Reel Adventures - Retracing Cinema's Greatest Road Movies
For those who want to go on holiday by mistake...
The open road, the wind in your hair, destination — self-discovery; yes, it’s easy to understand the appeal of the road movie.
Although essentially an American movie genre, there have been terrific movies set against European, Asian and Australian backdrops. Alas — as is the case with George Miller’s Mad Max movies — the journeys depicted often can’t be recreated since the routes don’t follow a logical pattern. Not that we’d want to deter you from zig-zagging madly across Victoria, it’s just that you might wind up spending as much on petrol as you did on your plane fare.
There are, however, road movie routes that are relatively simple to follow. So pack your travel sweets, fire up the SatNav and get your motor runnin’...
EASY RIDER
”It doesn’t make any difference what city. All cities are alike. That’s why I’m out here now…'cause I’m from the city, a long way from the city — and that’s where I want to be right now.”
Although Dennis Hopper’s seminal film kicks off in Mexico, we recommend following the voyage of self-discovery it depicts from the second location shown, which is to say the end of the LAX runway. It’s from here that Billy (Hopper) and Wyatt (producer-star Peter Fonda) ride out of California via arguably the most famous public highway in the world, US Route 66.
Though the road itself runs 2,451 miles between LA and Chicago, our anti-heroes have the great sense to head north while traversing Arizona, allowing them to savour an atmospheric night in Monument Valley. From there, Billy and Wyatt rejoin 66 before heading south when leaving Oklahoma and making for New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras.
While the boys hang out with the young Jack Nicholson on their trip, we’re sure the sun-burnt landscape will prove company enough, what with the miles and miles of chaparral not only making the road seem spectacularly open but also bringing to mind any number of movies and songs.
Speaking of music, the Easy Rider road to self-discovery comes complete with its own classic soundtrack. Roaring into life courtesy of Steppenwolf’s ‘Born To Be Wild’, the album takes in Jimi Hendrix (‘If 6 Was 9’), The Band (‘The Weight’) and Roger McGuinn (delivering a blistering cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘It’s Alright, Ma’). And speaking of the big Byrd, it’s also he who performs the Dylan-composed ‘Ballad Of Easy Rider’, a song which, like Hopper’s movie, has long outlived the hazy era it so vividly depicts.
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