Not surprisingly, they often become signifiers of social upheaval and economic catastrophe, most notably The Great Depression and the turbulent era of the 1960s. Road films are about individuals and an inner metamorphosis that takes place en route, but they are also about a culture and society in a particular time and place. The malleability of the narrative possibilities of the road film enables the genre to meld with and be permeated by other genres, including thrillers, horror, comedies, musicals, and melodrama. Moreover, they are metaphors for human life and inner transformation, which cut across any singular notion of genre.
Ultimately, such stories fuel both our imagination about what is possible, and about how our lives can be changed through experiences of travel, meeting new people and visiting unfamiliar places. What is more important than the actual means of conveyance-road, ocean, railway track, car, ship, or airplane-is the idea of the road as metaphor. What is The Odyssey if not an Ancient Greek version of the modern-day road trip? Some might wonder whether such a journey must entail an actual road, or in modern times, a car. While films have portrayed these wanderings for little over a century, the concept has been in literature for millennia. Movies that emphasize both an inward and outward journey, on a conscious level, constitute a genre in which people travel, often to escape, vacation, see something new, have an adventure, or satisfy their own wanderlust. “The theme of the journey,” Federico Fellini once stated in an interview, “is one of the great foundations of the art of narration.” This idea proves true in road films, both literally and figuratively.
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