Sound and Fury on the Move: A Critical Exploration of the Self and Metamorphosis in Road Movies

Abstract

A road movie is a film genre in which the main characters leave home on a road trip, typically altering their perspective from their everyday lives. A road movie is technically defined as a movie that starts at geographic point A and travels through various pit-stops along the way before reaching geographic point B, the final destination. Road movies are noted for their vivid, dynamic and picturesque narration. Normally the protagonist or traveler is a male and the purpose of journey is self-discovery. Characters’ internal conflicts and transformations are highlighted. The characters in road movies often experience new realities on their trip and often explore the intensity of their alienation and solitude on a possibly long road trip to a remote destination. In road movies, the protagonist is usually considered as on the move. The present paper explores the theme of oppression, rebellion, escape, self-discovery and the metamorphosis of the protagonist as depicted in Frank Capra’s movie It Happened One Night and the Easy Rider by Dennis Hopper. The paper, on a further note, examines the emotional transformations of the protagonists as they sail through varied personal, emotional and social experiences on the way to their destinations. Montage sequences, travelling shots, aerial shots and diegetic music are some of the technical peculiarities employed in road movies. The road movie entered a political phase in the late 1960’s influenced by the low budget biker movies and Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road. The narrative is somewhat picaresque in almost all road movies that sequentially present certain pertinent events that culminate in a good or bad ending.