What movie should we watch this weekend? | From Spielberg's duel to the story of Street Lynch

Made by the avant-garde and streamer Dennis Hopper, a short and nail-biting thriller by Steven Spielberg and David Lynch's most conventional film; This weekend, we're going for road movies.

Traveling is one of the most enjoyable and constructive experiences in human life; But for various reasons, we may not be able to travel as much as we would like. Although nothing can replace getting out of the routine of the normal flow of life and going to a new destination, watching road movies allows us to abstractly go outside the framework of our everyday experiences.

The goal of “getting out of the routine of life” is a kind of “destination”; But in travel, not only the destination, but also the “path” itself is important! So, regardless of our different personal goals, it is not bad to enjoy the path that the experience of watching these three road movies creates! I am talking about these three works: Easy Rider directed by Dennis Hopper, Duel directed by Steven Spielberg and The Straight Story directed by David Lynch.

Easy Rider movie

Easy Rider movie

Director: Dennis Hopper

Actors: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson

Release year: 1969

Summary of the story: Two motorcyclists drive from Los Angeles to New Orleans, passing through plains and deserts, and in the middle of the way, they get to know a counterculture that they didn't know existed.

Dennis Hopper's first experience in directing a feature film is one of the most important works that contributed to the birth of “New Hollywood”. In fact, this cheap road movie of the late sixties laid the groundwork for the transformation of American cinema, from the strict aesthetic order and production system of classic Hollywood, to the narrative deconstructions, formal innovations, auteur-oriented approach and postmodern cynicism of the brilliant 1970s.

Easy Riderhas been greatly influenced by the new wave of French cinema. This influence can be seen in its anti-aging and unstructured script, in Hopper's loose and chaotic visual approach, and in stylistic elements such as the pattern of the film's transitions. The collection of these expressive qualities, near the end of the work, creates a crazy cinematic chapter that is still amazing to encounter.

If that sequence feels like an unexpected psychedelic trip, the rest of the film is everything we'd expect from a road movie. Images of imaginary release to the road of characters who do not stay in one place for a long time and enjoy riding their motorcycles as if there is nothing more important in the world! These images are accompanied by the fascinating and enjoyable soundtrack of the film. If all this is not enough, Easy RiderIt also has a spectacular Jack Nicholson!

Duel movie

Duel movie

Director: Steven Spielberg

Actors: Dennis Weaver, Carrie Loftin, Jacqueline Scott

Release year: 1971

Summary of the story: A man who has a lot of business trips is chased and threatened by the evil driver of a big truck.

In this series of articles, we usually do not introduce TV movies; But if the name of the producer of a TV movie is Steven Spielberg, it is not strange that we want to make an exception for it! duel – which can be considered Spielberg's first feature film, ignoring the filmmaker's lost 1964 work – is not an ordinary TV movie, but one of the most readable examples of the thriller genre in the history of cinema.

While road movies see characters driving on highways outside the city as a representative of their liberation from the constraints of urban life, Steven Spielberg takes the same situation and turns it into the most tense and suffocating dramatic situation imaginable! The tool of the great American filmmaker to convey this feeling is nothing but pure cinematic expression. Relying completely on the language of images and sounds. With the help of these threats, the film succeeds in creating one of the best antagonists in the history of action cinema from a lifeless truck! some moviegoers, duel is considered the best film in Steven Spielberg's prolific career. You can't criticize this group of spectators!

The Straight Story movie

Street story movie

Director: David Lynch

Actors: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton

Release year: 1999

Summary of the story: 73-year-old Alvin Street finds out that his long-lost brother is seriously ill. Alvin, who is not allowed to drive, goes on a long journey on a lawnmower.

Street storyIn David Lynch's career, it is like an anomaly! The American surrealist master, at the end of the nineties, after his work with the world of Twin Peaks (Twin Peaks) – temporarily – ended and he created an insane masterpiece like Lost Highway (Lost Highway), went to the simplest and “straightforward” narrative. The most possible story went.

Street storyRather than being David Lynch's personal project, it was the concern of his longtime colleague Mary Sweeney (a woman who married Lynch for a very short time less than a decade later). Sweeney reads the Alvin Street story in the newspaper and writes a screenplay based on it. When the final text reaches David Lynch, he accepts to direct it on the spot.

Street storyis one of those rare emotional works as if they are connected to a superhuman spring of purity and at the same time, one feels more human after finishing them! A work that, like any other premium road movie, is a eulogy for getting out of imposed passivity and surrendering yourself to a pure and liberating journey. This liberation, for Alvin Street of the Lynch film, is about making peace with the past, and for each of us, it can have a different meaning. But road movies remind us that the journey is more important than the destination.