The documentary “Route 66: Ten Years After” was meant as a travelogue. But, unexpectedly, this flawed but fascinating 52-minute film winds up also as an emotional journey.
In 1999, veteran writer Tim Steil and young photographer Jim Luning traveled together from Chicago to Santa Monica to gather material for a new Motorbooks International publication. The result, “Route 66,” remains one of the best travel books I’ve read.
Steil also e-mailed journal entries each night. Those off-the-cuff posts, which still can be found in the archives of the Route 66 yahoogroup, read like Hunter S. Thompson, but with a lot more empathy.
In 2009, Steil and Luning decide to do another Route 66 trip to revisit the places and people they saw. By now, Steil has settled into a more domestic existence. Luning opened his own photography business. On this trip, Luning brought a video camera for the purpose of filming a documentary.
The production runs into trouble. Luning realizes the schedule was far too ambitious. Steil contracts a case of writer’s block after losing his notebook somewhere in Oklahoma. Luning’s plans for his film seem scuttled before he reaches the Mother Road’s halfway point.
But they press on, and Luning keeps filming. One of the saving graces of “Route 66: Ten Years Later” is an interview with 82-year-old Angel Delgadillo in Seligman, Ariz., a barber who almost single-handedly started the Route 66 revival in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Delgadillo’s almost shamanistic observations about the joy and “sheer beauty” of his life become quite moving. Commenting about Route 66, he says: “I hope it doesn’t change.”
But change it does. Steil and Luning find the Shady Jack’s campground in Missouri where they stayed a memorable night in 1999 is an abandoned husk. Lucille Hamons of Lucille’s near Hydro, Okla., has died. They find the Oklahoma City bombing site transformed from a makeshift memorial on a chain-link fence to a manicured, serene park. The quiet, reserved owners of the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, N.M., have been replaced with an ambitious proprietor. The Exotic World burlesque museum near Oro Grande, Calif., has packed up and moved to Vegas. And one corner of the ghost town of Glenrio, Texas, has been tidied up by a new resident — an honest-to-goodness cowboy.
The point of evolution and change on the Mother Road is driven home when Steil and Luning, hankering for a garlic burger they savored in 1999 at Cactus Joe’s in Oatman, Ariz., discover the business has changed hands and now is called Arizona Girls. The 200-year-old cactus that’s part of the building is still there. But the garlic burgers are gone, replaced by charming female owners who keep desert tortoises as pets in the backyard.
Later, Luning observes: “Some things that you like change or go away. But in this case, it was replaced with something as equally as fun.
“But I still wish I had that garlic burger.”
It’s not just the Mother Road that changes. Steil took charge during the 1999 trip, namely because he had the book contract and Luning was on his first big photo assignment. Ten years later, it’s Luning who’s calling the shots, and Steil sits in the passenger seat. In just a decade, the roles have reversed.
Still, their fondness for Route 66 and each other has not ended. Among the best parts of the film are when Steil and Luning confide to each other while heading down the road. It’s not often you see this kind of frankness in any film. Frustrations pop up during the course of “Route 66: Ten Years Later,” but their friendship endures.
As I’ve said, the film contains flaws. Audio problems emerge during interviews with Blue Swallow Motel owner Bill Kinder and 1957 Thunderbird owner Andrea Woodside. My DVD inexplicably jumps back to the California chapter at the end of the movie. And, because of the difficulties described above, “Route 66: Ten Years After” becomes muddled at times.
But Delgadillo’s profound monologue and the film’s themes of change and friendship have kept me thinking about “Route 66: Ten Years After” for days. Those elements more than salvage the film, and they’re why I urge that you see it.
Recommended.
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Special features of the DVD include:
- A 36-page PDF of Steil’s highly entertaining, behind-the-scenes e-mails during his and Luning’s 1999 trip on Route 66. The pages include a few of Luning’s photos.
- A slide show with audio of Steil reading excerpts from his 1999 e-mails.
- Audio of Luning being interviewed about the documentary on WGN radio in Chicago.
- A 7-minute time-lapse video of Luning’s road-trip return to Chicago through Colorado and other non-Route 66 states.
- GPS locations on Google Earth of several Route 66 locations.
(The DVD for “Route 66: Ten Years After” can be ordered here.)
I WANT TO SAY THAT ILIKED VERY MUCH THE PHOTOS EACH ONE WITH A DIFFERENT ANDS FANTASTIC STORY WHICH TOOK PLACE IN THISIMPORTANT HIGHWAY IT MADE ME FEEL LIKE IF I were driving alone through the old and famous rout 66 it was a pleasure.
Thanks Ron! Chapter jump issue fixed.
Tim & Jim have produced a product that will be enjoyed by one and all. I will for sure buy my copy frist chance I see it.
Thanks guys for being a part of our family.
Yep, it’s definitely flawed. Even Jim says, in his closing comments, that “the Jim & Tim Show didn’t live up to my expectations.” Nor mine. But I still enjoyed watching it. The Angel Delgadillo segment is phenomenal and the other interviews (Rich Henry, Shellee Graham, Jim Ross, et.al.) are generally good. There are good visuals, too. Luning is almost as good with a video camera as he is with the still variety.
I didn’t know about the “special features”. Either my copy doesn’t have them or I’m not clever enough to find them. I see that a “Limited Edition Screener Cover” is offered and I suspect what I have is something like that. However, my cover, unlike the one pictured, shows the time and date of the Portage Theater screening. Whatever I have, I’m sure it’s quite rare and extremely valuable.
Denny, I reckon you indeed got a very early copy of the DVD that didn’t have the special features. I would get the DVD with the special stuff for Tim’s 1999 e-mails alone. Those journals are very entertaining reading, and they seem to have disappeared off the Internet. The original journals are still on the Route 66 yahoogroup, but it’s a pain to track them down in the archive.