'The Road' Photos Reveal Pennsylvania's Hopelessness
USA Today has the first look at the bleak, post-apocalyptic world of John Hillcoat's The Road, starring Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron, and a child with an annoying name. Wondering how they ever found such a stark, depressing landscape in the real world (pretend you're wondering)? The answer: Pittsburgh!
The film, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and 11-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee, also was shot in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and on Mount St. Helens in Washington state for scenes of devastation.But most of the film was shot in and around Pittsburgh.
Hillcoat found abandoned coal fields, a deserted amusement park and an 8-mile stretch of closed freeway as locations.
"It's tangible, the misery and hopelessness and the bleakness," Mortensen says. "It gives you much more to work with if you're filming in that world instead of a green screen.
So basically, "Thanks for letting us shoot there, Pittsburgh, but man, you guys are absolutely drenched in misery, and you wear sadness like a cape made of pure melancholia--that is, if you still wear anything, since you're so weighed down by despair you probably can't even lift yourself to dress anymore. And by the way, the Penguins really blew it in the playoffs this year."
More here.