Arquivo

A personal essay about the United States, viewed through the life and work of a movie actor. Henry Fonda (1905-1982) and the roles he played merge into a dazzling and conflicted figure. A very private man who thought he had “no good answers to anything” becomes the unlikely motor of a parallel history. His voice, recorded during his last interview in 1981, and his onscreen avatars guide us through America’s past and present on a road trip from the village of Fonda, in the New York state, across the Midwest to the Pacific; from 1651 to the 1980s and the presidency of another movie actor. It takes many places and times and characters to imagine an invisible republic —the United States of Fonda.

Presented at the Berlin International Film Festival.