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to be on the road?
The strong or the
weak?
The irony of the road
movie is that the
weak leave, but only
the strong survive.
The road either
makes or breaks a
person.
always been a
persistent theme
in American
culture and can be
traced back to the
frontier ethos.
Early Settlers
17th century America
Road Movies
Road movies
provide a ready
space for
exploration of the
tensions and
crises that happen
on the road.
CODES AND
CONVENTIONS
Settings
Focal Characters
Encounter Characters
Music
Themes
Transport The Vehicle
Narrative Structure
The Journey
Settings
The road.
City is where all
oppression and
depression lies.
The road is positive
and holds
possibilities.
Focal Characters
Live outside the
norms of society.
Dont fit in where
Encounter Characters
These are the
Music
Reflects the era in
ballads are
common along the
open road.
Thematic Conventions
The search for
freedom or release
Discarding or
escaping the past
On the run
creating a new
identity
Finding ones self
or love or family
Transport
Typically a car,
although not
always.
Used to represent
something about
who the character
is, or wants to be.
Narrative Structure
There are six key points to the structure
The Journey
Both physical and
emotional.
Protagonists either
Genre Development
The road movie
Upheaval and
Dislocation Key moments in
the history of the
road genre tend to
coincide with
periods of
upheaval and
dislocation.
American Dream
In this way the
wasinAmericancinemainthe1960s,whenescapeon
theroadstillseemedpossible,theroadsstillseemedto
leadtoadventure,andtherewasayearningfora
differentlife(e.gthehippiedreamsofEasyRideror
antiestablishmentBonnieandClyde).
Today
Such dreams have largely disintegrated. The