Cinematic Road Trip: Utah

Hitch a ride with John Ur on his Cinematic Road Trip. Today we're taking a pit stop in Utah.

I was about ten years old when I was assigned a project to create a map of Utah. The map would include all of the major cities and many of the major landmarks. I remember marking out the cities of Ogden, Provo and Salt Lake City. I traced the outline of the Great Salt Lake. I located Kings Peak (the highest peak in the state) near the right-angle turn in the state’s northeast border.

But there was one spot on the map that drew my fascination more than any other. That was the Bonneville Salt Flats. Salt flats? My research told me this was a large area where people would go to try to set speed racing records. I couldn’t fathom this. How could anyone drive through salt? How could you get all that salt to one place to begin with? Did they have giant steamrollers out there to make the large pile of salt flat?

Check out The World’s Fastest Indian with Anthony Hopkins and you will solve every conundrum from my childhood fascination. The movie follows a New Zealand man, Bert Munro (Hopkins), as he attempts to break the world land-speed record in the Sixties.  Besides Bonneville, the film was shot in Salt Lake City and small towns like Skull Valley, Tooele, and Wendover, Utah (as well as New Mexico and New Zealand).

The salt flats of Bonneville are not the only mystical natural landscape in Utah. The southern portion of the state is speckled with national parks, monuments, and recreation areas. This area is part of the canyon country that formed the Grand Canyon. Heading northeast on I-15 from the southwest corner, you can make a right turn to visit Zion National Park, a park filled with canyons and petroglyphs from ancient native cultures.  From there it’s just a short drive to Bryce Canyon and its famed spires, the “hoodoos.”  Continue along Route 12 from Bryce and you’ll pass Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and run into Capitol Reef National Park.  Further along in the same direction: Canyonlands and Arches National Parks; Glen Canyon National Recreation Area; Natural Bridges, Rainbow Bridge, and Hovenweep National Monuments.

Southeast Utah has played host to at least two very famous films. Monument Valley set the scene for Stanley Kubrick’s complex, sci-fi classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. A large portion of the prehistoric opening of the movie was filmed in the Valley. Kubrick used the large open space as staging for the ape creatures and the enigmatic monolith. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was shot in Arches National Park. But you won’t find any shots of Harrison Ford nor Sean Connery there. The scene is part of the prologue where young Indy’s background story is told.  Young Indy was played by River Phoenix and his father’s face is never seen, but his lines were overdubbed by Sean Connery.  My suggestion? Grab your hat and whip and start exploring this canyon country before the next Indiana Jones movie comes out. You’ve got about two months. Ready? Go. 

Also Recommended: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider. Previous stops on the Cinematic Road Trip: Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas.

Photos: Leslie Estelle and Kristen Coleman

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Comments

[Tonya]

The World's Fastest Indian is a great film, and the flats are an enchanting area - one of my favorites. Thanks for the virtual re-visit!

[Mircea]

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[Brian]

Thank you for not mentioning that horrible SLC Punks movie or whatever it was called with that really annoying guy from Scream. I caught it once on HBO about seven or eight years ago and I've been angry at Utah ever since.

[The Utah Windowz]

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was one of the best things to ever happen to the film industry, and certainly Utah. Thanks for the post and keep up the good work.