'Straight Story'
This film does not display...'American individuals and the individuals growing sense of disconnectedness in the contemporary era. Rather his films repeatedly place his characters on the road to find connection, community, and family in a world grown impatient with and insensitive to those more stable institutions. "
In this particular film the road is used as a completely different tool than in the other films we have watched. This film is about a white, conservative male who goes from rural Iowa to rural Wisconsin to visit a brother of his to make ammends before he dies. The only thing this man has going against him is his old age and the fact that he hasn't advanced in technology since the sixties or seventies, the year his John Deere lawn mower was made. Society completely accepts this man and even the fact that he might be incredibly stubborn and senial (as e said himself). In Thelma and Louise the road was danger because they had vaginas. In the film Set it off the characters not only had vaginas but they were black. And then there is the film where two white men who are considered hippies hit the road and that doesn't go well because they head through hick down one to many times. In fact I imagine that Alvin Straight lived in a town very similar especially a decade or so earlier.
Although Alvin did make a very courageous journey on his lawn mower from one state to the other the road actually was pleasant to him for the most part and without the friends he made on the road he never could have made his journey. The road provided Alvin with other conservative white people that had similar pasts and relationships and in that way Alvin could see himelf in many of their shoes. For example, the two lawn mower brothers who fought related to Alvin and his brother Lyle. The young pregnant woman reminded Alvin of his wife and all the children she had as well as his daughter Rose who ended up losing her children. The one part that did worry me in this scene is the possibility that this girl who was preganat had been raped or possibly abused or maybe there was a case of incest and Alvin felt so comfortable encouraging her to go back to her family when he had no idea under what circumstances she was living. Alvin also meets another Vietnam vet on the road where he shares his traumatic stories with to accept his past. All in All Straight Story is able to use the road in a positive way because he is almost entirely accepted by the rest of northern rural society.