'The Road' is fiction, but the bleak scenery is real

The film, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron and 11-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee, also was shot in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and on Mount St. Helens in Washington state for scenes of devastation.

clipped from www.usatoday.com Imagining the end of the world is not easy, especially if you're not going to create one with a computer. But director John Hillcoat and filmmakers of The Road believe they discovered it in Pittsburgh. Bleak landscape: Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee are a father and son who make their way through post-apocalyptic America. "It's a beautiful place in fall with the colors changing," Hillcoat says. "But in winter, it can be very bleak. There are city blocks that are abandoned. The woods can be brutal. We didn't want to go the CGI world." PHOTOS: Get a feel for the bleak, beautiful world of 'The Road' That book is Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize winner of the same name. It's about a father and son who navigate a countryside devastated by an unnamed catastrophe.