American Independent Cinema Restlessness And Anxiety At Home Analysis

American Independent Cinema: Restlessness and Anxiety at Home and on the Open Road
Aims of my project The aim of this project is to explore the American Independent cinematic style, and ascertain what it reflects. Areas that interest me within the American Independent sector of film are, the road movie sub genre, youth culture and the American family. In this study, I plan to look at films from 1960s to present in my exploration. One of the most interesting features I have found within most American indie films is that they seem to hold and project feelings of anxiety, restlessness and uneasiness; this can be seen through all kinds of common genres within American Indie cinema such as the black comedy (e.g. The Kids are Alright, Welcome to the Doll
I am interested in the appeal of the road, the appeal of the vehicle, the excitement and yet also the depression. So far, I have not found an extensive amount of literary material concentrated on the road movie, so I intend to also look into the history within American studies, concentrating of what the vehicle brought to the individual and how this changed the face of America through literature such as L. M Fanning, Men, Money and automobiles and F. Clymer, Treasury of Early American Automobiles. Other literary sources I wish to look into in order to uncover the meaning behind being on the road is American Literature which also explores this concept such as Jack Kerouac’s On the road and Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Critical literature that relates directly to this topic would be David Laderman, Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie and Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark ed., The Road Movie