A 30-mile trip down a Colorado highway is experienced 23 years apart via split-screen. Black-and-white 8mm footage from 1980 on the left, and color digital video from 2003 on the right. Both have been shot in time-lapse mode, condensing the trip into less than four minutes. The camera(s) travel around bends and up and down hills as overpasses fly by simultaneously on both halves of the screen.
Changes in the landscape between the two runs become apparent. A dirt off-ramp has been paved; a chain-link fence on the divider has been taken down. Even changes in Cramer himself are evident, as he seems to have mellowed over the last quarter century (he doesn’t pass on the right as often nowadays).
The movie’s minimalist score is the only aspect of the production that is less than remarkable. It’s far too wowie-zowie, too eager to point out how fantastic the images are. Whether the grand design for this film was in Cramer’s head in 1980, or if it was a recent realization on how to get some use out of old footage, the end result is indisputably stunning and all too brief.
