From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller

The conceptions of ‘wild’, as addressed in fictional travel diary films, question our relationship with space and the form of travel that gives rise to self-transcendence through a confrontation with the environment. The lived experience of the journey of discovery (adventure, exploration, expeditio...

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Main Author: Pascale Argod
Format: Article
Language:deu
Published: Association Via@ 2018-12-01
Series:Via@
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/3207
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author Pascale Argod
author_facet Pascale Argod
author_sort Pascale Argod
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description The conceptions of ‘wild’, as addressed in fictional travel diary films, question our relationship with space and the form of travel that gives rise to self-transcendence through a confrontation with the environment. The lived experience of the journey of discovery (adventure, exploration, expedition) defines the travel diary genre, which has become an off-the-beaten-track tourism medium. The reference points for two American travel diary films Into the Wild (2007), written and directed by Sean Penn, and Wild (2014, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, are Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and the American pioneer front. These films mark a generation of travel diarists in search of the dream and anti-travel. The return to the wild, as a cultural confrontation, formative journey and self-transcendence, is said to shape the travel diary genre, which takes the form of either a piece of self writing or an autobiographical film (sometimes called a biopic) on the experience of travelling. We thus extend the road movie genre to robinsonades and films on the experience of a natural environment. The aesthetics of the image, panoramic landscape and grandeur of nature are thought to be a legacy of the notions of ‘picturesqueness’ and the ‘pioneer front’, while the renewed myths of both the wandering hero (Benoliel, 2011) and the quest for a new world seem to have developed from the literary references of On the Road and the Beat Generation’s ‘Beat ethos’.
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spelling doaj-art-f4eb204bf30c425cb5e54de7d9504d982025-01-30T14:04:32ZdeuAssociation Via@Via@2259-924X2018-12-011410.4000/viatourism.3207From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic TravellerPascale ArgodThe conceptions of ‘wild’, as addressed in fictional travel diary films, question our relationship with space and the form of travel that gives rise to self-transcendence through a confrontation with the environment. The lived experience of the journey of discovery (adventure, exploration, expedition) defines the travel diary genre, which has become an off-the-beaten-track tourism medium. The reference points for two American travel diary films Into the Wild (2007), written and directed by Sean Penn, and Wild (2014, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, are Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and the American pioneer front. These films mark a generation of travel diarists in search of the dream and anti-travel. The return to the wild, as a cultural confrontation, formative journey and self-transcendence, is said to shape the travel diary genre, which takes the form of either a piece of self writing or an autobiographical film (sometimes called a biopic) on the experience of travelling. We thus extend the road movie genre to robinsonades and films on the experience of a natural environment. The aesthetics of the image, panoramic landscape and grandeur of nature are thought to be a legacy of the notions of ‘picturesqueness’ and the ‘pioneer front’, while the renewed myths of both the wandering hero (Benoliel, 2011) and the quest for a new world seem to have developed from the literary references of On the Road and the Beat Generation’s ‘Beat ethos’.https://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/3207tourist experiencetravel journaltravel diaryreportage notebookthe wildnatural environment
spellingShingle Pascale Argod
From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller
Via@
tourist experience
travel journal
travel diary
reportage notebook
the wild
natural environment
title From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller
title_full From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller
title_fullStr From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller
title_full_unstemmed From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller
title_short From the Road Movie to Wilderness Travel: The Quest for Adventure on the Road and the Myth of the Heroic Traveller
title_sort from the road movie to wilderness travel the quest for adventure on the road and the myth of the heroic traveller
topic tourist experience
travel journal
travel diary
reportage notebook
the wild
natural environment
url https://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/3207
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