Road Movies Analysis - Research Paper Example

Road Movies Analysis The American road movie Easy rider was a revolution, making its mark in the American society. The movie incorporated Wyatt and Billy driving their motorcycles from Los Angeles to New Orleans only to find harsh local citizens. The film shows distinct movement from the traditional sense of the country’s political situation to the current situation in the 1960’s. The film adopted the south West terrain which was the contributing factor to the culture that was being experienced. The south west was the protagonist’s home place responsible for discrimination, violence and racism. It was the place where the two drivers did not receive the best of treatments, experiencing attack and insults due to their long hair. The depictions of the African American poverty with the touch of modernity with the gas stations were later to indicate more to the story. The first terrain discussed above showed the nationalism that was being experienced already and the fight for those against it (Laderman, 179). Vagabond was the distinguishing film between the European and American road movie. It was the first depicting a woman on the road, the film does not put much emphasis on the drive but on the isolation, and lack of interest in being part of a home. Mona does not cross over borders or territories but rather circulates in the same place south of France. The camera shifts from Mona to other scenes such as the branches of trees alongside the road to create a feeling of what will happen in future. The non narrative escape from the road drifts induces coldness in the film. More attention is given to Mona’s body rather than the car she is travelling in. This is a major distinction between the European and American road movie. The sound techniques in the film are modern classic tracking the camera and only changes to focus on significant objects or sceneries (Laderman, 268). Stranger than paradise was an American Road movie was produced by Win Wenders when the activities of this genre were inactive. He established a film producing company named as Road movies. This particular film adopted a journey structure where the film characters taking a journey that stopped frequently by having long pauses in between the drive. The journey takes a therapeutic remedy. The first driving scene is staged with the camera being at the back of the seat of the car where Eddie and Willie are going to escape from the town. They are driving the windscreen is being used as a shield in which we can see them. They are travelling spectators and this is one of the techniques used in the film. There is nothing going around the film and the world outside, which gives the film the modern contours. It fuses morbidity and reflexity to give the driving theme the only thing in the film. There is little emotion being conveyed in the film since they are driving to a half-baked family union with Eva (Laderman, 149) Bandlands revolves around Holly and Kit as they drive along the band lands of American Midwest in a bid to escape a series on murders by Kit. The film uses a compelling tone to give it its intense strength and a gothic touch added with irony. The film is more of a self reflexive piece and not a geopolitical referencing. The film starts with a scene where kit is working as a garbage man alongside a slow moving track; this is used to shoe one of the reasons for the road film whose purpose is created by family, romance and economic hardship. Kit falls in love with Holly and they cannot make it official since Holly’s father would not approve of it due to the job kit is working on. He makes an effort of quitting his job and visiting the unemployment office only to end up working at a slaughter house. (Laderman, 128) The sound is just one of the techniques used to bring out the intensity of the film other techniques used by the film to relate the story include the landscape in its deeper sense. The first encounter of Kit and Holly’s father was in a vast landscape where he was painting a billboard which created a gothic effect on the film. The landscape is not only archetypal it also shows the overshadowing consumerism and advertising towering over kit. The father refuses to accept his request to give them consent; later things turn wild as Kim kills him, burn the house and hit the road with Holly. Once they are on the road they establish themselves a makeshift on the woods which gives them a sense of physical stability and security even when the setting is anti-social and outcast. The tree house is a reflection of childhood stories such as Tarzan which showed people living like animals and not human beings and this presents a tenuous family home rather than the usual stable environment. The tree house is invaded by the cowboys with a modern look which represent the invasion of Vietnam by the U.S army and kits kills them; with this development they are back on the road again well aware of the lack of rest and peace. Their aimless mobility is also presented when Kits decide to spin a bottle in the middle of nowhere to decide which way to follow, the bottle points at the direction they are from to represent the lack of safety wherever they go. The landscape with no specific landmarks brings out the theme of aimlessness with no sense of direction. In the film easy rider Wyatt and Billy had an encounter with the south West protagonists who enjoy the freedom, hospitality and the beauty of the wilderness. The film chooses to demonize this people by showing the 1960 struggles of racism, violence and ignorance. The south is home to bitter civil rights activist, the separations leader in Alabama and other things. It is in this place where Wyatt and Billy encounter insults at the café, and torture by being jailed. The figurative nature of the scenes in this town to represent the people who were significant to the ideas such as racism brings out the protagonist in this film (Laderman, 182). The hippie master who offers Mona a job can be termed as the protagonists in this film. Mona does not want to work and her sense of freedom from anything is revealed in her homelessness. The hippie on the other hand id quite educated with a master in philosophy and shows his distaste for her negative attitude. He throws her out on the streets after she steals from him. This is the protagonist in this film. One would expect that Mona would be assimilated to the professors’ lifestyle but she is not. (Laderman, 269) The protagonist in the film ballands is presented in two scenes; the first being the experience where kit kills holly’s father with a gun. After the father refused to give consent to their relationship, Kim opts to take her by force. He takes a gun and storms into Holly’s home where he starts parking her things, her father’s objections are met by a bullet in the stomach and Kit burns the house to conceal the evidence of the murder. The second protagonists in this film are the cowboys who attack Kit and Holly in their tent in the woods. The scene ends with Kit killing them and they are back on the road. Holly thinks that they deserved it since they were bounty hunters. The two scenes are created with a backdrop of intense sound which gives the film the strong sense (Laderman, 127). When analyzing films one gets to understand the aspects of a film which include the meaning and the connotations. The films may be either social economic or political aspects that are being conveyed either directly or in a figurative way. The film techniques also play a key role in determining how the message is put across. These techniques include the sound and visual techniques which are combined to achieve the desired effect. When analyzing a film one will think that the results of the analysis would be subjective to a large extent but one has to stay true to the film to ensure objectivity in the analysis. After analyzing and watching, Thelma and Louise became the movie with the most significance to me. The reasons for having Thelma and Louise as my choice of film are largely contributed by the filming techniques and the plot of the film. The first thing it is a female dominated film and at that time it was a male genre that was preferred for the role. It was a break away from the usual male drivers who hit the road. The choice of the settings was symbolic to give more meaning to the whole film; the landscape appears deep and vast with a forced element. Color and light intensity created in the film achieve a super-realistic effect. The film’s background appears painted to give the viewer an expectation of a complex emotional experience and not just the story being told. The surrealistic dreamy look is also seen where they stood at the roadside as they were approaching Monument valley at night. The landscape appears to be naturally lit but the back of the car is artificially lit to create an expectation again. The characterization uses contrast to show the two characters, Thelma is the neat, pretty lady with a controlling husband. Her actions are well organized like the way she packs her clothes neatly when leaving for the trip, she also leaves her husband a note in a romantic feel. Louise on the other hand is quite reckless and throws her inner wear in a dusty place. The close –up shots use cutting method to induce excitement and pace to the film to advance the action in the movie. Such a scene is shown where Thelma and Louise are on the road and suddenly a computer screen becomes the main focus with the sheriff reading out names and addresses. He reads Louse name and address and we now know he has connected the two to the scene of crime. They will be trailed without their knowledge. These are basically the reasons I chose this film. Work Cited Laderman, David. Driving visions: exploring the road movie. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2002. Print. Read More