Aug 7 2008'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.
Reader Comments
1. ken - August 7, 2008 3:49 PM
first - i am from pittsburgh and i can only hope the rest of the world would be this awesome post-apocalypse - i hate my life
2. hacksaw - August 7, 2008 4:11 PM
Pittsburgh is a shithole. Go Browns!
3. Brian - August 7, 2008 4:34 PM
Don't rag on Pittsburgh. The city is not the same place it was 30 years ago. Plus our football team wins the division every year. I'll bust a nut in your eye to show you where I come from.
4. Dan - August 7, 2008 4:43 PM
The road was written by Cormac McCarthy though, the guy that wrote No Country for Old Men.
The Road, the book, fucking sucked ass though.
5. Allison - August 7, 2008 4:57 PM
I was cool with the whole Pittsburgh bashing...but when you started talking smack about the Penguins...well sir, you're asking for one hell of an ass kicking.
6. meMEmeME - August 7, 2008 5:08 PM
@4:
The Road sucked ass?! It won the pulitzer prize for fiction and was innovative and powerful. but then again, if you say it sucked....
7. Scott - August 7, 2008 6:48 PM
Thank you, #6, I was worried I would have to take on the task of flaming #4. The Road is fantastic, and I was kind of excited to see it's being adapted to film...until I looked up John Hillcoat and saw that he's best known for directing fucking music videos. I hate Hollywood.
8. anon - August 7, 2008 7:04 PM
obviously you've never been to pittsburgh
9. Brennan - August 7, 2008 7:26 PM
Pittsburgh must be a better place than where you are at, because at least two or three big movies are or have been filmed here recently
10. Tim - August 7, 2008 7:50 PM
Come on man! I love this site! Why did you have to rag on the Pens? I have yet to get over the Pens loss this past year.
11. Ron - August 7, 2008 9:53 PM
Give us a break, we made it to the stanley cup FINALS!!! that's better than the four years in a row last place finishes of just a few short years ago! pittsburgh has new stuff poppin up all the time, we just can't afford to rip the old crap down...
12. Paulie Danger - August 7, 2008 11:18 PM
Pennsylvania is divided into two sections. Philadelphia and the rest of the state (we call that part Pennsyltucky, or Klansylvania depending on which neighborhood you're from). As soon as I saw that picture I thought two things "Damn, that's bleak", then "Damn, that looks like Pittsburgh."
13. meMEmeME - August 8, 2008 12:33 AM
I got #4 covered Mark, but don't forget that making music videos is a great way for directors to earn their chops and land their first movie gigs. Spike Jonze was a music video director until he dropped Being John Malkovich onto the world and he's been kicking ass since. Shitty music video directors, like McG, are another thing though.
But John Hillcoat did The Proposition, which is a flippin' sweet western set in Australia. Suffice it to say that the plot is that an badass (guy pearce) has to kill his older brother or else someone will execute his younger brother. Check it out.
14. spiffman66 - August 8, 2008 12:55 AM
Yeah Pittsburgh may be bleak, but the Penguins are the only thing the city has going for it. I usually love the writer's witty remarks, but I lost my shit when the Penguins were mentioned.
Ok, I smell it now. Got a shovel?
15. MrGutts - August 8, 2008 6:12 AM
Alright,
You can rag on Pittsburgh (the city) all you want and you can bitch and laugh on how it is in the TOP 10 of the worse polluted city's in the world.
BUT DO NOT be messing with the Penguins or the Steelers! That sir, is a ass kicking waiting to happen..
16. Eville1 - August 8, 2008 10:47 AM
Steelers stole the super bowl from the Seahawks.
...Yeah I said it. Bite me. Anyone with a TV and a brain could see it.
And I was watching them film this at Mount Saint Helens. Good stuff.