The Straight Story (1999)
Country: US/FR/GB
Technical: col/scope 111m
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
Synopsis:
73 year old Alvin Straight, lame and poorly sighted, sets out from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawnmower to visit his estranged brother who has suffered a stroke.
Review:
What could only be a true story begins in classic Lynch fashion with pans over cornfields and a track-in on a wooden house where people busy themselves with their daily round - until an accident occurs (cf. Blue Velvet). But in spite of sharing its iconography with earlier films, this one is a gentle affair, full of cornball wisdom and moments of unspoken understanding. One senses this is what draws Lynch to the characters, who, yes occasionally, remind us of the denizens of Twin Peaks but who are unmistakably human in a very humble way. In any event it is an incredibly relaxing and elating film to watch, with its country-style Badalamenti score and sweeping aerial shots acting as some ballad-like refrain punctuating the action. It is all the more poignant when one knows that Farnsworth died soon afterwards by his own hand.
Country: US/FR/GB
Technical: col/scope 111m
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
Synopsis:
73 year old Alvin Straight, lame and poorly sighted, sets out from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawnmower to visit his estranged brother who has suffered a stroke.
Review:
What could only be a true story begins in classic Lynch fashion with pans over cornfields and a track-in on a wooden house where people busy themselves with their daily round - until an accident occurs (cf. Blue Velvet). But in spite of sharing its iconography with earlier films, this one is a gentle affair, full of cornball wisdom and moments of unspoken understanding. One senses this is what draws Lynch to the characters, who, yes occasionally, remind us of the denizens of Twin Peaks but who are unmistakably human in a very humble way. In any event it is an incredibly relaxing and elating film to watch, with its country-style Badalamenti score and sweeping aerial shots acting as some ballad-like refrain punctuating the action. It is all the more poignant when one knows that Farnsworth died soon afterwards by his own hand.
Country: US/FR/GB
Technical: col/scope 111m
Director: David Lynch
Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
Synopsis:
73 year old Alvin Straight, lame and poorly sighted, sets out from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawnmower to visit his estranged brother who has suffered a stroke.
Review:
What could only be a true story begins in classic Lynch fashion with pans over cornfields and a track-in on a wooden house where people busy themselves with their daily round - until an accident occurs (cf. Blue Velvet). But in spite of sharing its iconography with earlier films, this one is a gentle affair, full of cornball wisdom and moments of unspoken understanding. One senses this is what draws Lynch to the characters, who, yes occasionally, remind us of the denizens of Twin Peaks but who are unmistakably human in a very humble way. In any event it is an incredibly relaxing and elating film to watch, with its country-style Badalamenti score and sweeping aerial shots acting as some ballad-like refrain punctuating the action. It is all the more poignant when one knows that Farnsworth died soon afterwards by his own hand.