Route One USA
Screening on Film
Directed by Robert Kramer.
US, 1989, 35mm, color, 255 min.
US, 1989, 35mm, color, 255 min.
After living abroad for a decade, Kramer embarked on the extended road trip which gave way to Route One USA, an engrossing portrait of Eighties America and one of Kramer’s finest works. Kramer introduces the fictional protagonist “Doc” to tie together the unscripted footage shot along the eponymous highway stretching from the Canadian border to the Florida Keys. Played by Newsreel associate Paul McIsaac, who first created this character for Kramer’s 1987 Doc’s Kingdom, Doc becomes a sort of Odysseus figure, returning wearily home from the wars of radical politics and expatriation, puzzled by the state of the nation he barely recognizes.