A few thoughts on The

Road Movie

Geoff Lealand
Screen and Media Studies
University of Waikato
June 2008
 The Road Movie
Frequently referred to as a film genre (as AS90279
Demonstrate understanding of a media genre), ie
the grouping together of similar films, which share
elements of:
• characters
• narrative
• settings
• music/soundtrack
• themes/values
and, most specifically • mode of transport
Adapted from Jones & Thompson (2007) NCEA Level 2: Media Studies
 Genre
Genre is what we collectively believe it to
be.
Barry K. Grant

Genre films essentially ask the audience,

‘Do you still want to believe this?’
Leo Braudy
 Road movies: characters
• Stock (formulaic) characters eg the sullen driver,
the joker in the back seat, the sexy young hitch-
hiker
• Little Miss Sunshine (2007)
- the angst-ridden teen
- uptight father (driver)
- the harassed mother
- the gay (and depressive) uncle
- the grandfather (with a drug habit)
- the plump, slightly misplaced daughter
A dysfunctional family, which becomes functional as a result
of tragedy and triumph on the road journey?
 Other characters
• Characters on the run from the law--or from both
the law and the lawless (eg No Country for Old
Men)
• Characters on the run from themselves, or their
past (eg Sideways)
• Characters on voyages of discovery (or self-
discovery)
• Characters along the way (eg crazed locals;
corrupt sheriffs, helpful medchanics etc)
 Road movies: Narrative
Most road movies follow the classic
Hollywood narrative structure (or ‘arc’) ie
equilibrium/disequilibrium/equilibrium or, more
specifically, set-up/turning
point/catalyst/complications/climax/
resolution. Road movies have a
beginning/middle/end, following a linear
narrative and plot trajectory ie characters set out
on a journey, complications develop along the
way, and a final destination is reached.
 Narrative theory
It has been suggested that the great majority
of Hollywood films are variations on two
essential stories:
• The fish out of water
• The odd couple
Both these stories are ideal for the road
movie?
 Road movies: settings
Obviously, the road is paramount--usually highways
which head towards an unknown horizon, crossing
large expanses of unpopulated landscape. Cities
are to be avoided, and small towns offer both
temptations and threats.
The road movie is primarily a continental
(American?) genre (the lure of the West).
Australia, another vast continent, also generates
road movies eg Priscilla, Travelling North.
 More on settings
• Island cultures (UK, NZ)--and highly
‘domesticated’ landscapes-- are less likely
sites for road movies.
NZ - Goodbye Pork Pie (1981)
– Snakeskin (2001)
UK?
 Road movies: music/soundtrack
The road trip is always accompanied by
music, as either soundtrack (non-
diegetic) or car radio/tape/CD player
(diegetic).
 Road movies:themes/values
• the search for freedom or release
• discarding or escaping the past
• on the run
• creating a new identity
• finding one’s self or love or family
• fantasies of adventure (financial, sexual, violent)
• the disintegration of the dream (dystopia)
• others?
 Road movies: mode of transport
Obviously, the car but also occasionally a bus
or motor-home (eg About Schmidt)
A sub-genre would be the long-distance
motorcycle trip (Easy Rider, Motorcycle
Diaries)
 So …
Is the road movie a coherent genre? There are many
varieties of road movies and they often
incorporate characteristics and styles of other
genres (eg the horror road movie).
Nevertheless, from the darkest, to the most banal,
all road movies have something in common; a
road and socio-economic reason d’etre…they
reflect the times they are made in and the road is
the great leveler.
Sam North. ‘The Road Movie’, www.hackwriters.com/roadone.htm, 11/6/08
 The heyday of the road movie
was in American cinema in the 1970s, when escape
on the road still seemed possible, the roads still
seemed to lead to adventure, and there was a
yearning for a different life (eg the hippie dreams
of Easy Rider or Zabriskie Point).
In 2008, such dreams have largely disintegrated. The
wilderness has been tamed, everything is mapped,
the roads are crowded. In most contemporary
versions of the road (with some comedic
exceptions), we already know what lies at the end-
-death, disaster and disappointment.