The Automobile and American CinemaWednesdays throughout July and AugustAs an icon, the automobile seems inexhaustible. Within this single high-octane object idles our desire for mobility, adventure, and acquisition. And even though it is a quintessential product of mass industry, the auto miraculously remains a potent marker of our individuality. This richness as an icon of American culture has made the car a continually fascinating conveyance for cinema. A nine-part series, "Accidents Will Happen" is a crash course in the filmic history of the automobile, from the muffled early decades to the loud roar of more recent cinema.Though this visual history is strewn with wreckage, "Accidents Will Happen" is not simply about car chases and collisions. The automobile is seen as a technological appliance, a rolling sculpture, a fetish object, and a vehicle for self-propelled discovery. Around these machine manifestations, stirring personal and social dramas are ignited. So we have the fear of new technology expressed in Roy Del Ruth's The First Auto (1927), sibling rivalry examined in Howard Hawks's The Crowd Roars (1932), and the quest for gender equality engendered in Jonathan Kaplan's Heart Like a Wheel (1983). Freewheeling rebellion is mobilized in such high-velocity films as Lewis Collins's Hot Rod (1950), Jack Hill's Pit Stop (1967), and Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971). "Accidents Will Happen" also takes several rest stops from narrative cinema to look more closely at contemporary car culture with new documentary works such as Harrod Blank's Driving the Dream and Addison Cook's Favorite Mopar. Viewers, start your engines!-Steve SeidThis project is made possible through the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund Museum Collections Accessibility Initiative. Wednesday July 2, 1997
