Cited by Jonathan Rosenbaum as one of the one hundred greatest American films ever made, Barbara Loden’s neorealist gem centers on her brilliant performance as a rural Pennsylvanian housewife who embarks upon a flight to nowhere, traveling through an American landscape of decrepit factories, two-lane wastelands, and ratty motels. Dragged seemingly by the wind into a relationship with a small-time crook (Michael Higgins), Loden’s Wanda floats through her life as if a witness to it, a view of desperation filtered through a tinted windshield. Loden’s creative partner in the production was cinematographer/editor Nicholas T. Proferes, who, crucially, emerged from the then-vital tradition of cinema verité.