The Donner Party (1992) 84m.
Absorbing documentary by Ric Burns follows the format of his successful television series THE CIVIL WAR and tells its story through the use of old letters, diaries, sepia-tone photographs, maps, paintings, and commentaries by writers/historians. It's to Burns' credit that he can sustain this approach for nearly an hour and a half - but then his subject matter is entirely engrossing. Film traces the progress west of the 1846 wagon train that became known as the Donner Party, which, after a terrible journey, became snowed in at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
While it is the trek's gruesome outcome that people are mostly familiar with, the Party's many hardships and dramas en route to California are equally gripping. There is enough material to fill a movie script of epic proportions. Curiously, the static appearance of the film's frames (the only motion Burns allows is from the elements - water, fire, clouds, and snow) may cause you to visualize your own 'action' and 'actors' and 'dialogue' as it goes on. This distant, yet respectful, approach has an authority which enables us to react to the emotional core of the story without feeling as manipulated as we might by a sensationalized Hollywood script (I know I shouldn't laugh in a couple of places, but there're a couple of narrated footnotes that are either too ironic or bizarre to resist). As in his earlier work, Burns employs actors to provide voice-overs for the various true-life emigrants (Amy Madigan, Timothy Hutton, and Eli Wallach, but to name a few). It's one of a number of 'medley' devices he weaves together to keep our attention from flagging, which also include his pan-scans of photographs (many of which are shown repeatedly) and frequent background music (ranging from languid Spanish guitars to brooding themes from TWIN PEAKS' Angelo Badalamenti). Keep an eye out for it.
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