0:00:09 > 0:00:12On a cold December night in 1941,
0:00:12 > 0:00:16an artist stood on the sidewalk in Manhattan
0:00:16 > 0:00:20gazing through the plate glass window of an all-night diner.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23He saw a couple at the counter,
0:00:23 > 0:00:26a man on the other side,
0:00:26 > 0:00:28someone else serving coffee.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30What could be more commonplace?
0:00:31 > 0:00:35But something struck him as exceptional about this scene.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39It expressed a particular kind of alienation.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42His name was Edward Hopper.
0:00:42 > 0:00:45And his defining painting, Nighthawks,
0:00:45 > 0:00:49one of the most admired images of the 20th century.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55When Hopper set out to capture a very American loneliness,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58he chose to do so in a diner.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08Edward Hopper was not alone in seeing the potential in the diner.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10Writers, musicians, photographers.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13All the greatest American artists have been drawn to it
0:01:13 > 0:01:15at some point.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18Quentin Tarantino was just one film-maker
0:01:18 > 0:01:21to set great epiphanies within its leatherette booths
0:01:21 > 0:01:24in his Americana masterpiece Pulp Fiction.
0:01:24 > 0:01:27Everybody be cool! This is a robbery!
0:01:30 > 0:01:35I'm heading across the States, to find out what it is about the diner.
0:01:39 > 0:01:40You know in Westerns
0:01:40 > 0:01:42there's always a frontier saloon,
0:01:42 > 0:01:47batwing doors, some old cowboy sinking four fingers of redeye?
0:01:47 > 0:01:50Well, I've a theory that this place, the American diner,
0:01:50 > 0:01:53is a bit like that Dodge City saloon.
0:01:53 > 0:01:56It preserves a vital fragment of the American spirit.
0:01:56 > 0:02:02I'm going in search of the beating heart of American culture.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04Or do I mean a fat-clogged heart?
0:02:04 > 0:02:07Either way, on my travels, I intend to eat nothing
0:02:07 > 0:02:11but honest-to-God home-cooked diner chow.
0:02:11 > 0:02:13- Your blueberry pancakes, sir. - Thanks.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30# Hey nonny ding dong, alang alang alang
0:02:30 > 0:02:33# Boom ba-doh, ba-doo ba-doodle-ay
0:02:33 > 0:02:36# Oh, life could be a dream... #
0:02:36 > 0:02:38My journey begins on the East Coast.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41Providence, Rhode Island, is the perhaps unlikely
0:02:41 > 0:02:45birthplace of America's best-loved kitchen.
0:02:47 > 0:02:51It was here in 1872 that the first ever all-night mobile food carts
0:02:51 > 0:02:54served dinner on the kerbside.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00Those first wagons dished up a diet of pies, coffee and cigars.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04They lined America's stomach for a drive-by blow-out
0:03:04 > 0:03:08that has seen off a girth-troubling 22 billion meals to date.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11# Oh, life could be a dream
0:03:11 > 0:03:13# If only all my precious plans... #
0:03:15 > 0:03:17Providence is also where you'll find
0:03:17 > 0:03:20the oldest continuously running diner in history.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28The Haven Brothers' griddle-on-wheels still parks up alongside City Hall every night.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38Since the 19th century, Haven Brothers Diner here
0:03:38 > 0:03:42has been selling these hot dogs. Well, not these hot dogs obviously.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46But you know, what it reminds me of, chow on wheels,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49is the covered wagon that brought food to the men
0:03:49 > 0:03:52and women who made the American frontier.
0:03:52 > 0:03:54I'll eat to that.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04But it's after dark that the kerbside kitchen really comes into its own.
0:04:05 > 0:04:11The diner began trading here initially to plug a gap in the market,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13catering to people who worked at night,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17government employees, reporters, lowlifes like that.
0:04:20 > 0:04:23And Haven Brothers is still a kind of beacon
0:04:23 > 0:04:25in the lonely American night.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31I've been coming here since at least 30 years.
0:04:31 > 0:04:35- Really?- Yep, coming here, you know, late at night-time.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37Do you tend to have the same thing?
0:04:37 > 0:04:42Yeah, I usually have a chicken sandwich or a hamburger or a hot dog. That's all.
0:04:42 > 0:04:46- Is it going to be a quiet night, Officer O'Rourke?- I hope so,
0:04:46 > 0:04:51- cos I'm going home.- Who's out there to protect us, then?
0:04:51 > 0:04:54- Well, the night crew's on. - OK. That's reassuring.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58- Nice to meet you. Thank you. - OK, buddy, thank you.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Though the diner began as a restaurant on the move,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07it wasn't long before it lost its wheels and was grounded.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12By the beginning of the 20th century,
0:05:12 > 0:05:15diners were no longer small mobile wagons.
0:05:15 > 0:05:18They were now static models produced in factories
0:05:18 > 0:05:21and hauled to permanent roadside destinations.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24# 16 times, what do you get?
0:05:24 > 0:05:25# Another day older... #
0:05:25 > 0:05:28The diner's low-overheads and not-so-fine dining
0:05:28 > 0:05:31ensured their survival throughout world wars,
0:05:31 > 0:05:34prohibition, even the Depression.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40Not far from Providence is one of the best-preserved examples
0:05:40 > 0:05:44of this generation of stationary diner.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48The Modern in Pawtucket is a 1941 Sterling Streamliner.
0:05:48 > 0:05:55- ..Breakfast here.- OK.- Whether you're just going to have a sandwich or maybe a platter.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59Its biggest fan is diner archaeologist, Richard Gutman.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Oh, now this one really looks the part, doesn't it?
0:06:04 > 0:06:08- Why do you like this one so much, Richard?- First of all, it's one of the Streamliners
0:06:08 > 0:06:10- so it's got the bullet-shaped nose. - Oh, yes.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14- It's like a train. - It is, but it's not going anywhere.
0:06:14 > 0:06:16- No.- Immobilized in the landscape. - Right.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20- But it looks like it's in motion. - It's got some energy.- It does.
0:06:20 > 0:06:22It's got all the great materials.
0:06:22 > 0:06:23Stainless steel back there,
0:06:23 > 0:06:26but mostly porcelain enamel
0:06:26 > 0:06:28and wood and chrome,
0:06:28 > 0:06:34- Formica that shows a number of elbows have rubbed against this counter. - I would say.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37And this is the equivalent of a listed building, isn't it?
0:06:37 > 0:06:42This is the first diner that was ever put on the National Register of Historic Places.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47- Was that your work or somebody else's?- I did it, no, thank you very much.
0:06:47 > 0:06:49You lobbied away at congressmen?
0:06:49 > 0:06:52- I was part of the team that got this listed.- Right.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56- So no developer can come down here with a wrecking ball and just flatten...?- Exactly.- Right.
0:06:59 > 0:07:00- Check it out.- Oh, boy.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03There's your Rueben.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05I'll be right back with your French fries.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08My companion doesn't look like a man
0:07:08 > 0:07:12who's spent 30 years putting himself outside a long line of turkey clubs.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16Clearly, he's someone who cannot rest until his work
0:07:16 > 0:07:21is done as the world's leading diner documentarian.
0:07:23 > 0:07:24Just round the corner,
0:07:24 > 0:07:28Richard's created a museum in the Johnson and Wales University.
0:07:28 > 0:07:33It's a 4,000 square foot trophy cabinet of diner memorabilia.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37- It's lovely, isn't it. Art deco. - Yes, yes.
0:07:37 > 0:07:39In his time,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43Richard's restored more than 80 abandoned luncheonettes.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46This is his latest orphaned eatery.
0:07:46 > 0:07:51An actual bona fide diner, built in a factory by the Worcester Lunchcar Company in 1926.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53Rolled in here on some forklifts.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57- They took down the wall of the building and moved it in.- No kidding?
0:07:57 > 0:07:58And who's our friend here?
0:07:58 > 0:08:01Larry is our short-order cook.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03Excuse me, Larry.
0:08:03 > 0:08:08I first was interested in diners because of their architecture
0:08:08 > 0:08:11and the vernacular nature of them.
0:08:11 > 0:08:16They were built by Italian tile-setters and marble workers,
0:08:16 > 0:08:21by German sheet-metal workers, and French-Canadian carpenters.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24It was a melting pot of these different cultures
0:08:24 > 0:08:27to produce a building that is uniquely American.
0:08:27 > 0:08:30They're often family businesses, aren't they?
0:08:30 > 0:08:31They certainly are.
0:08:31 > 0:08:32If Larry could speak,
0:08:32 > 0:08:37he would know that when I walked in, I wanted poached eggs on toast.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41But the thing about this democratic counter is that anyone can go in
0:08:41 > 0:08:42and sit down there.
0:08:42 > 0:08:48It can be a professor, it can be a high-hat, it can be a worker.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50A friend of mine in Pennsylvania ate in the diner,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53and he's in the middle of two guys.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56One guy's the Chief of Police and the other's just some character
0:08:56 > 0:09:00and at one point in the conversation the policeman looks over and says,
0:09:00 > 0:09:03"Didn't I arrest you last year for something?"
0:09:03 > 0:09:07And the other guy says, "Yes, you did. Pass the ketchup."
0:09:11 > 0:09:13Americans love the open road.
0:09:13 > 0:09:17Like their pioneering ancestors on the frontier,
0:09:17 > 0:09:19they've always looked west
0:09:19 > 0:09:22and relished the possibilities of travel and expansion.
0:09:25 > 0:09:26In the 1950s,
0:09:26 > 0:09:28the growth of the Interstate
0:09:28 > 0:09:31meant that plenty of aluminium pit stops were springing up
0:09:31 > 0:09:35to service this new personal mobility.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37The shimmering surfaces
0:09:37 > 0:09:41reflecting back the era's defining spirit of optimism.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52That aspiration was reflected in the diner's menu.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57Diner food has always tended towards the - how to say it? - the filling.
0:09:57 > 0:10:00Hello. I'll go for the Monster Burger, with everything.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02- OK, thank you so much. - Thank you very much.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08Oh, my goodness.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13- That isn't a meal, that's a suicide bid. Are you serious?- Yes.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16- Will you come and check on me in a while?- I'll come check on you.
0:10:16 > 0:10:18Thank you, I appreciate it.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36Diner fare like this started out as cowboy chow -
0:10:36 > 0:10:39beans and grits, doled out from the chuck wagon.
0:10:40 > 0:10:44If you laid the diner menu out end to end,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48it would be a great greasy highway of burgers, shakes, French toast,
0:10:48 > 0:10:52and eggs over-easy, from sea to shining sea.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59And all swilled down with bottomless pots of stewed, watery coffee.
0:11:00 > 0:11:04Well, that's Otto's Monster Burger.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08That includes half the calories I will need for the rest of my life,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12but it's not all bad news. Look - one of my five-a-day.
0:11:12 > 0:11:13Mm.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16Diner owner, Otto Maier,
0:11:16 > 0:11:20is the Dr Frankenstein behind the Monster Burger.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25Otto, what would be your top five classic diner dishes?
0:11:25 > 0:11:27Pancakes with sausage,
0:11:27 > 0:11:30standard eggs over-easy with home fries and toast,
0:11:30 > 0:11:32with whatever breakfast meat,
0:11:32 > 0:11:35definitely the cheeseburger deluxe
0:11:35 > 0:11:37turkey club,
0:11:37 > 0:11:39and...one other, meatloaf dinner.
0:11:39 > 0:11:41You know, comfort food, food made from recipes
0:11:41 > 0:11:44that people's mothers used to make
0:11:44 > 0:11:47and that sort of parlayed into the diners. That's...
0:11:47 > 0:11:50The diner started years ago for the blue collar worker
0:11:50 > 0:11:53and it just expanded over time to be more than that.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57It's funny to think that just as the work-wear denims worn by cowboys
0:11:57 > 0:12:01became the ubiquitous designer jeans,
0:12:01 > 0:12:03it's Mom's good ol' burgers and fries
0:12:03 > 0:12:08that have become the defining gastronomy of the world's superpower.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21I'm heading to Massachusetts,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24to the hometown of one mid-century artist
0:12:24 > 0:12:28for whom the roadside restaurant would prove a shorthand
0:12:28 > 0:12:31for that very American comfort in abundance.
0:12:37 > 0:12:40This place is the Louvre,
0:12:40 > 0:12:42the National Gallery of Middle America.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45It's the repository of one of the country's most beloved
0:12:45 > 0:12:50and popular artists, if not THE most popular and beloved, Norman Rockwell.
0:12:50 > 0:12:52He offered the States an idealised,
0:12:52 > 0:12:55even sentimentalised, view of the place.
0:12:55 > 0:12:57He was the poet laureate of pot-roast.
0:13:06 > 0:13:11Rockwell produced nearly 400 paintings in his lifetime,
0:13:11 > 0:13:14serving up scene after scene of small town America
0:13:14 > 0:13:17in satisfying slices of comfort art.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22# Come softly, darling
0:13:22 > 0:13:24# Come softly... #
0:13:24 > 0:13:29This is an extraordinary vision by Rockwell of down-home folksiness.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32It appears to be Thanksgiving or maybe Sunday lunch.
0:13:32 > 0:13:35Here's the lovely big plump turkey.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37And look at this groaning board.
0:13:37 > 0:13:38The gleaming cruet.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40The happy faces.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46But the most extraordinary detail of this painting is a tiny one.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48The date.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50It was painted in 1942.
0:13:50 > 0:13:54At the time, the war in the Pacific was raging.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57But this is Rockwell's message of reassurance.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00The troops, our boys, will be coming home.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02To freedom from want.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05# Come softly, darling
0:14:05 > 0:14:09# Hear what I say... #
0:14:09 > 0:14:13And if one thing stood for freedom from want
0:14:13 > 0:14:16it was the abundant offerings of the diner.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20In 1958, Rockwell painted a cover
0:14:20 > 0:14:26for America's most widely circulated weekly magazine, The Saturday Evening Post.
0:14:26 > 0:14:27The Runaway is, for me,
0:14:27 > 0:14:31one of the most intriguing portrayals of the diner.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37It shows a young scamp on the lam from home
0:14:37 > 0:14:39who runs into a couple of strangers.
0:14:41 > 0:14:42It could be threatening,
0:14:42 > 0:14:47but Rockwell's version of life on the open road is anything but sinister.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49His diner's an inviting place,
0:14:49 > 0:14:52with a kindly cop who, instead of busting your chops,
0:14:52 > 0:14:56treats you to a slice of pie and a ride home in his squad car.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04And if his characters have the look of the guy or the gal next door,
0:15:04 > 0:15:06that's because that's exactly who they were.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09If you lived in Stockbridge in the '50s,
0:15:09 > 0:15:14chances were you'd find yourself immortalised by Norman Rockwell.
0:15:14 > 0:15:18For The Runaway, Rockwell painted his state trooper neighbour,
0:15:18 > 0:15:21and an eight-year-old from the local school.
0:15:21 > 0:15:23They've grown up a bit now,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27but the subjects of the painting are still alive and well.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31Gentlemen, what are your memories of that day with Norman Rockwell?
0:15:31 > 0:15:35Well, I recall a day, I... They had contacted me
0:15:35 > 0:15:40and set a date. Mr Rockwell was there, his photographer was there.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Mr Rockwell gave instructions to us
0:15:43 > 0:15:46on how he wanted us to sit, or to pose.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48I think he had pretty much a firm idea
0:15:48 > 0:15:52on what he had in mind, and just wanted to make sure that
0:15:52 > 0:15:54that's what was going to appear on paper.
0:15:54 > 0:15:56Did he buy you an ice cream?
0:15:56 > 0:15:59I got paid a whopping ten dollars.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02- Course, you couldn't have been paid. - Ten dollars.
0:16:02 > 0:16:05- You got ten dollars as well?- Yes. - Into the police benevolent fund?
0:16:05 > 0:16:07No, not really!
0:16:07 > 0:16:10OK, we'll draw a veil over that!
0:16:10 > 0:16:12What do you think, fellas? Shall we have a go
0:16:12 > 0:16:15at trying to recreate this masterpiece?
0:16:17 > 0:16:20So, Eddie, you were to the right of Richard.
0:16:20 > 0:16:24And we need our friend behind the counter.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27Just resting on the counter, that's right.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30If you could be looking at Eddie, in a kind of avuncular way?
0:16:30 > 0:16:32That's good.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38And can you, sort of, slump down in the chair a little bit?
0:16:38 > 0:16:43And what about...? You were leaning slightly over this way, Richard.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Yeah. No hat today. Oh, well.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55OK. Do you know what? I think that's about it.
0:16:55 > 0:16:56Fantastic.
0:16:58 > 0:17:00It's art made flesh.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12When Rockwell gazed into the diner in small-town Massachusetts,
0:17:12 > 0:17:17he saw a place where big-hearted American values were front and centre.
0:17:17 > 0:17:20It's cherry pie and good deeds.
0:17:20 > 0:17:25'That's nice, but by no means the whole menu.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29'I have a hunch that the real soul of the diner is to be found
0:17:29 > 0:17:32'in the asphalt jungle of the 24-hour city.'
0:17:33 > 0:17:38- SAT NAV:- 'On the right in 0.6 miles...'
0:17:51 > 0:17:54A near contemporary of Rockwell's,
0:17:54 > 0:17:58Edward Hopper, drank deep from the bottomless coffee pot
0:17:58 > 0:18:00of New York's all night diner culture.
0:18:00 > 0:18:05And he came up with an image of insomniac urban loneliness,
0:18:05 > 0:18:08as well as arguably the greatest American painting
0:18:08 > 0:18:11of the last century, Nighthawks.
0:18:12 > 0:18:14Hopper grew up in New York,
0:18:14 > 0:18:16and spent much of the '30s and '40s
0:18:16 > 0:18:19painting the urban landscape around him.
0:18:20 > 0:18:23Even now in the city, you see Hopper everywhere.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37Hopper-esque describes places that are nowhere in particular.
0:18:37 > 0:18:42Hotel lobbies, waiting rooms, the diner.
0:18:42 > 0:18:46Places where people are together but alone.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51The Nighthawks diner is the most famous diner
0:18:51 > 0:18:53the world has ever known.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56'And I am a poor moth to its hypnotic neon.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59'I want to find that corner where Hopper discovered
0:18:59 > 0:19:01'and painted the American condition.'
0:19:06 > 0:19:08Excuse me, ladies. I wonder if you can help?
0:19:08 > 0:19:10- I'm trying to find this diner. - No idea.
0:19:10 > 0:19:15It was painted by Edward Hopper, it's called Nighthawks.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18- Does it look like any joint you know?- I could Google it?
0:19:18 > 0:19:20- You could Google it?- I could. - Yeah, that's a good idea, Google it.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23Maybe I could try that.
0:19:23 > 0:19:25- Thank you very much.- You're welcome.
0:19:27 > 0:19:29Excuse me, sir, I wonder if you can help me.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32- I'm trying to find this place?- No.
0:19:32 > 0:19:33- Do you know this?- I don't know.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35No? OK.
0:19:37 > 0:19:39No-one seems to know.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43'Hopper himself didn't give us much to go on.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47'Just "Greenwich Avenue where two streets meet."'
0:19:47 > 0:19:49Have you got a second? I'll take that as a no.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51No? None of you?
0:19:54 > 0:19:57Excuse me, officer, have you got a second?
0:19:57 > 0:19:59I'm trying to find this place.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02- I'm not familiar with that.- Have you seen this painting before?- No.
0:20:05 > 0:20:06I have no idea.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11I'm willing to tip handsomely. I'm a long way from home and...
0:20:14 > 0:20:18Well, Lord knows New York has clasped me to its bosom
0:20:18 > 0:20:20and can't do enough to help,
0:20:20 > 0:20:22but sadly nobody seems sure
0:20:22 > 0:20:27exactly where the original for Nighthawks is located.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31# Nighthawks at the diner
0:20:31 > 0:20:33# Emma's 49er
0:20:33 > 0:20:37# There's a rendezvous of strangers
0:20:37 > 0:20:40# Around the coffee urn tonight... #
0:20:40 > 0:20:43While I'm trying to place Hopper's diner,
0:20:43 > 0:20:45literally, in the landscape,
0:20:45 > 0:20:46perhaps one Manhattanite
0:20:46 > 0:20:50could tell me where it lies in the American imagination.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54'Adam Gopnik is an art critic and writer for the New Yorker.
0:20:54 > 0:20:55'He would surely know.'
0:20:55 > 0:20:57- Hi, Adam, how are you? - Good to see you.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00- Would you like the all-day breakfast?- I would love it.
0:21:00 > 0:21:03- Or the chef's special? - I'll take the all-day breakfast.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07Adam, when you look at Hopper's Nighthawks, what do you see?
0:21:07 > 0:21:09Well, it's a picture about loneliness.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11It's a picture about aloneness.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16About the poignant reality of being in a diner late at night,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19amongst people who are sharing the space
0:21:19 > 0:21:20but not sharing the experience.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22The oddity of American life
0:21:22 > 0:21:27is that it is simultaneously the most hyped-up, amphetamine-driven,
0:21:27 > 0:21:29over-energetic form of existence,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32and then it has this melancholic underside.
0:21:32 > 0:21:34Do you find it a bit alienating?
0:21:34 > 0:21:40They look like characters in a fish tank. Or are you intrigued by them?
0:21:40 > 0:21:44At first sight, they can be slightly chilly canvases, can't they?
0:21:44 > 0:21:47I never feel with Hopper's people that they're complete as people.
0:21:47 > 0:21:50They're not like, say, the girls in Vermeer,
0:21:50 > 0:21:54who are lonely and isolated, but who you feel have lives.
0:21:54 > 0:21:59Hopper's people are much more like the extras in a film noir.
0:21:59 > 0:22:03You try to craft an internal monologue for the people who are there.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07Yet whenever I look at that picture, what makes it so interesting
0:22:07 > 0:22:09is you don't say to yourself,
0:22:09 > 0:22:11"Oh, he must be the crook and she must be the whore."
0:22:11 > 0:22:14You say, "I don't know who these people are."
0:22:14 > 0:22:16In fact, your suspicion at the end is
0:22:16 > 0:22:19they're probably completely ordinary people.
0:22:19 > 0:22:23If you could discover them outside that magical setting,
0:22:23 > 0:22:26they would be nobody in particular, they'd be you and me.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30So it's sort of the way that the environment lends them
0:22:30 > 0:22:33the glamour of melancholy and sadness and danger, criminality,
0:22:33 > 0:22:36is part of what makes that picture magical.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38It's that same mixture of wonder
0:22:38 > 0:22:41at this giant city that has grown up around us,
0:22:41 > 0:22:46and at the same time, the knowledge that these insane agglomerations of people
0:22:46 > 0:22:49finally break down to these little atoms of loneliness.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52That's what Hopper saw and it's a fundamental American truth.
0:22:56 > 0:22:58Hopper's caffeinated night birds
0:22:58 > 0:23:03seem all the more exposed by the diner's harsh strip lighting.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08That blinding coldness feels like the shockwave of a terrible explosion.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11And in one aspect, it is.
0:23:11 > 0:23:15'The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor.'
0:23:15 > 0:23:19Hopper created his masterpiece in December 1941,
0:23:19 > 0:23:23in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor.
0:23:23 > 0:23:27As great a body blow as the United States had suffered to date.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42I'm not the only one on the trail of Nighthawks.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45There's a blogger here who trades under the name
0:23:45 > 0:23:47Jeremiah's Vanishing New York,
0:23:47 > 0:23:52who's clearly invested many man hours trying to find the joint.
0:23:52 > 0:23:54He's been through government records,
0:23:54 > 0:23:57plans, maps, newspaper archives.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02At one point he writes despairingly, "The diner remains a ghost to us."
0:24:02 > 0:24:05His underground, slightly secretive blog,
0:24:05 > 0:24:08other twilight searches for Nighthawks,
0:24:08 > 0:24:12finding the diner is like a film noir in itself.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17Hopper's biographer quotes him:
0:24:17 > 0:24:21"I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger.
0:24:21 > 0:24:26"Unconsciously, perhaps, I was painting the loneliness of a large city."
0:24:42 > 0:24:45It's not only the coffee drinkers who seem isolated.
0:24:45 > 0:24:49There's no doorway into the Nighthawks diner.
0:24:50 > 0:24:53Did Hopper leave it out, I wonder,
0:24:53 > 0:24:57to make us, the onlookers, feel further removed?
0:24:57 > 0:25:01To heighten our sense of peering into a giant fish tank?
0:25:03 > 0:25:08Are we, perhaps, the real outsiders of this lonely scene?
0:25:19 > 0:25:21According to Hopper's biographer,
0:25:21 > 0:25:25the most likely location for the Nighthawks diner is here.
0:25:25 > 0:25:26Mulry Square,
0:25:26 > 0:25:30where Seventh Avenue and West 11th Street meet.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37Most believe that Hopper's Nighthawks
0:25:37 > 0:25:40brooded over their coffee on this site,
0:25:40 > 0:25:41long since torn down.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45It's now a disused parking lot,
0:25:45 > 0:25:50and an impromptu shrine to those who died just a few blocks away on 9/11.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05In one sense, it's a fitting coda to the story of Hopper
0:26:05 > 0:26:10preparing his painting on the same corner of New York City after Pearl Harbor.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20But whether or not Hopper's insomniacs were reeling from the shock of war
0:26:20 > 0:26:24in an actual restaurant doesn't matter.
0:26:24 > 0:26:29The Nighthawks diner is not so much a place as a state of mind.
0:26:56 > 0:27:02Hopper's potent image of urban isolation has resonated ever since.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05It comes through, curiously enough,
0:27:05 > 0:27:08in one of the most popular dance songs of the 1990s.
0:27:08 > 0:27:10# I am sitting in the morning
0:27:10 > 0:27:13# At the diner on the corner... #
0:27:13 > 0:27:17American folk singer Suzanne Vega wrote a simple a capella ballad
0:27:17 > 0:27:21about a diner on the Upper West Side.
0:27:21 > 0:27:23It was remixed by British dance combo DNA
0:27:23 > 0:27:27who propelled it to global stardom.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35I had a date to meet Suzanne Vega
0:27:35 > 0:27:37at the original Tom's Diner.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44- How are you? May I join you? - I wish you would.- Thank you.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Now you had this, one of many smash hits
0:27:48 > 0:27:53with a song that was at least in part inspired by where we're sitting now.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56I was sitting at that counter over there one morning,
0:27:56 > 0:28:00and I started to imagine different scenes of someone sitting in a diner
0:28:00 > 0:28:04in which they felt alienated from everyone around them.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08I thought, I'll call it Tom's Diner, because...it's actually a restaurant.
0:28:08 > 0:28:11- But it doesn't scan so well. - It doesn't sing so well.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14So I thought, OK, we'll call it diner.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16It's a strange place, a diner.
0:28:16 > 0:28:19It can seem a place for lonely people, and yet,
0:28:19 > 0:28:24it's the comforts of home. You know, the ketchup and the coffee.
0:28:24 > 0:28:27- Curious.- It's sort of a midway point between the street
0:28:27 > 0:28:32and a private area. So you can sit, talk about things that are intimate,
0:28:32 > 0:28:35or you can do business deals, or you can break up with your boyfriend...
0:28:35 > 0:28:38Have you ever done that, Suzanne, in a diner?
0:28:38 > 0:28:41- Dare we pry? - I'm not going to tell you that!
0:28:41 > 0:28:45Why do you think the song took off like it did?
0:28:45 > 0:28:46Well, some of it is the melody.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Also, everyone loves the idea of the diner,
0:28:49 > 0:28:52and you can interpret the song according to your own visions of it.
0:28:52 > 0:28:54- Right.- The great irony is
0:28:54 > 0:28:59it's a song about alienation, sitting at a diner, feeling lonely and disconnected from humanity,
0:28:59 > 0:29:04and I've sung it to 10,000 people who all sing # Do-do doo-doo... #
0:29:04 > 0:29:08..in unison, with everyone cheering and throwing hats in the air.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10And being united.
0:29:10 > 0:29:14# I am sitting in the morning
0:29:14 > 0:29:16# At the diner on the corner
0:29:16 > 0:29:19# I am waiting at the counter
0:29:19 > 0:29:21# For the man to pour the coffee
0:29:21 > 0:29:23# And he fills it only halfway
0:29:23 > 0:29:26# And before I even argue
0:29:26 > 0:29:30# He is looking out the window at somebody coming in
0:29:30 > 0:29:33# I open up the paper
0:29:33 > 0:29:35# There's a story of an actor
0:29:35 > 0:29:37# Who had died while he was drinking
0:29:37 > 0:29:40# It was no-one I had heard of
0:29:40 > 0:29:42# And I'm turning to the horoscope
0:29:42 > 0:29:44# And looking for the funnies
0:29:44 > 0:29:47# When I'm feeling someone watching me
0:29:47 > 0:29:50# And so I raise my head... #
0:29:54 > 0:29:57At this point, the audience usually joins in.
0:29:57 > 0:30:00- Bravo.- You know, I just realised a technical issue with this song.
0:30:00 > 0:30:04It starts at the counter but it ends over here, looks through the window.
0:30:04 > 0:30:07- But that's good, isn't it? - I guess so.
0:30:07 > 0:30:12- It gives you a real 360 sense of the thing.- Yeah, thanks for that.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15No, it was wonderful. Thank you very much.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21The diner has come a long way from Rockwell's cheery hearth.
0:30:21 > 0:30:26Through the decades, the way it's been seen has mirrored America's prevailing mood.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Leaving New York, I think of the opening scene
0:30:34 > 0:30:38of one of the most affecting novels of the 20th century.
0:30:38 > 0:30:43John Updike's 1959 small-town epic, Rabbit Run.
0:30:44 > 0:30:48Despairing of his life of conformity, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom
0:30:48 > 0:30:52flees his young family and drives into the vast unknown.
0:30:54 > 0:30:58He pulls into a roadside diner.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01It is here that he has the great epiphany of his life.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08He has nowhere to run to. He's never going to fit in.
0:31:10 > 0:31:11Updike writes,
0:31:11 > 0:31:14"Somehow, though he can't put his finger on the difference,
0:31:14 > 0:31:17"he is unlike the other customers.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22"They sense it too, and look at him with hard eyes.
0:31:22 > 0:31:24"He had thought, he had read,
0:31:24 > 0:31:27"that from shore to shore, all America was the same.
0:31:27 > 0:31:32"He wonders, is it just these people I'm outside, or is it all America?"
0:31:35 > 0:31:39Rabbit bottles it and turns back for the safety of home.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48One like-minded soul who ran away but, in his case,
0:31:48 > 0:31:53kept going, is photographer Stephen Shore.
0:31:53 > 0:31:58Shore started his career in the '60s in Andy Warhol's Factory in New York.
0:31:58 > 0:32:04In 1972, he left the city to record the experience of the open road.
0:32:04 > 0:32:08Its ordinariness and its sudden moments of beauty.
0:32:21 > 0:32:27I was keeping a visual diary of certain categories of objects.
0:32:28 > 0:32:31Residential houses, store windows,
0:32:31 > 0:32:35toilets, the food I ate, signs.
0:32:35 > 0:32:39Sometimes I would see myself as an anthropologist
0:32:39 > 0:32:42using photography to explore the American culture at the time.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45So instead of penis gourds it was stacks of pancakes?
0:32:45 > 0:32:47Something like that!
0:32:47 > 0:32:52At the time, Shore's road pictures were reviled for their snapshot aesthetic,
0:32:52 > 0:32:57but he's now considered one of the most significant photographers
0:32:57 > 0:32:59of the 20th century.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03- What was it about diners you liked? - They seemed important to me.
0:33:03 > 0:33:08If I am going to examine American culture, it didn't have to be
0:33:08 > 0:33:12just the peaks of it that stood out,
0:33:12 > 0:33:14but what was everyday life.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16It's in everyday architecture.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20It's in what a plate of food looks like.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23It's in what people's homes look like, in everyday moments.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26And that could include having breakfast at a diner.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34Shore's pictures chronicle the stuff of holiday snaps,
0:33:34 > 0:33:38and yet they have the chilly detachment of crime scene photographs.
0:33:38 > 0:33:44Like Hopper, Shore appears to eavesdrop on a wider, darker human narrative,
0:33:44 > 0:33:48while at the same time remaining at one remove from it.
0:33:52 > 0:33:56I think there is, in some of my work, an aloneness.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59I was alone a lot.
0:33:59 > 0:34:06I was travelling for two or three months in a car, just being out there in this vast country.
0:34:10 > 0:34:15I found that after three days on the road,
0:34:15 > 0:34:19I get into a particular focused state of mind.
0:34:19 > 0:34:24It becomes almost a meditative activity. A very active, alert kind of meditation.
0:34:44 > 0:34:49I'm heading away from the gentrified East Coast into America's heartland
0:34:49 > 0:34:52to see another side of the diner.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55# I must be under your spell
0:34:55 > 0:34:58I'm under your spell... #
0:34:58 > 0:35:02In the 20th century, the diner established itself
0:35:02 > 0:35:05in the cultural landscape of America,
0:35:05 > 0:35:10but it also played a significant role in another aspect of life here.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14Believe it or not, the griddle of the humble diner
0:35:14 > 0:35:18became the crucible in which great change was forged.
0:35:25 > 0:35:27In the American South,
0:35:27 > 0:35:30the diner became the battleground in the Civil Rights war.
0:35:38 > 0:35:42In the 1950s, segregation flourished here in Nashville, Tennessee.
0:35:42 > 0:35:46Black Americans were barred from using white-only schools,
0:35:46 > 0:35:48buses, drinking fountains,
0:35:48 > 0:35:55and the in-house diners of department stores like Woolworth's and Walgreen's.
0:35:55 > 0:36:00African Americans were perfectly entitled to walk in,
0:36:00 > 0:36:02browse, make purchases.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06But they were forbidden from sitting alongside their white neighbours
0:36:06 > 0:36:07at the counter and ordering a meal.
0:36:07 > 0:36:11I'm sorry, management does not allow us to serve niggers in here.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14# Woke up this morning with my mind
0:36:14 > 0:36:18# Set on freedom... #
0:36:18 > 0:36:24In February 1960, a group of college students, following the principles
0:36:24 > 0:36:27of Martin Luther King, staged a sit-in at the lunch counter.
0:36:27 > 0:36:32Among them were brother and sister Matthew and Maxine Walker
0:36:32 > 0:36:34and their friend King Hollands.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38The code we were abiding by was very simple.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40Maintain a non-violent attitude.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44We were supposed to look straight ahead, not talk back,
0:36:44 > 0:36:45not hit back, of course.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49We were trained to cover up, protect ourselves
0:36:49 > 0:36:54so you couldn't get kicked or hit in the face.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56- Were you served?- No, of course not.
0:36:56 > 0:37:01- You were allowed in the building, allowed to the counter, but not served.- That's correct.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04That was the order of the day, segregation.
0:37:05 > 0:37:11You didn't enjoy the privileges that the majority population took for granted.
0:37:15 > 0:37:20Their presence at the lunch counter soon drew a crowd, and the unfolding events were all caught
0:37:20 > 0:37:23on this astonishing piece of film.
0:37:24 > 0:37:27Maxine is clearly visible in it.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30Can you bring yourself to repeat the things that were said?
0:37:30 > 0:37:36Nigger, get off this chair, coon, I'll kick your...whatever.
0:37:36 > 0:37:40Leave us alone. All kinds of things the toughs would say.
0:37:40 > 0:37:45The students kept to their code of non-violence,
0:37:45 > 0:37:47and then the thugs struck.
0:37:56 > 0:37:59It was Maxine's white friend, sitting silently alongside her,
0:37:59 > 0:38:02who bore the brunt of the violence.
0:38:02 > 0:38:06He was beaten rather seriously, pulled off his chair.
0:38:06 > 0:38:12And of course, I, following the rules, was unable to help.
0:38:12 > 0:38:16I just had to sit there and look forwards.
0:38:16 > 0:38:21We had been trained to expect something similar.
0:38:21 > 0:38:28But this actual fight was just something that I'd never seen.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31The things that were most upsetting to people
0:38:31 > 0:38:37was when they would try to put a cigarette out on one of the ladies in the group.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41- Your rules were, don't get involved? - You had to sit there.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45That's terrible. They were extinguishing cigarettes on women?
0:38:45 > 0:38:51- Yes.- What did the store people or the police do? Did they just let this carry on?
0:38:51 > 0:38:56For a while, then WE were arrested, the white people were let go.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59The ones who perpetrated the violence.
0:39:00 > 0:39:04- On what grounds were you arrested? - Disorderly conduct.
0:39:04 > 0:39:09Disorderly conduct, just for sitting there, wanting a hamburger or whatever it was.
0:39:17 > 0:39:22Despite the violence and arrests, the sit-ins continued.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26Three weeks later, another protest was staged at the lunch counter
0:39:26 > 0:39:28of a bus terminal.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32This foray took place on March 16th.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36- We went and we were served. - That's you in front, is it?
0:39:36 > 0:39:40- Yes.- You must have felt quite elated about that.- Yes.
0:39:40 > 0:39:44We were the first black people to be served at a lunch counter in Nashville.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48- But not without cost.- What was the cost?- My two front teeth.
0:39:49 > 0:39:54As we were eating, a man came from the kitchen.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58He had a large butcher's knife in his hand.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01As you can see, there's a surprised look on my face,
0:40:01 > 0:40:05on a couple of other people's faces,
0:40:05 > 0:40:10cos we were looking at this fellow with a two-foot butcher's knife coming towards us.
0:40:10 > 0:40:15He put it down, but took a swipe at me,
0:40:15 > 0:40:20I fell, hit my head on the counter, and that's how I lost my teeth.
0:40:22 > 0:40:26The students' demonstrations not only rocked the segregated South,
0:40:26 > 0:40:31they gave rise to a nationwide campaign to end racial oppression.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34And it had all begun at the diner counter.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37I have a dream...
0:40:40 > 0:40:45..my four little children will one day live in a nation...
0:40:45 > 0:40:51Four years later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act,
0:40:51 > 0:40:55prohibiting segregation throughout the United States.
0:40:55 > 0:40:59At first sight, it's extraordinary to me that the homely old diner
0:40:59 > 0:41:03should get itself mixed up with these big political issues.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06And yet, maybe it's not so odd after all.
0:41:06 > 0:41:10All humankind comes to the diner, or at least it can do now.
0:41:10 > 0:41:13And what is the essence of this place, its business,
0:41:13 > 0:41:18if not people sitting down and breaking bread together?
0:41:18 > 0:41:22It's the stuff of democracy, the stuff of life.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29The point isn't lost on politicians.
0:41:29 > 0:41:32They don't bother kissing babies any more.
0:41:32 > 0:41:36No, their laughing gear is seen to better advantage negotiating
0:41:36 > 0:41:39a plate of chow at the diner.
0:41:39 > 0:41:44In terms of spin-doctoring, the meatloaf is the message.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58But the big irony is that while the diner was moving to the social
0:41:58 > 0:42:03and political heart of America, its own survival was under threat.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14The '60s saw the Golden Arches go up, as well as other
0:42:14 > 0:42:17globe-straddling franchises.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20They took the guesswork out of kerbside grazing,
0:42:20 > 0:42:22but also much of the charm.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25If the diner was going to survive,
0:42:25 > 0:42:27it would need its champions.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40I'm about to meet one of America's most popular artists,
0:42:40 > 0:42:42and I bet you've never even heard of him.
0:42:42 > 0:42:48It's funny because in his own way, he's as big as jeans or Coca-Cola.
0:42:50 > 0:42:54# Welcome to my world
0:42:56 > 0:42:59# Won't you come on in? #
0:43:02 > 0:43:08John Baeder is a master of what's known as photorealistic painting.
0:43:08 > 0:43:11- Hello, John. How are you?- Very well.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15- Nice to meet you.- Come on in.
0:43:15 > 0:43:22During a three-decade odyssey documenting the American roadside,
0:43:22 > 0:43:26John has painted over 300 diners, and they can fetch a small fortune.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30This is from an old roadhouse in Kansas. It used to light up.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39Here's the, what I call not just the studio,
0:43:39 > 0:43:44- but the playroom, sanctuary. - Yes, the den.
0:43:44 > 0:43:48I'm working on this painting right now, it's about halfway done.
0:43:48 > 0:43:51- May I sit here?- You certainly may. I'll join you.
0:43:51 > 0:43:57- Where are we looking at?- It was in a city called Boonton, New Jersey, around 1977.
0:43:57 > 0:44:04It has so much going for it, the eye moving from the liquor store to the signage, to the diner,
0:44:04 > 0:44:09you've got the horizontals and the verticals which create a lot of tension.
0:44:09 > 0:44:14Back in the day, John was a successful, well-paid advertising executive.
0:44:14 > 0:44:17The Don Draper of the South.
0:44:17 > 0:44:21But in 1972, he had a road-to-Damascus moment
0:44:21 > 0:44:25and quit his glamorous Mad Men role to paint hot dog vans.
0:44:25 > 0:44:29British viewers see Mad Men now. Was it like that in your day?
0:44:29 > 0:44:33It was exactly like that and it was more than like that.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35Three Martinis for lunch and then maybe...
0:44:35 > 0:44:40- Not only that, it was lunch and stingers afterwards.- Stingers?- Yeah.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43Advertising came easy to me and it was kind of fun.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47The greatest part about advertising was the people.
0:44:48 > 0:44:52- Meeting some terrific people. - It all sounds very exciting and glamorous.
0:44:52 > 0:44:56- Why did you give it up? - Self-respect.
0:44:56 > 0:44:59I got tired of doing expensive lies.
0:44:59 > 0:45:00I always wanted to paint.
0:45:00 > 0:45:04So I left the business in 1972 and started painting.
0:45:04 > 0:45:10I was enamoured with motels, gas stations, tourist camps and diners.
0:45:10 > 0:45:13Why were you so fascinated by them?
0:45:13 > 0:45:17They reminded me of temples of lost civilisations.
0:45:17 > 0:45:18That was like an overview.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21As I started painting them,
0:45:21 > 0:45:27I got more involved myself in a spiritual and psychological level.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30I learned more about the diner
0:45:30 > 0:45:35as an object that represented the hearth, the home,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39the unconscious feminine side that all men have,
0:45:39 > 0:45:44that most men don't want to admit to.
0:45:44 > 0:45:47And so it became a really important part of my life.
0:45:47 > 0:45:54Why don't you paint McDonald's or Wendy's or Taco Bells,
0:45:54 > 0:45:57wouldn't there be an aesthetic interest in that?
0:45:57 > 0:46:01None. None. They have no interest at all. They have no character.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04You know, we live in a new America,
0:46:04 > 0:46:07and...it's fortunate that we lived in the old America,
0:46:07 > 0:46:09the America that was,
0:46:09 > 0:46:13and that's what I'm trying to keep - the America that was.
0:46:13 > 0:46:17I consider myself more of a preservationist than painter.
0:46:17 > 0:46:23This is my outlet for preserving our American culture.
0:46:23 > 0:46:28John's paintings have piqued the appetite of his fellow Americans.
0:46:28 > 0:46:33He's persuaded them that they need the diner.
0:46:33 > 0:46:35CLATTERING
0:46:35 > 0:46:37Excuse me, John, I think they're all right. They're OK.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39It's OK, they're plastic.
0:46:39 > 0:46:43Yeah. They caught my eye though.
0:46:43 > 0:46:45They look a bit Buddha-like.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52For John, it's about preserving an aesthetic and an entrepreneurial spirit.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55But I suspect it goes even deeper than that.
0:46:55 > 0:46:57The diner is irreplaceable,
0:46:57 > 0:47:01because it has come to embody the spirit of America itself.
0:47:14 > 0:47:17My road trip across America ends in LA -
0:47:17 > 0:47:21home of the art form that I believe comes closest to telling us
0:47:21 > 0:47:25what both America and the diner are really all about.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32From the 1940s, the diner's been used as a 20th century
0:47:32 > 0:47:35equivalent of the Wild West saloon.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39Give me a cup of coffee and a doughnut if that's enough for it.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43In Sullivan's Travels, it is the anonymous edge-of-town eatery
0:47:43 > 0:47:48where the down-and-out hero encounters Veronica Lake's sultry seductress.
0:47:48 > 0:47:53- Give him some ham and eggs.- Yes, ma'am.- That's very kind of you, sister, but I'm not hungry.
0:47:55 > 0:47:56- Hey!- Yeah?
0:47:56 > 0:48:00You go round the other side of the counter.
0:48:00 > 0:48:01- What?- You heard me.
0:48:01 > 0:48:07And in the great film noir The Killers, the peace of a cosy small-town diner is shattered
0:48:07 > 0:48:10when two hired guns come looking for their prey.
0:48:10 > 0:48:14Better go around, bright boy.
0:48:14 > 0:48:20And the diner also plays a key role in one of my favourite B movies,
0:48:20 > 0:48:22the Steve McQueen chiller, The Blob.
0:48:25 > 0:48:29When the good people of Pheonixville are terrorised by a giant amoeba of space goo,
0:48:29 > 0:48:34they flee to the last symbolic refuge of humanity. Yes, the diner.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38DRAMATIC MUSIC
0:48:38 > 0:48:41- What happened?- It's all over!
0:48:44 > 0:48:47In Heat, the dining booth's used as a neutral space
0:48:47 > 0:48:51where Pacino's cop and De Niro's robber suspend
0:48:51 > 0:48:54their chase and go mano-a-mano with their minds.
0:48:54 > 0:48:57You are going down.
0:49:08 > 0:49:11# I was born in a barn
0:49:11 > 0:49:14# My mamma died and my daddy got drunk... #
0:49:14 > 0:49:18To really get to grips with cinema's relationship
0:49:18 > 0:49:23with the pre-fabbed cafe, I'm meeting a seasoned film critic.
0:49:23 > 0:49:28John Patterson has sat through more movies than I've had hot chilli dogs.
0:49:28 > 0:49:32In the movies, the diner is a special kind of space. They're a mythic place.
0:49:32 > 0:49:36And it's a zone of escape. People are in flight,
0:49:36 > 0:49:41the kinds of characters you might meet at the booths, you know,
0:49:41 > 0:49:43criminals on the run, hired killers, who knows?
0:49:43 > 0:49:51Divorcees with rambunctious kids and a father in his car, ten truck stops back in pursuit.
0:49:51 > 0:49:53Things like that.
0:49:57 > 0:49:59- Coffee, black.- The same.
0:49:59 > 0:50:03- I'll have some pie.- Some of that lemon meringue...
0:50:03 > 0:50:07Guys, guys, I'm sorry, we're closed.
0:50:09 > 0:50:10I said COFFEE!
0:50:12 > 0:50:14If you think of movies like The History Of Violence where
0:50:14 > 0:50:17there's an extremely violent murder scene...
0:50:17 > 0:50:19SHOTS FIRED
0:50:22 > 0:50:24The fact that it's in a diner...
0:50:24 > 0:50:29a placid, calm, small-town place, in this instance,
0:50:29 > 0:50:33is set against the violence, and makes it that much more shocking
0:50:33 > 0:50:36that it happens in such a quotidian, mundane place.
0:50:36 > 0:50:41This sweet and sour combo of folksiness and violence
0:50:41 > 0:50:44was irresistible to director Martin Scorsese.
0:50:44 > 0:50:47In Goodfellas, he used his trademark point-of-view film style
0:50:47 > 0:50:51but combined this with a camera trick that allowed him
0:50:51 > 0:50:54to do something exceptional with his diner scene.
0:50:54 > 0:50:57'So I met Jimmy in a crowded place we both knew.
0:50:57 > 0:50:59'I got there 15 minutes early...'
0:50:59 > 0:51:02Scorsese uses a technique that Hitchcock uses in Vertigo -
0:51:02 > 0:51:05dollying in with the camera whilst zooming out.
0:51:05 > 0:51:09which causes a complete distortion of space,
0:51:09 > 0:51:14while keeping the central figure in the frame absolutely still.
0:51:14 > 0:51:16You can see it in Jaws...
0:51:16 > 0:51:20Usually the habit was to do it very fast,
0:51:20 > 0:51:21but Scorsese does it very slow...
0:51:21 > 0:51:24'He was jumpy, he hadn't touched a thing.
0:51:24 > 0:51:28'On the surface, of course, everything was supposed to be fine.'
0:51:28 > 0:51:33It's only halfway through the scene, you go, "What the hell is going on with the space in this place?"
0:51:33 > 0:51:38And if you watch the cars in the background, they bloat and get bigger and distort,
0:51:38 > 0:51:45and it really adds to the extreme gathering paranoia of the two guys, eye-to-eye like this,
0:51:45 > 0:51:49pretending everything's normal as the world just goes...bong.
0:51:49 > 0:51:53'That's when I knew I would never have come back from Florida alive.'
0:52:03 > 0:52:09There's one film-maker who saw the diner as such a loaded metaphor
0:52:09 > 0:52:11he wrote an entire film about it.
0:52:11 > 0:52:15# Somewhere, beyond the sea
0:52:15 > 0:52:19# Somewhere, waiting for me
0:52:19 > 0:52:22# My lover stands on golden... #
0:52:24 > 0:52:28Before he made Rain Man and Good Morning Vietnam, Barry Levinson
0:52:28 > 0:52:32started his career with this tale of a bunch of guys hanging out
0:52:32 > 0:52:34in a Baltimore diner at the end of the '50s.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38What do you want? What are you majoring in? Still...?
0:52:38 > 0:52:40LAUGHTER
0:52:40 > 0:52:45Levinson rooted the story in his own life experiences.
0:52:45 > 0:52:48You know, it was a lot of useless hours hanging around,
0:52:48 > 0:52:50shooting the bull about anything under the sun.
0:52:50 > 0:52:53And here's how nuts we were...
0:52:53 > 0:52:57Say we were with a date and we used to ride by the diner,
0:52:57 > 0:53:02you'd see what cars were there and if certain cars where there, we would drop off our date
0:53:02 > 0:53:08and get to the diner cos it would be a much more interesting night.
0:53:08 > 0:53:13It seems crazy. We would be there till 4 or 5 in the morning on the weekends.
0:53:13 > 0:53:19You dropped off your date and went over and started talking about one subject and whatever...
0:53:19 > 0:53:21And this is pre-Google...
0:53:21 > 0:53:25So you could be arguing about something forever.
0:53:25 > 0:53:29Nowadays, "No, it was 1948!" That conversation is over.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33- Google's ruined all that! - It killed that whole kind of arguing over things.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37Watching that movie, Barry, you do sense all the years you clocked up,
0:53:37 > 0:53:43they weren't wasted, because there's loving detail in there.
0:53:43 > 0:53:49Yeah, well, you'd see all those things - how they'd deal with the ketchup bottles,
0:53:49 > 0:53:53one is three quarters gone and the other's had just a little.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56They'd put one on top and let it drain into that one,
0:53:56 > 0:53:59so that's full and get rid of the other.
0:53:59 > 0:54:05And plates, they had that spring-loaded thing to drop 'em in. Always be at that top level.
0:54:05 > 0:54:09They were very specific things that used to go on, like rituals.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11- Come on!- Eddie's getting married.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16It's crazy. I mean, with him it was nuts, but with Eddie, it's lunacy!
0:54:16 > 0:54:18Hey, marriage is all right!
0:54:18 > 0:54:23'The friends are on the eve of a new decade, but also of settling down.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26'For them, the diner is the repository of adolescence.
0:54:26 > 0:54:30'It is everything that they are about to lose.'
0:54:30 > 0:54:34- Tell him.- Eddie's giving Elyse a football quiz, if she fails, the marriage is off.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38Football quiz?! Come on, you putting me on?
0:54:38 > 0:54:41There was a great naivete certainly,
0:54:41 > 0:54:45and a real lack of understanding about women.
0:54:45 > 0:54:51The Eddie character was giving his wife a test about football, which was true.
0:54:51 > 0:54:56Um...you know, to see if she'd pass and that'd be the deciding factor to see if he'd get married.
0:54:57 > 0:55:05That kind of behaviour was very much what played out in the '50s
0:55:05 > 0:55:07in terms of male bonding.
0:55:07 > 0:55:11I keep thinking I'll be missing out on things, you know.
0:55:13 > 0:55:15That's what marriage is all about.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21I never did a lot before, you know.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23What?
0:55:25 > 0:55:27I never did a lot of...
0:55:28 > 0:55:30..screwing around.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33Some, of course, a little.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36A little?
0:55:37 > 0:55:38A little.
0:55:41 > 0:55:43You son of a bitch.
0:55:44 > 0:55:46You're a virgin, aren't you?
0:55:48 > 0:55:51Technically.
0:55:51 > 0:55:56- You made Diner in the '80s, it's set...late '50s.- '59.
0:55:56 > 0:55:59In terms of American history, what do you get
0:55:59 > 0:56:02if you're looking back from that distance at that age, do you think?
0:56:02 > 0:56:07It was certainly a time before the age of cynicism happened in terms of government.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11There wasn't the darker aspects that came with the Vietnam War,
0:56:11 > 0:56:16or Watergate and many of the things that played out after that.
0:56:16 > 0:56:18Terrorism would have been non-existent,
0:56:18 > 0:56:23crime in general wasn't particularly pervasive.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27So, it was thought of as a period of innocence,
0:56:27 > 0:56:32but it was the bubbling up, you know, of many things to come.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44Over the ensuing decades,
0:56:44 > 0:56:48while the nation shuddered under the blows of social upheaval,
0:56:48 > 0:56:53the diner became the place where America's innocence was preserved.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56It's America before the fall.
0:57:05 > 0:57:08# Say a word for Jimmy Brown... #
0:57:10 > 0:57:12My trip across the States has come to an end,
0:57:12 > 0:57:14but I have one last pit stop to make.
0:57:19 > 0:57:23# ..Not the shirt right off his back
0:57:23 > 0:57:26# He ain't got nothing at all... #
0:57:33 > 0:57:36Well, I finally made it to the frontier, to the desert,
0:57:36 > 0:57:38and guess what, there's a diner here...
0:57:38 > 0:57:43the Last Chance diner, just like the last chance saloon in those Western movies.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48Actually this isn't a real diner at all, it's a movie set itself.
0:57:56 > 0:58:03Knocked up back in 1990 for a Dennis Hopper thriller, this set
0:58:03 > 0:58:06has backdropped countless B movies and pop promos.
0:58:13 > 0:58:18Diners come and diners go, but the diner itself goes on forever.
0:58:18 > 0:58:21And I think that's because it's such a great symbol of this place,
0:58:21 > 0:58:25both to people who live here and those of us who don't normally.
0:58:25 > 0:58:28I think that's why writers, artists, photographers,
0:58:28 > 0:58:33film-makers continue to be drawn back to the diner.
0:58:33 > 0:58:36In a sense, as long as there's still a diner in business,
0:58:36 > 0:58:39you can still see the soul of America.
0:58:45 > 0:58:48We've always got the diner.
0:58:48 > 0:58:52Yeah, we always got the diner.
0:58:52 > 0:58:56MUSIC: "Holly Holy" by Neil Diamond
0:59:02 > 0:59:04# Sing a song
0:59:07 > 0:59:10# Sing a song of songs
0:59:12 > 0:59:14# Sing it out
0:59:14 > 0:59:17# Sing it strong... #
0:59:18 > 0:59:21Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:21 > 0:59:24E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk