U.S. and the Road Film

U.S. And the Road Film Easy Rider is a film about two hippie drug-dealing bikers making a trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The very first scene of Easy Rider shows its two protagonists, Wyatt and Billy, selling some cocaine to a man in a Rolls Royce.

Wyatt tries it and says, "Si, pura vida." It is after this deal that the bikers begin their journey to New Orleans, perhaps in quest of the "pure life." The journey to New Orleans can be viewed as a journey of freedom as illustrated by one of the characters throwing his watch onto the ground. This action was illustrative of freedom because the watch -- that is, time itself -- is something that constrains people and takes away their freedom as they become slaves to the clock.

The characters in Easy Rider are aptly named Wyatt and Billy -- an obvious homage to Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid, two American outlaws and legends. The bikes that the two characters ride reinforce this idea of them as legends. Wyatt rides a bike with the stars and stripes emblazoned on his gas tank and helmet. Billy is dressed like a cowboy wearing all leather and a wide brim hat.

While these get-ups can be thought of as something cliche, they are there to enforce the idea that these two "outlaws" personify the American Dream -- the American Dream being to have enough money to go ahead and do what you really want to do with your life. Furthermore, their journey is about breaking free from society's rules and finding a purer, happier existence. It is the quintessential American road movie, but it also represents in American culture a time of great change, when America wasn't all apple pies.

The year, 1968, was the year the Martin Luther King Jr. And Robert Kennedy were assassinated; Richard Nixon was just elected President and Vietnam was sending thousands of American soldiers home in body bags. There were many sad realities going on in America and Easy Rider is a film about not conforming, or better yet, not standing for the atrocities that were taking place. The answer was to take to the highway.

According to Hollywood myth, Easy Rider was a "little road movie that came out of nowhere" and it changed Hollywood indelibly (Hill 8).

It was a small but successful cult film, earning over $60 million worldwide (8), but what was it about this movie that warranted such popularity? Today, it is suggested that the idea of two hippie bikers traveling across America after a big cocaine deal might be considered a "high concept" idea (8), but back in 1980, the big studios were more perplexed -- "if not downright threatened" (9) -- by drugs, sex, rock 'n roll, and random violence (9).

Werner Herzog's 1977 film, Stroszek, is about a young man, an alcoholic, Bruno Stroszek, who, after being released from an institution, travels to America with a prostitute and an elderly neighbor who wants to join his nephew in America. Stroszek, unlike Easy Rider, is more of a parody of the American Dream; in fact, one could argue that the entire film criticizes not just the American Dream but all dreams.

It is interesting to have Bruno just out of prison because the world that Herzog creates, where his characters live, is somewhat of a prison in itself. Herzog shows the viewer many different aspects of stereotypical Americana: for example, truck stops, a trailer, auctions and frozen turkeys. At the end of the movie, Bruno even shows up on an Indian reservation with a frozen turkey he has stolen from the supermarket and a shotgun. This scene is, arguably, a complete disparagement of Thanksgiving.

Seiglohr (469) explains that New German Cinema's filmmakers such as Herzog were on a quest for a new type of "anti-illusionment" and "styles were therefore centrally motivated by a desire not to reproduce the mode of representation which had contributed to seducing millions of Germans in Nazi-ism" (469). However, Sieglohr points out, and it is apparent in Stroszek that "anti-illusionism" can also be seen as an "ambivalent rejection, or negotiation, of the dominant cinema's aesthetics and of the role Hollywood had played in U.S.

strategies of cultural domination in West Germany: 'The Yanks have colonized our subconscious' (Im Lauf der Zeit)" (469). What the prostitute, Bruno and the elderly neighbor find in America is less than what they thought they would find and a far cry from the American Dream as traditionally defined.

Peuker (186) notes that Stroszek "relies increasingly on allegory as the film advances." For example, the opening scenes that take place in Berlin are completely realistic, but "then comes a setting that is midway between representation and allegory: in search of transcendence, Bruno climbs a mountain, but the first mountain of this film happens to be the Empire State Building, symbol of the heightened promises of the Land of Opportunity" (186). One can look at this scene and think that Herzog may have been being quite serious here.

To come to the United States is a major journey and challenge for any foreigner. Bruno has all these dreams but he still has not learned the language; he persistently speaks German throughout the film. Life was not easier for Bruno back in Berlin and why should one think that America can simply solve all one's problems? He chooses to be in love with Eva though she does not reciprocate his love. Perhaps Bruno will be dissatisfied with life wherever he goes.

When Van Peeble's made his film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, "black popular audiences were starving for black heroes who were not made for white audiences… in creating a new black hero, he drew from both white popular culture and black mythology and folklore (Reid 77). Sweet Sweetback, played by Van Peebles, beats up a couple of white police officers and thus has to flee to the border of Mexico. The movie is all about Sweet Sweetback's journey and the problems that he encounters on the way to "freedom" at the border.

The film is a lot like Easy Rider, at least it is quite similar in genre and theme, though Sweet Sweetback incorporates many different genres not just the biker film. There are also some elements of chase and even mild pornography. The film is also a lot like Stroszek in the sense that it goes against the most common Hollywood paradigm.

Van Peebles dedicated the film "to all the Brothers and Sisters who have had enough of the Man." The end of the film ends with what feels like a warning, "A Baadasssss nigger is coming to collect some dues." The film was a wild success and it has even been called revolutionary, a film that would go on to influence future black filmmakers.

What makes the film so successful, from a purely artistic standpoint, is the simple message: one badass guy has had enough and he is going to fight the system. Sweet Sweetback is almost a folkloric character that fights and runs to stand up for himself throughout the whole film. He is tireless and he is badass. Van Peebles admits to using "elements from the mythic street hero of urban black folklore -- one skilled in fighting, performing sexually, and evading the police" (Reid 77). One of.