Time and again, someone tries to discover America and its nether regions, hoping to make the definitive cultural statement about this country. The problem is that no one can make the definitive statement when America continually grows from one year to the next. Even the state I live in, New Jersey, is full of stories and historical backgrounds, going back several decades and centuries (read the cult magazine "Weird N.J." for a better perspective). The narrator of the film "Road Scholar" even states how times have changed in America in the last twenty years. "Now Spanish is spoken as much as English," the narrator observes.
The narrator is Andrei Codrescu, a Romanian-born Jew who became an American citizen in 1981. He is best known as an NPR commentator for the program, "All Things Considered," and is a well-known poet. He is witty, urbane, sarcastic, and shrewd. Andrei uses his satiric prose and poetic sensibilities to come up with his own interpretation of America by way of a cross-country road trip. He gets a driver's license, and is off in a cherry-red '68 Cadillac convertible to explore America. Andrei comes up against a community of Christian Communists in upstate New York, accustomed to poverty on the margins despite a profitable business; New Age mysticism, religious militant groups and Native American habitats in New Mexico; the virtually empty, economically ravaged city of Detroit; homeless, crack-addicted Haitian immigrants in New York City; last-minute marriages in Las Vegas (including drive-thru marriages!); a Vietnamese author in San Francisco who is aching to go back to his homeland; an artist who lawfully places a car in her lawn proclaiming it as a piece of art; and so on.
"Road Scholar" has enormous fun in arriving at these different locales and points of interest in America, and it is continuously absorbing in investigating different patterns of life. My major complaint is that certain vignettes could have benefited from more screen time, such as the Detroit artists who place shoes and sneakers on the streets as a reminder of people who once populated a sparsely populated, poor neighborhood. There is also too much time invested on New Mexico mystics and healers - I used to live in Santa Fe and have had enough exposure to them. They are pure "kitsch," as Codrescu often refers to certain aspects of life or to the Statue of Liberty. Other moments show the loss of innocence in America, as in the traveling bus of peace-loving denizens who want to bring back the 60's free love ideals and such without benefit of drugs. I also found a strangely melancholic passage in the depiction of lost dreams in Detroit. One example is the movement of Motown sound from Detroit to the big leagues and how it affected an entire community who felt the music was theirs. In fact, the Detroit section of the film is the most astute as one gathers understanding of how America can let go of one of their cities in times of economic hardships.
If this were just an ordinary documentary about America in the 90's, it would have worked just fine with its look at people of different nationalities. Alas, using Andre as a witty commentator on the scene enlivens the proceedings enormously - he is sometimes sardonic but he also identifies with most of the people, particularly the immigrants who came to this country in hopes of fulfilling their dreams. Some did, and many did not. Andre became a poet and wrote books, and was allowed to have the power of freethinking without getting arrested. His story is just as insightful, and proves just as entertaining. He also recognizes, as reminded to him by the late poet Allen Ginsberg, that America is "an Indian thing." For a relatively fast-paced, inspirational tour of America, you can do no better than "Road Scholar."
For more reviews, check out JERRY AT THE MOVIES at http://buffs.moviething.com/buffs/faust/
E-mail me with any questions, comments or general complaints at jerry@movieluver.com or at Faust667@aol.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews