LONE STAR
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1996 Scott Renshaw
(Sony Pictures Classics) Starring: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Joe Morton, Clifton James, Miriam Colon, Ron Canada, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey. Screenplay: John Sayles. Director: John Sayles. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
This is how far I trust John Sayles' skill as a writer: in the few hours after I saw LONE STAR, when I couldn't quite get the pieces to fit together, I figured _I_ had to be missing something. Perhaps more than any other filmmaker's next project, I look forward to the next John Sayles project like a Christmas gift. While he is still growing as a director, his scripts are so unapologetically and relentlessly literate -- and literary -- that unwrapping them is its own kind of pleasure. LONE STAR, as much as any film of the last several years, is a novel on the screen, and a marvelous one. When I finally did put those pieces together, I realized how justified my faith had been.
LONE STAR takes place in the Texas border town of Frontera, where two men make a discovery near a former Army firing range: a human skeleton which appears to be the remains of Charley Wade (Kris Kristofferson), the corrupt sheriff who used to run Frontera with an iron hand and an open pocket. The discovery is of great interest to current sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), whose late father Buddy followed Charley as sheriff and became a beloved figure. But Sam's own feelings about Buddy are ambivalent, and when he begins to believe that Buddy might have been the man who killed Charley Wade, he becomes determined to find out the truth. That quest has Sam crossing paths with several townspeople, including Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Pena), a high school teacher and Sam's old flame; mayor Hollis Page (Clifton James), formerly one of Charley's deputies; and bar owner Otis Payne (Ron Canada). Each one holds part of the key to a forty year old mystery.
On its most basic level, LONE STAR is a superbly acted study of life in a border town. The cast is uniformly in tune with Sayles' naturalistic style, particularly Chris Cooper in a subtle but powerful performance as Sam; even Frances McDormand, as Sam's manic-depressive ex-wife, lends humanity to an edgy role in her single scene. The multi-ethnic cast provides a solid foundation for an examination of a place where the "melting pot" is anything but. The white townspeople feel overrun by the Mexican-Americans, the blacks only feel comfortable in Otis' roadhouse, and even some Mexican-American's like Pilar's restauranteur mother Mercedes (Miriam Colon)express disdain for recent illegal immigrants and their failure to assimilate. It is a place which, while less overtly racist than it was during Charley Wade's reign in the 1950s, is still characterized by an omnipresent sense of "us" and "them."
That is one of two crucial sub-texts of LONE STAR, both of which are intrinsic to its South Texas setting. This is a story about borders of all kinds, set in a town which is named after the Spanish word for "border." Fathers and sons are divided by old emotional wounds, lovers are separated by race, and everyone seems to be separated from the truth by pre-conceptions about what the truth should be. And that is the other thread running through LONE STAR: the nature of history. In an early scene, parents of various ethnicities sit in Pilar's classroom arguing over the way she is teaching the Battle of the Alamo, the white parents attacking her for suggesting that there is another perspective from which it could be viewed. The idea that history is personal is troubling, because it destabilizes the past, and when history has crossed over into legend, there will be many who prefer solidity. That is the truth Sam discovers as his investigation challenges the memory of his legendary father: myth has a power which simple facts cannot hope to match.
These rich themes were always evident as I watched LONE STAR, but I was bothered by a seemingly tangential sub-plot involving Otis Payne's estranged son Del (Joe Morton), returned to Frontera with his family after many years to act as commanding officer at the local army base. Then, finally, I saw it as absolutely crucial. Del, like Sam, harbors resentment towards his father; unlike Sam, his father is still alive. Sam's investigation can only bring him so close to Buddy, and it is telling that Buddy (played by Matthew McConaughey) appears only briefly in the flashbacks which Sayles weaves through LONE STAR. Sam and Buddy are separated by an uncrossable border -- the border of history -- while Del finds himself with a chance to be re-united with his father. At times it seems that Sayles is suggesting that the only history that has a chance of being re-interpreted is the history which has yet to be created.
LONE STAR is a haunting film, which deals with unexpectedly delicate subject matter with startling confidence. The experience of watching the film sticks with me because I didn't just sit through two hours of film; I was reading people's lives. That is the kind of filmmaker John Sayles is: an author with a camera.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 closed borders: 10.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw
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