Before getting on to Exercise 2.2, in particular the critique of a ‘road movie’, I thought it would be worthwhile first thinking about what amounts to a road movie, its roots in literature, and some common or key themes that I feel I have detected. I will then settle on just one film (I think I have already chosen the one) for further comment as part of the exercise proper later.
A car chase does not a road movie make! I rule out many films in which there might be a lot of action on the road (for example, Bullitt, in my view the greatest car chase ever, The French Connection, the second best, or any of the Mad Max movies, even the most recent, Thunder Road, which has some elements of what might otherwise amount to a road movie). Similarly I rule out movies where travel is merely incidental to the plot but not essential to it: for example two Agatha Christie thrillers, Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile. In both cases there is a journey but the nature of those journeys are not essential to the underlying murder mystery, whodunnit, plots. They could just as easily have been static, set in a hotel or stately house.
Rather it seems to me the key factor is that the journey, whether physical or metaphorical, is integral to the plot and is part of its development and forward motion. The journey is not necessarily the whole point of the plot but is an inherent part of it. Here I think of the likes of, to make a fairly random selection, Thelma and Louise (which I have to say I have seen just the once and disliked intensely), Easy Rider, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Even Bergman’s The Seventh Seal I would count in here as the journey of the knight is of central importance: it is the journey of the crusaders back to Europe from the Holy Land that helps to spread the plague that carries off most of the characters at the end. Similarly The Blues Brothers. It is not just an extended car chase, though certainly up there with the greats, but the whole film is about a journey, both a physical one while the band is put back together and the concert receipts are run from the ballroom to Chicago, and a psychological/allegorical one as Jake and Elwood effectively grow up and take responsibility for their actions and for the benefit of others. (It has to be included in any event just because it is so funny!)
On a somewhat more serious note I would mention Almost Sunrise in which two US Army veterans return from service in Iraq with all sorts of traumatic psychological problems (PTSD) and seek relief by walking across America. This was a recent choice of the film club run by Tricycle Magazine, a Buddhist review, though not a specifically Buddhist film, and the link below is intended for subscribers to the magazine. It does at least show a brief trailer. The film is also available on DVD, and I guess might be accessible through some of the TV streaming services but I have not investigated. Even if not easily available I nevertheless mention it as it is a fine example of one of the key themes (which I have already touched on in passing in connection with The Blues Brothers and to which I shall return).
I see that The Road is mentioned in the course material. I have not seen the film but I have at least read the book. I confess it is not the sort of book that I would ordinarily read; someone lent it to my wife, it was lying around and I picked it up more or less idly. While I cannot say that I was wholly engaged, let alone convinced, by it I found it interesting enough and I guess I just gave it the benefit of the doubt on the basis it won a Pulitzer Prize. However, looking back I can see there is an important link back to much earlier literature that is worth noting and to which I will return below.
I pass over for now Kerouac’s On the Road, simply because I have never succeeded in wading my way through it.
Now turning to earlier literature there are a number of really important works that are built around and upon the idea of a journey and what that means for, and affects, the central characters. These are really the precursors of all modern road movies and set the abiding themes. Whilst I will look briefly at these chronologically I do not suggest that they represent a continuous or congruous tradition. They just happen to touch on the same issues and use similar forms.
Perhaps the very first example of a ‘road movie’ is the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (second millennium BCE). It is really only the last three of the tablets that record the life and exploits of Gilgamesh in his wanderings and quest for immortality so it is really only this latter third or so of the whole epic that might be regarded as fitting the bill here. The key points though are there and in some ways established for subsequent works: the journey in search of a particular goal which either is, or is not, found. (I will come back to this point anon.)
Next Homer’s The Odyssey (eighth century BCE?), the story of the tortured and tortuous journey of Ulysses after the end of the Trojan war to his home in Ithaca. This is much more ‘modern’ in its form and much easier, and more accessible, for a modern reader, not to mention much longer, with a greater number of adventures and encounters on the way.
The Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (sixth century BCE) telling of the journey of the Hebrews from captivity in Egypt to the Promised Land, led by Moses. (Does this mean that Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 film The Ten Commandments, with Charlton Heston as an over the top Moses, counts as a road movie?)
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy (1320). A metaphorical journey by Dante down through the circles of Hell, through Purgatory, and finally to Paradise where he not only witnesses the Almighty but is reunited with his beloved Beatrice.
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (late 14th century). A precursor of all the road movies and books that seek to present a picture of the contemporary country in which they are set. As On the Road is “the great American novel”, so the Tales are a portrait of 14th century England.
John Bunyan (1677-84). As with Dante, an allegorical journey to salvation in the Celestial City. (Oddly, although I have read it, probably more than just a couple of times since I was first introduced to Bunyan while at grammar school. I do not actually seem to have a copy of the book and so have not included it in the citations below.)
From these in many ways disparate sources there are a couple of particular themes that emerge. Each epic involves the main protagonist going through a series of encounters and tests which determine the outcome of the journey, resulting in either redemption or perdition. Gilgamesh fails in his search for immortality as a result a result of failing the test of not sleeping for a week. Ulysses reaches some form of redemption as he eventually makes it back home and regains his wife, Penelope, having largely remained true to his quest, despite his questionable dalliance with Circe. Moses does not cross over to the Promised Land because he failed a test set for him by God on the journey: he did not trust God’s word and struck the rock again in anger when water did not appear the first time. He was not redeemed. Dante on the other hand remains true and comes into the presence of the Divine. The Canterbury pilgrims reach the shrine of Thomas à Becket, despite all their ribaldry and naughtiness. Pilgrim is likewise redeemed by completing his journey despite the distractions, temptations and obstacles along the way.
These themes play out in the modern stories. Thelma and Louise plunge to their deaths at the end of a journey that becomes more and more criminal. The hippies in Easy Rider discover in their search for “America” that it is a place of ignorance, bigotry, isolationism, and hated, paying the ultimate price. The knight and lost of the other characters joint death’s dance at the end of the Seventh Seal, carried off by the plague. The travelling player, his wife and baby though are spared, arguably because of their simplicity and inherent goodness, so we have both perdition and redemption in one story. As I have already indicated Jake and Ellwood Blues both achieve a measure of redemption. In Priscilla Bernadette finds a man who loves and respects her, Mitzi is reconciled with his wife, at last bonds with his son, and finds contentment with Felicia.
The two Iraq veterans eventually find their peace of mind despite challenges and set-backs along the way.
In The Road the outcome strikes me as oddly Biblical, in a way echoing Moses: having guided his son across the country to safety he does not reach their goal, finally succumbing to some unidentified illness. This one stands apart to an extent though in that it is not immediately what his failure, that warrants perdition, actually amounts to. 2001 is also perhaps a little ambiguous. I tend though to favour the view, that I gather was Kubrick’s own, that although Dave Bowman dies, suggesting perdition, he is nevertheless reborn as the Star Child, elevated to a higher level of being, creating “a new heaven”, and so is redeemed.
So, next is my brief crit of my choice of road movie, and without giving away right now which film it is, I will say I have chosen one with a redemptive ending!
Alighieri, D, (Milano, P, ed) (1977). The Portable Dante. London: Penguin
Bates, E S, (ed), (1937). The Bible: Designed to be read as living literature, the old and the new testaments in the King James version. New York: Simon and Schuster
Chaucer, G, (Coghill, N, trans), (1979). The Canterbury Tales. London: Penguin
George, A, (trans.), (1999). The Epic of Gilgamesh. London: Allan Lane
Homer (Pope, A, trans) (1942). The Odyssey. New York: Heritage Press
McCarthy, C, (2007). The Road. London: Picador
http://tricycle.org/filmclub/almost-sunrise
Collins, M, (2016). Almost Sunrise
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