2.4 Undertake a Genre Study – Road Movies
The________________________ that we studied was film. Within that medium, the
__________________ that we studied was road movies.
The road movie has developed in a variety of ways over time. One is that the
appearance and variety of shots in the films has improved. In the earlier films, a
relatively small variety of tracking shots and wides were used. In Easy Rider
(__________), most shots of the motorcycles travelling are eye-level shots, either
close or long, with very little variety of angle or height. Goodbye Pork Pie
(_____________) has the same problems – quite often the camera is still and the car
drives past it, rather than the camera travelling or moving around. By the time of
Thelma and Louise (_______________), the camera moves around and through the
scenes, sometimes in the car with the characters, sometimes high above it.
Lighter cameras have made a difference. In Easy Rider, most of the mobile shots
were done from the back of a truck riding alongside the motorcyclists. By the time of
Pork Pie, cameras were smaller and lighter. Also, a device called a
“_____________” was available that silenced the camera, allowing Geoff Murphy to
film inside the car as it travelled along the road. For T+L, cameras were lighter and
more mobile again. Some sequences, like the one where Harlan picks up the two
women in the bar, are filmed almost entirely with ______________________ shots.
Also, as budgets and technology improved, more ___________________ shots are
used in T+L. In Easy Rider, helicopters are used only for one key sequence at the end
of the film – and there was little money available, very few takes could be done.
Similarly, Pork Pie only uses helicopters in a couple of key chase sequences. These
developments affect road movie more than many other genres, because movement is
more important in the road movie than it would be in a straightout drama.
One result of this is that audiences now expect more. Audiences used to the more
modern approach often get impatient with the slower pace and more static appearance
of the older films. In Easy Rider, there are lots of sequences that are made up of
_________________ shots of the motorcycles riding through America to the sound of
hippy music. Sometimes these shots are broken up with ________________,
______________________ or other primitive special effects. But, on the whole, it’s a
lot less interesting than the more varied approach of the later films. By the time we
get to O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2001), with its full array of computer special
effects, this problem is even worse. Ironically, as the technology of films gets better,
it makes it harder for us to appreciate the virtues of classic films that were made with
fewer resources.
Our class found Easy Rider hard going, although part of this is because of the way
that the film deliberately breaks some of the plot ___________________ and
________________ of the genre.
(1981)
jump cuts
handheld
medium
Blimp
Conventions
(1991)
superimpositions
Genre
Tracking
(2001)
(1969)
helicopter
codes
Codes and Conventions
There are a variety of codes and conventions that make up the road movie genre.
These include ____________, technical and ____________________ conventions.
The standard Hollywood plot sequence used in road movies has several usual
components: ________________________, development, ____________________,
climax and sometimes a _________________________.
In the exposition, we meet the characters and learn something about them. In T+L we
meet the two women: we see Thelma being bullied and oppressed by her husband,
while we see Louise working in the restaurant. We learn they are going away
together for the weekend. Similarly, in Pork Pie, we cut between the two characters.
We see __________________ in Kaitaia, on the dole and harassed by the Police, and
we see __________________’s girlfriend in Auckland leaving him at the airport as
she goes off to Invercargill to get away from him.
In the development, a ____________ is set for the characters to solve. In T+L, the
two women kill a potential rapist. In Pork Pie, one man wants to get to Invercargill to
see his girlfriend, while the other just wants to get out of Kaitaia. This is complicated
by the fact that they stole a car and the cops are onto them almost from the start.
Other complications occur: the two women commit a variety of more serious crimes,
while the two men get closer and closer to their goal as the police get closer to them.
In both movies there is an eventual climax as the law confronts the fugitives and their
flight is stopped. In Pork Pie there is something of a resolution as Gerry gets back
with his girlfriend in the credit sequence.
These plot conventions make the plot easier to understand and provide a sense of
satisfaction for the audience. One reason our class found Easy Rider so frustrating is
that it avoids a lot of this standard structure: the two characters appear to have no real
goal, and the film ends with their apparently random slaying. Many of the group felt
stranded by this lack of standard ________________.
There are also symbolic conventions. The ________ itself is a key symbol,
representing the spiritual journey that the characters take. Thelma learns, for
example, that she would rather live a little and die after a short and intense life, than
go on living the awful, numb life that she has had so far. John learns that he really
does want to be with his girlfriend, and shows his commitment by journeying the
whole length of the country to see her.
The vehicles themselves have symbolic significance. In both T+L and Easy Rider,
the vehicles are American icons – a 1965 Thunderbird convertible in one, and a starsand-stripes-marked Harley motorbike in the other. The car symbolises
______________ and the ability of the women to go on the road and find themselves.
The Harley is decorated with American symbols because it is America that Wyatt is
looking for, even though he fails to find it. In Pork Pie, the car is a little bright yellow
Mini, that somehow fits the more laddish nature of the film and New Zealand sense of
humour better than a more conventional car would.
Complication
resolution
Gerry
John
problem
plot
exposition
Continuity
symbolic
road
freedom
The landscape also has symbolic significance. US road movies typically travel
through the same dusty Southern landscape. Easy Rider begins in
________________ and ends in ____________________, while Thelma and Louise
actually ends at the ______________________. Road movies inherited this
landscape from the cowboy film. This underlines the mythical, ____________ nature
of the journeys that the characters are going on. Later in the year, we’ll see that all of
O Brother, Where Art Thou? takes place in Louisiana.
One of the reasons that Pork Pie is so successful is the New Zealand landscape. For
the first time, audiences could get the same shock of recognition that a US audience
gets every time they go to the films: “I’ve been there,” or similar. It’s no surprise that
this was the first New Zealand film to earn _________________ at the box office in
its own country. New Zealanders were ready to see themselves.
Why did these conventions evolve?
As pointed out above, plot conventions are useful because they help the audience get
their heads around the story easily. However, there is one key way that the road
movie plot is different from the standard Hollywood film.
Quite often they don’t have a __________________________. In two of the three
films we have seen so far, the characters actually get killed off. This is because the
director can’t be seen to let them get away with criminal activities. So that even
though we sympathise with Thelma and Louise and we understand why they are
running away, a man has been killed, and they must pay the price.
This explains why the film has no real __________________. Although justice needs
to be done, the audience don’t actually want to see Thelma and Louise’s bodies. So
the film stops before their car hits the ground. Similarly, in Easy Rider, we never see
Wyatt after he’s been shot. Both films stop quite abruptly at the
__________________.
Pork Pie is a little different. There is no really tidy ending for Jerry, who is caught by
the cops and taken to hospital before the end of the picture. John has a more
satisfactory ending. His girlfriend is very pleased to see him, and they experience a
passionate reunion before the cops take him away, naked, with a smile on his face.
There is a strong suggestion that for him, the ending is going to be a happy one.
But, on the whole, road movies more often have a bittersweet or downright unpleasant
ending than standard Hollywood films do.
The symbolic code of the road is also easy to explain. It’s a very accessible one that
audiences readily understand. Road movies are as old as _________________, as the
Coen Brothers found when they stole the plot of The Odyssey for O Brother. It’s also
easy and cheap to shoot on a set provided by nature, that’s there whenever you want
it.
California
plot conventions
Grand Canyon
Spiritual
Imitators
Homer
happy ending
Louisiana
$1million
resolution