HWY: An American Pastoral (1969)

Directed by

Frank Lisciandro

Genre

documentary film

Country

United States

Runtime

50 min

Rating

6.0 of 10 from 14 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A man hitchhikes through the Mojave Desert and Los Angeles. The film follows his journey with a direct cinema style.

experimentalslow-pacedcontemplativerawatmosphericlonelyunpolishedcandid

What happens

HWY: An American Pastoral is a featurette by Jim Morrison, Frank Lisciandro, Paul Ferrara, and Babe Hill. Starring Morrison as a mysterious hitchhiker, it is a 52-minute experimental film in Direct Cinema style. It was shot during the spring and summer of 1969 in the Mojave Desert and in Los Angeles. In the informal 1971 interview Morrison gave to Ben Fong-Torres, Morrison states the film "was more of an exercise for me and a warm-up for something bigger." In 2009, restored and re-mastered excerpts from HWY were featured in Tom DiCillo's documentary When You're Strange. However, the complete film was not included in the Special Features on the When You're Strange DVD, and there have been no further announcements regarding a DVD release for the film. Bootleg copies of the film (with a visible timecode at the bottom of the screen) can be found on the internet. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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