52 > 0:59:54the cameras burned up during a house fire scene.

0:59:54 > 0:59:58He had to put up his own money to finish the film. Nobody even wanted to see it!

0:59:58 > 1:00:01But today it's considered a masterpiece.

1:00:01 > 1:00:06It's a final comment on that time in America between 1966 and 1973

1:00:06 > 1:00:08when almost anything seemed possible.

1:00:08 > 1:00:11But, on the other hand, as far as filmmaking goes,

1:00:11 > 1:00:14it made it seem as if anything was possible.

1:00:30 > 1:00:34# In this town television shuts off at two

1:00:36 > 1:00:38# What can a lonely rock'n'roller do?

1:00:42 > 1:00:44# The bed's so big the sheets are clean

1:00:44 > 1:00:47# Your girlfriend said you were 19... #

1:00:47 > 1:00:49The highway changed the landscape for ever,

1:00:49 > 1:00:54and it also created a vacuum to be filled by anti-social behaviour.

1:00:54 > 1:00:57# Come into my motel room

1:00:57 > 1:00:59# Treat me nice... #

1:01:01 > 1:01:04The car is the facilitator of courtships and criminal getaways,

1:01:04 > 1:01:07but the motel is where these situations are resolved.

1:01:07 > 1:01:10In real life, motels are for sleeping

1:01:10 > 1:01:14but in films, they're for unsavoury assignations, drug deals,

1:01:14 > 1:01:16crime planning, dividing up the spoils,

1:01:16 > 1:01:19and, of course, illicit sex.

1:01:19 > 1:01:22In the old days, motels were called "hot pillows".

1:01:22 > 1:01:26The old crow downstairs said there's a fold-out bed behind this door.

1:01:31 > 1:01:33Do you know how to work it?

1:01:36 > 1:01:38I invented it.

1:01:44 > 1:01:48There's something inherently disturbing about motel rooms.

1:01:48 > 1:01:52Maybe it's the suggestive history of all the people who've stayed here before us.

1:01:52 > 1:01:54You know, a house is about stability.

1:01:54 > 1:01:57But a motel room is just associative - it's full of angst -

1:01:57 > 1:02:01what are you going to do, watch TV? Drink some bad coffee?

1:02:01 > 1:02:05Pick up the complimentary pen and write a letter to Jodie Foster?

1:02:05 > 1:02:09Plus, they try to charge you money to make you feel at home!

1:02:09 > 1:02:13Consequently, there's in an innate desire to trash a hotel room.

1:02:16 > 1:02:17I'm done here, thanks.

1:02:28 > 1:02:31# Trailers for sale or rent

1:02:31 > 1:02:36# Rooms to let, 50 cents... #

1:02:36 > 1:02:39The need for cheap roadside accommodation

1:02:39 > 1:02:42grew out of the advancement of the highway network.

1:02:42 > 1:02:45By the 1950s, there were over 100,000 motel rooms

1:02:45 > 1:02:47along US highways.

1:02:47 > 1:02:51People started leaving the cities, and the further they got out,

1:02:51 > 1:02:55the more amenities they needed - the more places they needed to stay,

1:02:55 > 1:02:59and those people, the farmers along these roads that became popular,

1:02:59 > 1:03:03started saying, "We could make money on this - we can rent out cabins,

1:03:03 > 1:03:05"we can build cabins, we can rent out our rooms",

1:03:05 > 1:03:09and those became the very first motels.

1:03:09 > 1:03:12Motels as opposed to hotels, because that was a motor lodge,

1:03:12 > 1:03:13or a motor hotel.

1:03:13 > 1:03:16As the highways became more sophisticated,

1:03:16 > 1:03:18so did the hotels and the establishments.

1:03:18 > 1:03:20They grew with the highway system.

1:03:20 > 1:03:25# I'm a man of means by no means

1:03:25 > 1:03:27# King of the road. #

1:03:27 > 1:03:32Early motels were a mixture of kitsch and convenience.

1:03:32 > 1:03:34They did whatever they could to attract travellers,

1:03:34 > 1:03:37to rise above the mundane, I mean, look at this -

1:03:37 > 1:03:40these curtains are genuine towel.

1:03:40 > 1:03:42They were mom and pop establishments

1:03:42 > 1:03:45requiring low overhead, but long, long hours

1:03:45 > 1:03:49because it's very, very hard work keeping things leisurely.

1:03:49 > 1:03:51They're an architectural sub-genre,

1:03:51 > 1:03:55uniquely American, and infinitely unique,

1:03:55 > 1:03:58but I'll tell you this - every scene you've ever seen in a film

1:03:58 > 1:04:02where someone tries to crawl out of the bathroom window, doesn't happen.

1:04:02 > 1:04:03Watch this.

1:04:11 > 1:04:13Right, let's get out of here.

1:04:15 > 1:04:19A pudgy man from Memphis, Tennessee, named Kemmons Wilson

1:04:19 > 1:04:22killed the mom and pop motel when he developed the idea

1:04:22 > 1:04:24of a cookie cutter multi-storey chain

1:04:24 > 1:04:28that promised a consistent quality of service and amenities.

1:04:28 > 1:04:31Kemmons' aim was to create a sanitized, family-friendly,

1:04:31 > 1:04:33no surprises atmosphere.

1:04:33 > 1:04:35In other words, he wanted you to believe

1:04:35 > 1:04:38you were paying for a motel room no-one had ever fucked in.

1:04:38 > 1:04:42Most filmmakers would never consider that kind of a location.

1:04:42 > 1:04:45In a film, the motel room is going to be squalid,

1:04:45 > 1:04:47with paper-thin walls,

1:04:47 > 1:04:50a flickering TV, cigarette burns everywhere.

1:04:50 > 1:04:52It's an important piece of casting.

1:04:52 > 1:04:54No-one would have given a shit about Psycho

1:04:54 > 1:04:57if it was filmed on the 23rd floor of a Marriott.

1:04:57 > 1:05:00The motel room is a bad, bad place.

1:05:01 > 1:05:05You left home, Dorothy, now you're going to pay for it.

1:05:06 > 1:05:08Are you going to leave for fucking ever?

1:05:09 > 1:05:11What, did you fucking kill somebody?

1:05:11 > 1:05:14You start this shit, I'm outta here.

1:05:17 > 1:05:19I'm sorry.

1:05:27 > 1:05:30# I'm so weary and all alone

1:05:30 > 1:05:33# Feet are tired like heavy stone

1:05:33 > 1:05:36# Travelling, travelling

1:05:36 > 1:05:39# All alone. #

1:05:43 > 1:05:45Diners as well are important to Road Films -

1:05:45 > 1:05:50they generally serve to contrast the alienation of the main character

1:05:50 > 1:05:52with the grounded stability of the locals.

1:05:52 > 1:05:55Usually a disruption of some kind occurs.

1:05:55 > 1:05:58In 1975, Martin Scorsese made a film in which the main character,

1:05:58 > 1:06:02instead of disrupting the surroundings, is absorbed by it.

1:06:02 > 1:06:05Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore is generally lauded

1:06:05 > 1:06:07as some sort of a feminist epic,

1:06:07 > 1:06:10assuming an epic can be made by a director whose primary concern

1:06:10 > 1:06:14is Italian Americans shooting other Italian Americans in the head.

1:06:14 > 1:06:17But, between Mean Streets and Taxi Driver,

1:06:17 > 1:06:20Martin Scorsese took some sort of a testosterone nap,

1:06:20 > 1:06:22and directed a softie that won

1:06:22 > 1:06:25Ellen Burstyn an Academy Award for Best Actress,

1:06:25 > 1:06:28and Diane Ladd a nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

1:06:31 > 1:06:33The film begins in a Wizard Of Oz setting

1:06:33 > 1:06:37with Alice as a little girl dreaming of a future as a singer.

1:06:38 > 1:06:41Then we see her grown up,

1:06:41 > 1:06:44living in a tract house in New Mexico,

1:06:44 > 1:06:46widowed with an 11-year-old son,

1:06:46 > 1:06:47and a losing streak in picking suitable admirers.

1:06:50 > 1:06:53When her husband suddenly dies in a truck crash,

1:06:53 > 1:06:56she grabs her son, in the role originally created by Toto,

1:06:56 > 1:07:00and heads to Monterey, California to pick up her dream of being a singer.

1:07:04 > 1:07:06Alice doesn't live any of those places any more,

1:07:06 > 1:07:08because when they start closing in...

1:07:10 > 1:07:12..Alice hits the highway.

1:07:12 > 1:07:14We ain't hiring no waitresses.

1:07:14 > 1:07:16I'm not a waitress, I'm a singer.

1:07:16 > 1:07:18He won't want no singer.

1:07:20 > 1:07:22Alice's road isn't paved with yellow bricks.

1:07:22 > 1:07:24It's paved with dingy motels and diners.

1:07:24 > 1:07:30Her good witch appears in the form of Flo, a waitress at Mel's Diner.

1:07:30 > 1:07:32Flo is played by Diane Ladd.

1:07:32 > 1:07:34Hey, everybody! Listen!

1:07:34 > 1:07:37We got us here a new girl.

1:07:37 > 1:07:38Her name is Alice.

1:07:38 > 1:07:41And today is her first day on the job.

1:07:41 > 1:07:47And Mel here says she was a singer. How about them apples?

1:07:47 > 1:07:49Flo and Alice become best friends. They work together.

1:07:49 > 1:07:52They weep together. They share sexual fantasies.

1:07:52 > 1:07:55Flo spouts lots of potty-mouthed aphorisms

1:07:55 > 1:07:58that are supposed to pass for struggling class wisdom.

1:07:58 > 1:08:01Every time they drop a plate of food or screw up someone's order,

1:08:01 > 1:08:03they sob uncontrollably, then laugh hysterically.

1:08:03 > 1:08:06They run the gamut of emotions learnt at the Actors' Studio

1:08:06 > 1:08:09because this is, after all, a Scorsese film.

1:08:09 > 1:08:13Then Alice meets stoney-faced rancher Quarts Quartstofferson

1:08:13 > 1:08:16from the James Taylor school of non-acting.

1:08:16 > 1:08:17What about Friday?

1:08:17 > 1:08:20No, I can't. I'm sorry. Thank you.

1:08:20 > 1:08:21New Year's Eve?

1:08:21 > 1:08:25Well, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be here for New Year's Eve.

1:08:25 > 1:08:27What am I doing wrong?

1:08:27 > 1:08:30Before Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore even came out

1:08:30 > 1:08:33it was hyped as a feminist breakthrough film

1:08:33 > 1:08:37and Ellen Burstyn as its incipient movement superstar.

1:08:37 > 1:08:40In retrospect, it's a fairly sappy Martin Scorsese romantic comedy,

1:08:40 > 1:08:42notable mainly for the fact

1:08:42 > 1:08:44that Alice doesn't end up in a shallow grave

1:08:44 > 1:08:47with Joe Pesci shovelling dirt on to her face while she's alive.

1:08:47 > 1:08:49She actually finds her Kansas

1:08:49 > 1:08:53right here in the middle of little old nowhere USA.

1:08:53 > 1:08:55I want you and Tommy with me. What do you want?

1:08:55 > 1:08:57Oh, David, you just don't understand.

1:08:57 > 1:08:59You can be happy here.

1:08:59 > 1:09:01Oh, sure! Sure!

1:09:01 > 1:09:04But I'm not going to let anybody stop me this time.

1:09:04 > 1:09:06Who's stopping you?

1:09:07 > 1:09:12Ellen Burstyn was pre-ordained to win the Academy Award in 1975,

1:09:12 > 1:09:16due in large part to the political agenda pushed by the marketers.

1:09:16 > 1:09:19But it's not really a political film at all.

1:09:19 > 1:09:22It's a road film with an all together rare happy ending.

1:09:22 > 1:09:28Far less attention was paid to Goldie Hawn's superior performance

1:09:28 > 1:09:30in The Sugarland Express -

1:09:30 > 1:09:33that was Steven Spielberg's film from the same year

1:09:33 > 1:09:35about an outlaw couple trying to retrieve

1:09:35 > 1:09:37their baby from the state of Texas,

1:09:37 > 1:09:40who's taken it and put into foster care.

1:09:42 > 1:09:47This true, but incredible event happened in Texas in 1969.

1:09:49 > 1:09:53After winning the Academy Award in 1969 for Cactus Flower,

1:09:53 > 1:09:56Goldie Hawn was proving to be an incredibly versatile actress,

1:09:56 > 1:10:00and, in Sugarland Express, she gave a powerful performance

1:10:00 > 1:10:02as Lou Jean Poplin.

1:10:02 > 1:10:05Welfare's taken baby Linus, and they're going to keep him

1:10:05 > 1:10:07in that foster home.

1:10:07 > 1:10:09I want my baby back.

1:10:09 > 1:10:13Both of these films are notable because they were female-led.

1:10:13 > 1:10:15They prefigured Thelma and Louise.

1:10:15 > 1:10:18They showed that, by the mid '70s, the nature of road films had shifted

1:10:18 > 1:10:23from drifting marginalised loners to drifting marginalised families,

1:10:23 > 1:10:27from political self-consciousness to dystopian fairy-tales.

1:10:27 > 1:10:30They marked the end of the genre's most prolific period.

1:10:30 > 1:10:31We're in real trouble.

1:10:38 > 1:10:40The road film all but disappeared

1:10:40 > 1:10:43between the mid '70s until well into the '80s -

1:10:43 > 1:10:46probably a victim of its own existential meandering.

1:10:46 > 1:10:49A lot of films were made that had cars in them -

1:10:49 > 1:10:50most starred Burt Reynolds,

1:10:50 > 1:10:55but the idea of rebellion in a film had all but become stifled.

1:10:55 > 1:10:57Why? I don't know.

1:10:57 > 1:10:58I don't know.

1:10:58 > 1:11:01Most influential American film directors at the time

1:11:01 > 1:11:03cut their teeth on road films.

1:11:03 > 1:11:06Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola,

1:11:06 > 1:11:09Steven Spielberg, Terence Malik...

1:11:10 > 1:11:11There must be another...

1:11:11 > 1:11:15There must be some other director of artistic integrity...

1:11:15 > 1:11:16How's the cheesecake, hon?

1:11:16 > 1:11:19It's not that, er... Everything else was fine.

1:11:19 > 1:11:21- I'll take this. Maybe it's...- No! No!

1:11:21 > 1:11:22I'll tell you why.

1:11:22 > 1:11:26Let's say that it really was good cheesecake.

1:11:26 > 1:11:30Let's say that it became the most popular thing on the menu,

1:11:30 > 1:11:33that the only reason people came here was for the cheesecake.

1:11:33 > 1:11:37Right? They don't want the Network Burger or the Taxi Driver Omelette,

1:11:37 > 1:11:42or the French Connection Soup - they just want cheesecake.

1:11:42 > 1:11:45Then they start telling their friends and neighbours,

1:11:45 > 1:11:49"Go to the Livingston Truck Stop! The cheesecake is out of this world!

1:11:49 > 1:11:52"It's like something from a planet a long, long time ago

1:11:52 > 1:11:54"in a galaxy far, far away."

1:11:54 > 1:11:58And then, pretty soon, that's all anybody would want.

1:11:58 > 1:12:01They wouldn't care about taste any more, would they, sir?

1:12:01 > 1:12:03They just want this stodgy,

1:12:03 > 1:12:08lumpy piece of compound passing itself off as cheesecake.

1:12:08 > 1:12:10And then, pretty soon,

1:12:10 > 1:12:13the diner turns into this big, money-sucking franchise,

1:12:13 > 1:12:18selling cheesecake action figures and cheesecake light sabres,

1:12:18 > 1:12:21plundering clients for generations to come.

1:12:21 > 1:12:24And then, one day,

1:12:24 > 1:12:28the diner announces it's coming out with a sequel to the cheesecake.

1:12:28 > 1:12:30Huh? And everyone flocks here

1:12:30 > 1:12:33to see the new, improved version of the cheesecake.

1:12:33 > 1:12:37And then, the waitress walks up with a big bowl of egg yolks

1:12:37 > 1:12:40and says, "Here you go, sir, here's some egg yolk.

1:12:40 > 1:12:42"Here's some vanilla extract.

1:12:42 > 1:12:44"Here's some cream cheese."

1:12:44 > 1:12:47These are all the things that made up the cheesecake

1:12:47 > 1:12:49before it was cheesecake.

1:12:49 > 1:12:52And they do this not once, but three times!

1:12:52 > 1:12:55Three times! And people don't care.

1:12:55 > 1:12:57They come here for the cheesecake anyway

1:12:57 > 1:13:00because they've forgotten there was a time

1:13:00 > 1:13:04when there was something on the planet besides cheesecake!

1:13:04 > 1:13:09And that is how George Lucas screwed up American cinema.

1:13:11 > 1:13:15How about a piece of pecan pie? I bet it's fresher.

1:13:15 > 1:13:17All right.

1:13:19 > 1:13:22MUSIC: "Love Missile F1-11" by Sigue Sigue Sputnik

1:13:22 > 1:13:26The '80s came in on a big fat wave of conservatism.

1:13:26 > 1:13:28Big was better. Greed was good.

1:13:28 > 1:13:31# The US bombs cruising overhead... #

1:13:31 > 1:13:33There were boycotts, bombings,

1:13:33 > 1:13:36and the man famous for sharing the screen with a chimp

1:13:36 > 1:13:37got himself elected president.

1:13:37 > 1:13:40# ..my love rocket red. #

1:13:40 > 1:13:43He declared war on just about everyone.

1:13:43 > 1:13:44He didn't expect them to shoot back.

1:13:44 > 1:13:47And when they did, he removed the bullet with his bare hand,

1:13:47 > 1:13:50and then, for no reason, invaded Panama.

1:13:51 > 1:13:55Independent vision and rebellion all but died in American film

1:13:55 > 1:13:57when Ronald Reagan became president.

1:13:57 > 1:13:59There was no more cultural criticism,

1:13:59 > 1:14:02there was just big daddy paternal action figures.

1:14:02 > 1:14:04Rambo and Arnie. Indiana Jones.

1:14:04 > 1:14:08The guys are actually Ronald Reagan in disguise.

1:14:09 > 1:14:12There was no social or political or historical grounding.

1:14:12 > 1:14:16There was just adrenaline-fuelled, action-packed plots.

1:14:16 > 1:14:19Just get in a jet plane and just do it!

1:14:19 > 1:14:20Do it! Do it! Do it!

1:14:20 > 1:14:23# ..stronger than steel You won't feel... #

1:14:23 > 1:14:26Helicopter shots, mega lenses,

1:14:26 > 1:14:28Steadicams, tracking devices,

1:14:28 > 1:14:30fat egos.

1:14:30 > 1:14:32Coke-fuelled production budgets

1:14:32 > 1:14:34rendered normal highway speed obsolete.

1:14:34 > 1:14:38Why show a normal car when you could show a car that goes

1:14:38 > 1:14:40back into the future?

1:14:40 > 1:14:43Why show a car at all? Show a space station.

1:14:43 > 1:14:45Existential angst? Ha!

1:14:45 > 1:14:48It was American kick ass time.

1:14:48 > 1:14:51You see, in a good road movie, a character's crisis of identity

1:14:51 > 1:14:54will mirror the nation's crisis of identity

1:14:54 > 1:14:56but America wasn't having a crisis of identity

1:14:56 > 1:14:58because America thought it was Rambo.

1:14:58 > 1:15:01Normal road films can't encompass that.

1:15:01 > 1:15:04So, you get Mad Max, Road Warrior, starring Mel Gibson.

1:15:04 > 1:15:06He's mad.

1:15:06 > 1:15:08Not angry. That'll come later when he starts

1:15:08 > 1:15:11beating up his girlfriend and slagging off the Jews.

1:15:11 > 1:15:13Right now, he's just mad.

1:15:13 > 1:15:15Mad Max.

1:15:16 > 1:15:19The crack interceptor on the highways of tomorrow.

1:15:19 > 1:15:21Into a world without law.

1:15:21 > 1:15:22Americans, of course,

1:15:22 > 1:15:26didn't quite get that Mad Max was Australia making fun of them.

1:15:26 > 1:15:29They just saw it as an action movie with lots of exploding cars

1:15:29 > 1:15:30and a smarmy, punk attitude.

1:15:30 > 1:15:33The same is true of Repo Man,

1:15:33 > 1:15:37another film that takes a snarly attitude about cars and travel.

1:15:37 > 1:15:40British director Alex Cox's 1983 film

1:15:40 > 1:15:42was as derogatory about the punk counterculture

1:15:42 > 1:15:45as previous road films had been about hippies.

1:15:45 > 1:15:48And like Road Warrior, it transplants anti heroes

1:15:48 > 1:15:51with ridiculous caricatures of punk burn out.

1:15:51 > 1:15:52I had a lobotomy, in the end.

1:15:52 > 1:15:53A lobotomy?

1:15:53 > 1:15:55Isn't that for loonies?

1:15:55 > 1:15:58Not at all.

1:15:58 > 1:16:00These films put so much critical distance

1:16:00 > 1:16:03between themselves and the viewer that they come off as comedies.

1:16:07 > 1:16:10America had turned into a snarling loud-mouthed

1:16:10 > 1:16:11"Let's go back to 'Nam

1:16:11 > 1:16:15"and get it right because we were winning when we left" bore.

1:16:15 > 1:16:18Somebody was getting their ass kicked every five minutes.

1:16:18 > 1:16:20In the news. And in the cinema.

1:16:20 > 1:16:24It took an outsider, a foreigner, a German, to remind us

1:16:24 > 1:16:27that road films are always a detached form of entertainment.

1:16:27 > 1:16:31Wim Wenders had been making German road films since 1972,

1:16:31 > 1:16:35Alice In The Cities and Kings Of The Road being prime examples.

1:16:35 > 1:16:37Wenders likes to claim that his films

1:16:37 > 1:16:40often start off with road maps instead of scripts.

1:16:40 > 1:16:43Therefore, there's often no fixed place of origin.

1:16:43 > 1:16:44In Paris, Texas,

1:16:44 > 1:16:47we first encounter Harry Dean Stanton's character Travis

1:16:47 > 1:16:49wandering with no apparent aim

1:16:49 > 1:16:51through the desert of southwest Texas.

1:16:51 > 1:16:54Travis inhabits a world where surface meanings

1:16:54 > 1:16:57seem to have been replaced by representations.

1:17:00 > 1:17:03He possesses no recollection of his family

1:17:03 > 1:17:05and when he is located by his brother Walt,

1:17:05 > 1:17:08he seems to have rejected all forms of communication.

1:17:08 > 1:17:11The film is based on a book of short stories by Sam Shepard

1:17:11 > 1:17:13called Motel Chronicles.

1:17:13 > 1:17:17Wenders seems to be trying to show us someone who was unable

1:17:17 > 1:17:22to express his identity and even the act of travel, which usually allows

1:17:22 > 1:17:25characters at least to reinvent themselves, has failed here.

1:17:25 > 1:17:29Ha! We thought you were dead, boy.

1:17:30 > 1:17:32How long have I been gone, do you know?

1:17:32 > 1:17:34Four years.

1:17:34 > 1:17:36Is four years a long time?

1:17:36 > 1:17:38It is for a little boy.

1:17:38 > 1:17:40Travis carries a crumpled photo

1:17:40 > 1:17:42of a vacant lot in a place called Paris, Texas,

1:17:42 > 1:17:44which he believes to be the place of his conception.

1:17:44 > 1:17:48His brother tries to help him piece together his past

1:17:48 > 1:17:51but they are both totally reliant on technical reproduction.

1:17:51 > 1:17:54Travis comes to believe that he has a wife

1:17:54 > 1:17:57and a young son from watching Super 8 holiday footage.

1:17:57 > 1:18:00Even when he re-establishes contact with his son,

1:18:00 > 1:18:03he can only communicate with him using a walkie-talkie.

1:18:03 > 1:18:05I can never heal up what happened.

1:18:07 > 1:18:09I can't even hardly remember what happened.

1:18:09 > 1:18:11It's like a gap.

1:18:11 > 1:18:14When he finally meets up with his estranged wife,

1:18:14 > 1:18:18he has to talk to her through a peepshow window.

1:18:18 > 1:18:22Is there something... I don't know, is there something I can do for you?

1:18:22 > 1:18:24Once he has more or less

1:18:24 > 1:18:26successfully reunited with his family,

1:18:26 > 1:18:28he leaves a message telling them goodbye

1:18:28 > 1:18:32and wanders off into the desert.

1:18:35 > 1:18:38Despite the fatalistic nature of the film,

1:18:38 > 1:18:41the cinematography by Robby Muller contradicts the film's

1:18:41 > 1:18:44sense of personal claustrophobia and entrapment.

1:18:44 > 1:18:48We see rolling landscapes, desert exile, moving countryside,

1:18:48 > 1:18:51exterior shots of vehicles speeding past the camera.

1:18:51 > 1:18:56In other words, the same context as other road movies but now,

1:18:56 > 1:18:59these images serve merely serve as representations of travel.

1:18:59 > 1:19:03And because Travis ends up choosing this life over family,

1:19:03 > 1:19:05Wenders shows us a character whose identity

1:19:05 > 1:19:08is not influenced by the road, it actually IS the road.

1:19:10 > 1:19:15Paris, Texas was instrumental in reviving the road film genre.

1:19:15 > 1:19:16And in reminding us that

1:19:16 > 1:19:18even though they are a purely American concept,

1:19:18 > 1:19:22road films are essentially European in nature.

1:19:22 > 1:19:27The characters are always outside the mainstream, marginalised.

1:19:27 > 1:19:28The director is always forced

1:19:28 > 1:19:31to take the point of view of an outsider.

1:19:37 > 1:19:39And nowadays, the road film

1:19:39 > 1:19:41is completely at the mercy of the director's vision.

1:19:41 > 1:19:44You can no longer count on spectacular scenery

1:19:44 > 1:19:48to make a film memorable because we've seen it all before.

1:19:48 > 1:19:5160 years of road sceneries absorbed it all.

1:19:53 > 1:19:58Mountains, vistas, canyons, rivers, sunsets.

1:20:00 > 1:20:03People go through Monument Valley and always say one thing.

1:20:03 > 1:20:06Honey, it looks just like a John Ford film.

1:20:06 > 1:20:09As if John fucking Ford invented Monument Valley.

1:20:09 > 1:20:12Monument Valley was here long before the John Ford

1:20:12 > 1:20:14ever put his big fat clod-hoppers onto it.

1:20:14 > 1:20:17You can no longer count on ancient geology

1:20:17 > 1:20:20or spectacular scenery to make a film worthwhile.

1:20:20 > 1:20:24We expect to see ancient geology, but we also expect to see that big,

1:20:24 > 1:20:28sexy, sweeping, soaring money shot.

1:20:28 > 1:20:31It's both reality and a total simulation of reality.

1:20:32 > 1:20:38Film critics and scholars call that hyper-realism. A representation.

1:20:38 > 1:20:40You know, is this a real rock?

1:20:40 > 1:20:43Or is this a simulation of a rock?

1:20:45 > 1:20:47It's a real rock.

1:20:48 > 1:20:50What this means is that like Westerns,

1:20:50 > 1:20:53we are expected to know what a road movie is supposed to look like.

1:20:53 > 1:20:56And when a genre becomes entrenched like this,

1:20:56 > 1:20:58it becomes ripe for gimmickry.

1:20:58 > 1:21:01Over the course of the '80s, and into the '90s,

1:21:01 > 1:21:03we get lots of road movie parodies.

1:21:03 > 1:21:06Notably Lost In America.

1:21:06 > 1:21:10We get a Canadian version of a road film called Highway 61.

1:21:10 > 1:21:12We get a British version called Butterfly Kiss.

1:21:12 > 1:21:17And eventually, we get the epic Thelma And Louise.

1:21:17 > 1:21:19Thelma and Louise are going fishing.

1:21:19 > 1:21:22- How come Darryl let you go? - Cos I didn't ask him!

1:21:22 > 1:21:25- He is going to kill you! - I left him a note.

1:21:26 > 1:21:29Lots of directors have attempted to infuse the road movie

1:21:29 > 1:21:31with the characters revolting

1:21:31 > 1:21:34against what's expected of their nature.

1:21:34 > 1:21:36Thelma And Louise is the best.

1:21:36 > 1:21:40Not because it is a feminist reworking of a predominantly male territory.

1:21:40 > 1:21:43Sugarland Express and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

1:21:43 > 1:21:45had already been there.

1:21:45 > 1:21:47It's best because it is a well-made film.

1:21:48 > 1:21:51Do you want to step back and get in your car again?

1:21:51 > 1:21:54I swear, three days ago, we would never have pulled a stunt like this

1:21:54 > 1:21:57- but if you were to meet my husband, you'd understand why.- What?

1:21:59 > 1:22:03Thelma And Louise is about two women temporarily escaping

1:22:03 > 1:22:06their oppressive relationships by taking a road trip.

1:22:06 > 1:22:08They hit a rowdy bar,

1:22:08 > 1:22:11a drunk tries to rape Thelma and Louise plugs him.

1:22:11 > 1:22:14Their carefree mood evaporates and convinced

1:22:14 > 1:22:18that Thelma's self-defence story will never hold up,

1:22:18 > 1:22:20the two become fugitives.

1:22:22 > 1:22:24Thelma and Louise take to the road for two reasons -

1:22:24 > 1:22:28to escape patriarchy, the male dominated work place and home,

1:22:28 > 1:22:29but more importantly,

1:22:29 > 1:22:33to escape the male dominated legal system that legitimises rape.

1:22:33 > 1:22:37The heroines end up martyring themselves, not self-consciously

1:22:37 > 1:22:41like Easy Rider or Vanishing Point, these women have no choice.

1:22:49 > 1:22:52Thus, the film's epic ending manages to do two things -

1:22:52 > 1:22:55to make an astounding pro-feminist statement

1:22:55 > 1:22:59and to reinforce certain truisms about women drivers.

1:23:01 > 1:23:03Cos, you know, women are bad drivers.

1:23:03 > 1:23:04That's what I'm saying.

1:23:06 > 1:23:07They drove off a cliff.

1:23:07 > 1:23:10They weren't even yapping into cell phones.

1:23:12 > 1:23:16You want me to shoot Sailor, in the brains?

1:23:16 > 1:23:19With a gun?

1:23:19 > 1:23:20Uh-oh.

1:23:28 > 1:23:30Lula!

1:23:32 > 1:23:35Wild At Heart takes the road movie into its post-modern period.

1:23:35 > 1:23:39David Lynch recycles and blends generic road images,

1:23:39 > 1:23:42all flashy camera work and tilted angles,

1:23:42 > 1:23:45it's supremely self-conscious and grandstanding.

1:23:45 > 1:23:49It is also totally condescending toward suburban culture

1:23:49 > 1:23:51and the American family.

1:23:51 > 1:23:54The film lampoons rebellion.

1:23:54 > 1:23:57It takes violence to sadistic cartoon levels,

1:23:57 > 1:24:01it makes fun of George Lucas-type special effects but in the end,

1:24:01 > 1:24:04it follows the same neoconservative thread as most road movies.

1:24:04 > 1:24:08Sailor and Lula, the star-crossed killers will end up

1:24:08 > 1:24:12realising their dream which is to be a happy, white, suburban family.

1:24:12 > 1:24:17So, Wild At Heart is David Lynch trying to kill off every last notion

1:24:17 > 1:24:19of what the Wizard Of Oz was trying to say.

1:24:19 > 1:24:21Sailor.

1:24:24 > 1:24:25The good witch.

1:24:25 > 1:24:28Sailor Ripley.

1:24:28 > 1:24:30Lula loves you.

1:24:30 > 1:24:32If David Lynch tried to kill off a film,

1:24:32 > 1:24:35leave it to Oliver Stone to try to kill off an entire genre.

1:24:35 > 1:24:39In much the same way as he pummelled the rock star pic

1:24:39 > 1:24:42into cinematic overkill with The Doors,

1:24:42 > 1:24:44he takes a big, steaming grudge dump

1:24:44 > 1:24:47on road films with Natural Born Killers.

1:24:50 > 1:24:53Oliver Stone threw everything he had at the road movie

1:24:53 > 1:24:57in an attempt to kill it and it's still here.

1:24:57 > 1:24:59He probably did it a favour by making it so ridiculous

1:24:59 > 1:25:02that there was nowhere to go but back to its roots.

1:25:05 > 1:25:07At the end of the last century,

1:25:07 > 1:25:10David Lynch made a film called The Straight Story.

1:25:10 > 1:25:12It is a contrite attempt

1:25:12 > 1:25:15to return the road movie to its simplest premise.

1:25:15 > 1:25:18ENGINE WHIRRS

1:25:19 > 1:25:21It's the story about a 73-year-old man

1:25:21 > 1:25:24who is told by his doctor

1:25:24 > 1:25:26that he can no longer drive a car. He finds out

1:25:26 > 1:25:28his estranged brother Lyle has had a stroke

1:25:28 > 1:25:32so he sets out from Wisconsin to Iowa on the only vehicle

1:25:32 > 1:25:35he's legally allowed to drive, a John Deere mower.

1:25:35 > 1:25:40Mount Zion, Wisconsin? Why don't you just take your car?

1:25:40 > 1:25:44- I don't have a driver's license. - That's 60 more miles of hills.

1:25:44 > 1:25:47Along the way, Alvin befriends various people

1:25:47 > 1:25:48including a pregnant girl

1:25:48 > 1:25:50and a family who lets him live in their backyard

1:25:50 > 1:25:54until his mower is repaired.

1:25:54 > 1:25:56The film subverts the whole idea of speed and momentum.

1:25:56 > 1:26:00Most road films are about going nowhere fast.

1:26:00 > 1:26:02The Straight Story is about going somewhere slow.

1:26:02 > 1:26:06And in one of the most sublime endings to a road film ever,

1:26:06 > 1:26:09when Alvin meets up with his brother Lyle after a two-month journey,

1:26:09 > 1:26:12the brother he hasn't talked to in 25 years,

1:26:12 > 1:26:14played by Harry Dean Stanton,

1:26:14 > 1:26:18a man whose work in road films spanned from a cameo

1:26:18 > 1:26:21as a gay hitchhiker in Two Lane Blacktop right through Repo Man

1:26:21 > 1:26:25and Paris, Texas and Wild At Heart, a man whose face and world weariness

1:26:25 > 1:26:29is the very embodiment of road films themselves,

1:26:29 > 1:26:32Lynch gives us one of the best endings to any film ever

1:26:32 > 1:26:35and proves that he actually is capable of directing

1:26:35 > 1:26:37a film set on the planet Earth.

1:26:40 > 1:26:43And most of all, it shows us the one true thing that separates

1:26:43 > 1:26:46the road movie from all other genres.

1:26:46 > 1:26:50In most movies, it's the actions that speak louder than the words.

1:26:50 > 1:26:53In a road movie, the silent moments are the most effective.

1:27:01 > 1:27:05Did you ride that thing all the way out here to see me?

1:27:08 > 1:27:10I did, Lyle.

1:27:29 > 1:27:31It is a construct of most drama

1:27:31 > 1:27:35to invent credible reasons for the characters to stay.

1:27:35 > 1:27:38Sometimes, we watch a story and we think,

1:27:38 > 1:27:40why doesn't this idiot just leave?

1:27:40 > 1:27:42And that's where the road movie begins.

1:27:42 > 1:27:46The ideas of escape, wanderlust, drift, reinvention

1:27:46 > 1:27:49or just falling off the face of the planet

1:27:49 > 1:27:51are all universal human conditions.

1:27:51 > 1:27:53And America doesn't own the road film,

1:27:53 > 1:27:55but it definitely has the best sets.

1:27:55 > 1:27:59Even as I speak, that quintessential American novel On The Road

1:27:59 > 1:28:02is being filmed by director Walter Salles

1:28:02 > 1:28:05with a crew much bigger than this one.

1:28:05 > 1:28:07And it's being filmed in Canada.

1:28:07 > 1:28:10A travel writer once famously said,

1:28:10 > 1:28:12"Thanks to the interstate highway system,

1:28:12 > 1:28:15"it's now possible to cross America without seeing anything."

1:28:15 > 1:28:18But because of its back roads,

1:28:18 > 1:28:21it's also possible to cross America and see everything.

1:28:21 > 1:28:25In a road movie, the number on the highway doesn't matter,

1:28:25 > 1:28:27it only matters where it goes.

1:28:27 > 1:28:29And that's one of two directions.

1:28:29 > 1:28:30Home.

1:28:30 > 1:28:31Or away from it.

1:28:31 > 1:28:33So, pick a lane.

1:28:33 > 1:28:35The only dangerous part to be is in the middle.

1:28:35 > 1:28:39# I pulled out of Pittsburgh rolling down the eastern seaboard

1:28:41 > 1:28:45# I've got my diesel wound up and she's running like never before

1:28:47 > 1:28:50# There's a speed zone ahead all right

1:28:50 > 1:28:53# I ain't seen a cop all night

1:28:53 > 1:28:57# Six days on the road and now I'm going to make it home tonight

1:28:58 > 1:29:00# Six days on the road

1:29:00 > 1:29:02# And I'm going to make it home tonight. #

1:29:05 > 1:29:08Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

1:29:08 > 1:29:10E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk