Mapping the Hybrid European Road: French Connections, European Traditions and American Influence?

Abstract

This chapter set the stage for an exploration of contemporary French-language European road movies by tracing the interwoven lines of the tradition in its American and European iterations back to the 1960s, the period during which the template for contemporary road cinema crystalized. It argues that the contours of the road movie tradition are not strictly the product of a direct lineage from seminal American films from the late 1960s, such as Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969, USA), but the result of complex transnational interactions within European cinemas and between European and American cultures. The films covered are Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi, 1962, Italy), Le corniaud/The Sucker (Gérard Oury, 1965, France/Italy) Les petits matins/Hitch-Hike (Jacqueline Audry, 1962, France), Im Lauf der Zeit/Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1977, West Germany), Leningrad Cowboys Go America (Aki Kaurismäki,1989, Finland/Sweden) and Lisbon Story (Wim Wenders, 1994, Germany/Portugal).