is very formal, but we used the radio to develop stories: recurring songs tie scenes together; there's a whole thread about the Vietnam War ending; as we get closer to the west coast, the Communist troops get closer to Saigon
I think the film is more interesting as you get further from 1975its historical natures becomes evident. When we finished the film we were disappointedsomehow it wasn't what we had conceived. Now it's more powerful because those events are part of this country's past.
I assume you decided on the route in advance.
Pretty much. We were living in Madison, Wisconsin, at the time, so one weekend we drove to New York and back in four days. About a week later we drove to Los Angeles and back in a week. We made the film in eleven days. Eight thousand miles of driving! It was awful.
You look relaxed in the film.
It was fun, but it was awful
Most people who travel take a camera to make 'home movies.' We went on this trip to make inverse of a home movie, the trip was created
the film. The viewer never knows anything about the people in the car, except what can be assumed from where the go, what they look like from the back, and what they listen to on the editing that creates a linear whole, Its creative geography, like Kuleshov, [Soviet filmmaker and theoretician Lev Kuleshov was a pioneer in the exploration of the potentials of film editing. Among his explorations was the combination of imagery from different locations to create the illusion of a single place: 'creative geography.']
Were the sounds and visuals recorded at the same time and put together later.
We didn't have a synch-sound camera. We had a switch so that we could turn on the camera, which was mounted in the back. Periodically we'd pull over and record things from the radio. Then we'd write down approximately where those things were. When we put the film together, we put recorded in an area with images from the same area.
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One of the things we were interested in was comparing radio announcers' voices. Even though they all sound alikethey've been trained to sound aliketheir voices change slightly as you move across the country.
Another interesting formal aspect is the way in which the film reverses foreground and background. Normally, the viewer looks past you through the window. The things closest to the viewer, the things inside the car, becomepsychologicallythe background.
And in the frame we seem to be continuous, whereas things outside the car are discontinuous with each dissolve. There's always a continuous space
a discontinuous space.
And the constant actionschanging drivers, eating, pulling over, switching hats and scarvesmalter the viewers' perception of and relationship to the image, which is actually a very complex frame.
In a sense the car is the main character. You get a real sense of a nation built on automobiles.
Do you two plan to collaborate again?
No.
I thought the collaborations were fruitful, though. We never had any large disagreements about what we were doing. The disagreements we did have, and James can correct me if I'm wrong, had to do with working time, which I think is an interesting issue. I can't work late at night, and I can't: work and work and work for hours. That's one reason we stopped collaborating. It also had to do with the credit that was going to him but not to me.
It was more my decision to stop than yours.
Definitely. But ending the collaboration pushed me to go in a specific direction with my work, and I'm pleased about the new level of experimentation and questioning. I would collaborate again, with someone who had cinematic interests similar to mine.
[
]:
is the earliest of your films that looks like what came to be thought of as a 'Benning film.'
I began by writing a detailed script about two women and a man traveling in different parts of the country;
