Film Details
Synopsis
"Road Movie or what I learned in a Buick station wagon" screens as a tribute to its director, the late indie film world legend, Sarah Jacobson, who passed away in 2004. "Road Movie" has all the makings of a brilliant cult film. Its sharp editing, witty dialogue and black and white aesthetics have all the trademarks of a true independent film pioneer. As Sarah documents a young film student who flees the negative reviews of her professors on her way to New York in a Buick station wagon with a 35mm camera, all the beauty of Sarah Jacobson's DIY style is on display.
Calling her last film a "great disaster", our female protagonist decides to heads east on a road trip. We gain a glimpse into her professors' insights of her latest avant garde piece through a series of talking heads, where one memorably claims it is the "most inept, most stupid piece of shit I've ever seen, that's your film. Be proud of it. Be proud of your own shit."
Back on the road, our heroine takes it all in her stride with no sense of animosity as she discusses her motives for making film with a hitchhiker and shoots everything on the way. As she talks film, we are given two-second long shots of street signs, side mirrors, truck stop sinks, overpasses and car breakdowns. "Road Movie" is a celebration of documentation of events on the road, edited together with the virility of a French New Wave classic.
Sarah Jacobson's strong feminist style of filmmaking is also prevalent in "Road Movie." As the girl cops criticism from her professors and colleagues, and even her hitchhiker for her avant garde films, she seems carefree before booting the hitchhiker out of the Buick after his nagging criticisms. At the end of Road Movie, the main character shows the completed film to a friend in her new hometown. "You said what you wanted to say, and you got your point across," he responds. "That's what matters, right?"
Sarah spent time teaching at the New School in New York, where she famously gave her female students 'dogma' rules for feminist filmmakers. Along with greater empowerment and representation of women in film, this S.T.I.G.M.A. (Sisters Together in Girlie Moviemaking Action) also decrees that there shall be no glamorous female corpses, no makeovers and no shopping montages!
Beginning with 1992's I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, shot when she was all of 20, Jacobson preached the gospel of DIY film at a time when the "independent" movement was already turning towards calling-card films. Her much sought after feature, "Mary Jane's not a Virgin Anymore", toured 22 states across America and like "Road Movie" and all of Sarah's work, celebrates films low on budget, but high on independence, grit and style.
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