A film by Alex Wolfe I helped with back in the 1980s. It’s based on a road trip we took with a car from Auto Driveaway Corp, a company that relocates cars in the US. It was a Pontiac 6000 if I remember correctly that needed to be in El Paso. We ran out of gas late the first night in northern Pennsylvania and figured the car got about 10 mpg.
It was quite the road trip with stops at Elvis’s Graceland where we were ‘escorted’ out for filming as well as at the Jimmy Swaggart Ministries in Baton Rouge by the Jimmy Swaggart police, a notable late night on Bourbon Street the night Divine passed away with fellow John Waters fans, and then searching for the grave of Maire Laveau, the patron saint of voodoo in a cemetery down in the Desire projects not only in the wee hours of the morning but the next day as well. Then on to Austin, El Paso, Juarez, LA, Tijuana, and down the California Baja in Mexico, at times camping, getting riled by drug runners, and then Alex and friends drove back to LA and I continued south taking a 24 hr bus ride to Cabo San Lucas, the southern tip, wanting to continue across the gulf of California to Mazatlan just because but no boats, just a barge with cows so made my way back to the US.
The film was shot in Super 8 and includes recordings we made from the car radio. Before the trip, we recently watched Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March which influenced the sequencing. Alex is an award-winning filmmaker and producer – see more at Vimeo and his work profile.
VOLCANO WATERMELON WEDDING CAKE from Alexander Wolfe on Vimeo.
Here’s the flyer for the movie which was shown around the Boston area.
And here are a few photos.