Crossing New Europe: Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie

by Ewa Mazierska, Laura Rascaroli

Although a long-established and influential genre, this is the first comprehensive study of the European road cinema. Crossing New Europe investigates this tradition, its relationship with the American road movie and its aesthetic forms. This movement examines such crucial issues as individual and national identity crises, and phenomena such as displacement, diaspora, exile, migration, nomadism, and tourism in postmodern, post-Berlin Wall Europe. Drawing on the work of Said, Hall, Shields, Urry, Bauman, Deleuze and Guattari and other critical theorists, Crossing New Europe adopts a broad interpretation of "Europe" and discusses directors and films who have long been associated with the road movie, such as Wim Wenders ( Alice in the Cities , Lisbon Story) and Aki Kaurismäki (Leningrad Cowboys Go America!), and other more recent contributions such as Run Lola Run, Dear Diary and The Last Resort.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Ewa Mazierska is professor in film studies at the University of Central Lancashire and principal editor of a journal Studies in Eastern European Cinema. She has published over twenty monographs and edited collections, including From Self-Fulfillment to Survival of the Fittest: Work in European Cinema from the 1960s to the Present, Postcolonial Approaches to Eastern European Cinema: Representing Neighbours on Screen (with Eva Näripea and Lars Kristensen), and Work in Cinema: Labor and Human Condition. Mazierska’s work has been translated into almost twenty languages, including French, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Portugese, Estonian, and Serbian.