Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Highway 1: An Appreciation



A love for small-scale character-drive auterist masterpieces was not born in me at NYU film school. That happened much earlier, thanks to my late father, who introduced me to Raging Bull at age ten (whoa) and later, Clint Eastwood's directorial debut, Play Misty For Me.

Amazingly enough, American independent film wasn't born in a convenience store in New Jersey, or even in Austin, TX. No, way back in 1971, Clint and co. scrapped together the financing for this 16mm production which made incredible use of location photography in Carmel-by-the-Sea, including passages of the famous Highway 1. Still worth a spot on your Netflix queue, Play Misty for Me is a suspenseful precursor to Fatal Attraction with Clint as a late-night DJ stalked by an obsessed fan.

Yesterday, I was helping a friend plan her first roadtrip in California. Anyone who's done it know that there are three options connecting north and south: the superfast, superhighway 5, the slower but more scenic 101, and the mind-numbingly beautiful coastal Highway 1.

I got to thinking about all my experiences on that legendary highway, especially in that mythical land between Big Sur and Monterey. I've done it a few times, once with my high school best friend Sean, who white-knuckled it over the frighteningly steep cliffs which are total car-commercial territory. I've done it more recently, when flooding in California shut down the perilous passage for weeks because of the threat of mudslides. I thought about Clint and also the final scene of Harold and Maude, where Harold veers over to the 1 in his tricked out hearse.

I'd love to end up in Big Sur someday as a bohemian old lady, wearing lots of white linen and tending to a garden filled with fragrant herbs and driftwood sculptures, having coffee with lumberjacks and novelists down at the corner store. For my friend's trip, I told her definitely to hit the funkadelic Deetjens Big Sur Inn. And have a meal at Nepenthe, which is this crazy restaurant that looms 800 feet over the Pacific Ocean. If you're a romantic who loves the solitude of the open road (even if you bring someone else along!), Highway 1 is a trip you must take before you die.
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1 comment:

is that so wrong? said...

You know I have a Highway 1 sign hanging in my apartment. My love for that road is deep.

April 14, 2008 at 3:47 PM

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