Une série documentaire de 5 x 43 minutes
diffusée sur ARTE et France 5
L’Amérique est célèbre pour ses autoroutes, ces rubans infinis d’asphalte où s’agglutinent à chaque embranchement les restaurants de routiers et les motels. Aujourd’hui, nous fonçons tous sur ces autoroutes, et nous vivons à toute vitesse. Il n’est pas facile de trouver la sortie, et certains n’y arrivent jamais.
Dans cette série en cinq volets de Katja Esson, la documentariste nommée aux Oscars, ce sont les routes qui sont les véritables protagonistes. Mais nous allons quitter les autoroutes et emprunter les routes de campagne, de petites routes sinueuses et pleines de caractère, des routes qui semblent avoir une âme et où le passé et le présent se mêlent harmonieusement, des routes tracées par des gens à la poursuite de quelque chose : une vie meilleure, une vision, un rêve.
Chaque épisode de 45 minutes est consacré à une route qui parcourt les vastes étendues du nouveau monde, reliant parfois plusieurs Etats et traversant de petites villes en pleine campagne où les diners de bord de route servent encore de la tarte aux pommes faite avec les fruits du verger voisin. Des villes fantômes où le facteur ne passe plus, mais où la prison reste en service. Des villes considérées jadis comme parmi les plus riches du pays, aujourd’hui tombées dans l’oubli. Chaque découverte nous donne un aperçu des rêves perdus d’une Amérique d’un autre siècle, avant l’arrivée des restaurants franchisés et des chaînes de motels.
America is famous for its highways. Endless stretches of dotted asphalt cross the landscape like vital arteries. Those in a hurry take the four-lane interstates. But what is there to discover when you take your time and travel the legendary old backroads? Academy Award ®nominated filmmaker Katja Esson traveled thousands of miles along these mythical country roads and takes an affectionate and unconventional look at the backrooms of the American Dream - where it once thrived, where it is still preserved, and where it died a long time ago. Whether it’s the world famous Route 66 or the almost forgotten Mohawk Trail, these historical routes paved with legends and still surrounded by an air of adventure and freedom are the protagonists. They take us across the early settlers' Northeast, along the pioneer trails to the Wild West, and into the ‘Promised Land’ California. Often built on top of ancient Indian paths, roads like the Oregon Trail bear witness to the lost world of the American Indians. Today they show evidence of a region’s industrial boom and decline, tell stories of adventurers and gold diggers, as well as slavery and the Civil Rights struggle. “The land shaped the music and the music shaped the land” says Sylvester Hoover about the Blues Highway along the mighty Mississippi River. On this journey through breathtaking landscapes we pass through tiny towns with mom-and-pop diners, eccentric motels, and post officers who deliver the mail even to local pets. We discover deserted mining towns, once full of life and only ghost towns today, and stop in woozy dive bars where people dance to Cajun music at seven in the morning. In her five-part documentary series, Katja Esson portrays the atmosphere of the American heartland in a humurous and intimate way. The people we meet on this exceptional journey live alongside these backroads and speak of their daily life away from the big city with charm and great openness: farmers, waitresses, drop-outs, modern-day Indians, and old-fashioned cowboys. Like Larry McPhearson: who moved to Nevada’s Highway 50 at the age of 80, determined to keep the myth of the Pony Express alive. Or the Creole rancher, Geno Delafose in Louisiana: A passionate Zydeco musician, he sometimes has to start a concert late because he needed to help a cow calve. „Work hard, play hard“ is his motto. Along the historical roads where past and present flow together almost seamlessly, Katja Esson unearths stories like a golddigger searching for nuggets. By capturing the spirit of the old America she allows us to understand the modern USA: on the Mohawk Trail, the Oregon Trail, on America’s ‚Loneliest Road’ Highway 50, on the Blues Highway and the famous Route 66.
