A typically quietly-charged image from Robert Kramer’s fascinating Route One/USA, a 1989 quasi-doc the expat filmmaker made on a visit to the States beginning in late ’87. The former radical speaks through a fictional surrogate in this epic-length trek down the titular road. Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson make appearances. This too-little seen picture is the subject of today’s Foreign Region DVD Report, at The Auteurs’ Notebook, as ever.
Kramer is one of those filmmakers that I’ve read about and been hearing great things about but whose films I’ve never seen. Makes me wish I had a multi-region player.
What Tom said – His ICE has been on my radar forever and outside of bootlegs (dear G‑d, hopefully better than the KILLER OF SHEEP boots I labored through before the New Yorker/Milestone Burnett box), no can see.
They ran a couple of Kramer’s films at the Harvard Film Archive late last year and I caught Route One, Milestones and Ice. Route One blew me away; the major issues of the film still seem relevant today. Doc is a great character, injecting humor and at the same time sharp wit into the “narrative.” I’d highly recommend importing this (in my opinion it is far and away the best of those three Kramer films).
Kind of depressing that this is only available in the U.S. as a “foreign region” DVD.