USA

On a Sunday morning in L.A., Mark Escribano parks a white Dodge Challenger in front of the planet Mars. Red rocks can be seen, a blue moon suspended in space. Escribano sweeps the floor, then darkens the stage. ‘We can start as far as I’m concerned’, he says. ‘It looks amazing.’

Escribano can make almost anything look amazing. Amazingly real, amazingly beautiful, amazingly sharp. The world as a backdrop, every conceivable environment a perfect illusion. Some scenes are exaggerated, some AI-generated, some are well-tempered representations of reality. Escribano blends them all in.

His business is illusions. Escribano is the executive producer of Standard Vision, an expert in LED volumes. They’re all the rage these days on the movie-making West Coast of the U.S. Stage building and time-consuming set design have given way to giant LED screens – projection surfaces for anything at all.

Projecting the possible and the impossible has always been Hollywood’s core business and that of its satellites. Selling big dreams is what they do. The summer sun blazes down on Los Angeles outside the studio gates. California is Earth’s biggest illusion-making machine. And the gateway to the American Southwest – the greatest storyteller the world has ever seen.

Playing with illusion and reality is an age-old game. What is and what appears to be merged into one. But, hey: ‘There’s no business like show business!’

That’s something they certainly know about in the American Southwest. And why there’s so much more between the Pacific and Las Vegas, between Hollywood and the desert than sensational cinema. Nowhere is the American Dream more American than here. Nowhere is the sky wider, nor does the land stretch out more extravagantly beneath white clouds. The endless road, the rumble of engines, those supersized cheeseburgers!

Flack is a professional when it comes to set design. A master scene-shifter with a well-established reputation in the industry. The Four Aces Movie Ranch is a gem. Anyone looking for a chrome-plated version of the West will find it served up here in distilled form, complete with ice machine and ketchup bottles from the good old days.

‘A good backdrop has to be perfect’, Flack says. ‘The design, the light, the shadow. The rusty sign banging in the wind. In the end, a backdrop has to be more true than reality. And then: bingo!’

The American West has you in its thrall – literally. You’ve got a Cody James on your head and black cowboy boots on the accelerator. You can’t help yourself; the stereotype is too strong. The illusion, the desire for stories. The purr of the engine is the sound of America.

Du rast durchs Valley of Fire. Im Sonnenuntergang scheinen die Berge zu brennen. Dies ist das Reich der Echsen und Skorpione. Ein Land ohne Bäume, ohne Gärten, ohne Oasen. Eine Wüste im besten Sinne, mitunter die heißeste und gnadenloseste der Erde. Doch ausgerechnet hier hat der Mensch die wohl unverfrorenste Dosis an Popkultur installiert, die man sich vorstellen kann.

Hier tanzen die Glücksritter und reiten die Desperados, hier amüsieren sich die Cowboys und dröhnen die Harleys – inmitten erbarmungsloser Natur. Der Plot ist unwiderstehlich. Nimm eine der menschenfeindlichsten Ecken des Planeten und verwandele sie in eine Piste für Dukatenjäger und benzingeile Freiheitssucher.

Letztlich ist genau das das Entscheidende. Ein archaisches Motiv von bemerkenswerter Aktualität: der Mensch in der Natur. Hier draußen ist diese Story auf die Spitze getrieben. Der Stoff für ganz großes Kino. Die Magie des amerikanischen Westens. Coca-Cola in der Steppe, Rock ’n’ Roll im Niemandsland.