Highway 40 West 198081 is the first of a series of documentaries by Hartmut Bitomsky born 1942 in Bremen which brought him international fame Each of these films is dedicated to both a specific and titlegiving object and its historicalcritical analysis Such as in Highway 40 West For a time span of 169 minutes the film shows Bitomskys emblematic USroad trip with a rented car on the eponymous road number 40 crossing the country from East to West From early travel routes of the Native Americans to the trails of early colonizers this street is loaded with American history and with the present ruins of the American dream which Bitomsky indulgingly captures on film He himself appears as actorauthor conducting innumerable interviews shooting the landscape the diners and hotels and his sonorous narrators voice reviews what is seen and tries to understand and make it understandable
