Directed by Robert Kramer
USA | 2020 | 255 mins- shown in two parts |
Source: Icarus Films
We recommend watching the film and then watching the Q&A with Paul McIsaac (Doc) and John Douglas – watch it HERE
Named for the old interstate that runs along the East Coast, Route One is an oblique, lightly fictionalized account of a journey from the Canadian border in Maine to the Florida Keys taken in 1988 by the unseen filmmaker in the company of another returning expatriate known as Doc (Paul McIsaac, a 1960s activist like Kramer as well as a presence in previous Kramer films), who had been in Africa.
“Restored and digitized by Icarus Films, this 1989 journey down Route One exposes still timely concerns: racism’s legacy, stressed health professionals, struggling immigrants, decaying cities, a religious right and a press under attack. […] Despite the presence of the fictional Doc, most of the people he meets are exactly who they say they are. (There are a few recognizable public figures, like Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson.) Critic Hoberman compared it to Robert Frank’s classic 1950s photography series, The Americans, for its ability to non-judgmentally allow its subjects to reveal themselves, as well as the nation they live in, for better or worse […]
“Kramer, who died in 1999, himself was a 1960s radical who had left his country to be able to keep making films abroad. He envisioned Route One/USA as a chronicle of his homeland return after a decade in France. He and a small crew would take a long road trip from Maine to Key West along U.S. Route 1, which had been the primary route along the East Coast before modern expressways.” ~ Steven Rosen. Read the full article in City Beat
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