Lone Star (1996)

June 21, 1996, release date

Directed by John Sayles

Screenplay by John Sayles

Music by Mason Daring

Edited by John Sayles

Cinematography by Stuart Dryburgh

Kris Kristofferson as Charlie Wade

Matthew McConaughey as Buddy Deeds

Chris Cooper as Sam Deeds

Elizabeth Peña as Pilar Cruz

Clifton James as Hollis Pogue

Ron Canada as Otis Payne

Joe Morton as Delmore Payne

Míriam Colón as Mercedes Cruz

Vanessa Martinez as the teenage Pilar Cruz

Tay Strathairn as the teenage Sam Deeds

Eddie Robinson as Chet Payne

Stephen Mendillo as Sgt. Cliff

LaTanya Richardson as Sgt. Priscilla Worth

Jesse Borrego as Danny Padilla

Tony Plana as Ray

Frances McDormand as Bunny

Oni Faida Lampley as Celie

Eleese Lester as Molly

Tony Frank as Fenton

Gordon Tootoosis as Wesley Birdsong

Beatrice Winde as Minnie Bledsoe

Chandra Wilson as Athena Johnson

Richard Andrew Jones as Texas Ranger Ben Wetzel

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Produced by Castle Rock Entertainment

Lone Star starts right away with mystery: Two men exploring in the desert find a partial skeleton. The discovery raises many questions, of course, but some are personal for Sam Deeds, who is sheriff in a fictional town, Frontera, Texas, that has seen its share of corruption under past sheriffs. One of them was his father. Now Sam must piece together the mystery and discover some facts about his father and his past.

The heat and the desert landscape are features of the locale and part of the story and tension. I would call Lone Star a film brûlant (“burning film”), what others call a film soleil, because the heat is definitely a factor throughout. Washed-out, muted colors and scenery emphasize the gravity of the multiple plot threads and what the past was like for several of the characters. The heat, the desert, and the border between Texas and Mexico can be called characters in the film: All of them define the locale, and the locale defines a lot about the characters. Some of the film’s themes are relevant today, just over twenty-one years after its release.

The use of flashbacks is very effective in Lone Star. The flashbacks are easy, panoramic sweeps of the camera into the past, into characters’ memories that are still so real, still so close. The viewer can almost forget about the transitions because they are so smooth and seamless. The way that the flashbacks are handled makes the narration unusual because they add an almost dreamlike quality to the film. They emphasize characters’ memories in ways that pull the past into the present action of the film, allowing viewers to know that the characters live with their memories every day.

(This blog post about Lone Star contains spoilers.)

The music on the soundtrack emphasizes the mood of the film, which is dark and somber—and also full of longing. Confusion and self-doubt are part of Sam Deeds’s life as the son of Buddy Deeds: He is sheriff in the same town as his father was at one time. His father is the prime suspect after the skeleton is discovered in the desert, and Sam’s investigation becomes entwined with memories of his complicated relationship with his father.

One character, Charlie Wade, is portrayed as truly evil. Fear was part of many people’s lives when Charlie Wade was still alive and working as sheriff. He seemed to know nothing but violence and how to administer it. He’s the driving force behind much of the violence in the town, and he manipulates everyone to bend to his will by abusing his position as sheriff. The other characters are doing the best they can under very unpleasant circumstances.

Fate plays a large role in Lone Star. Some characters are keeping secrets that pervade everything in their current lives. Others are unaware that secrets even exist, and when they learn the truth, the secrets have an impact on their lives. Sam Deeds tries to reconcile his own life with that of his father’s memory, which is kept alive by the townspeople, most of whom remember Buddy Deeds much more fondly than his son Sam does. In fact, Sam left town to escape his past, but he cannot forget the love of his life, and the memories lure him back. The murder in the opening scene sets him on a trajectory that he faces only reluctantly.

The story is rich, and Sayles lets the characters take their time telling their respective stories and reliving their respective memories. He also lets the camera linger so that the mood is established or so that the character can slip easily into a memory (a flashback) to further the plot. Even the supporting characters enrich the story by portraying a complicated view of Frontera, Texas, the fictional town that is the setting of the story.

I saw Lone Star when it was released, and it was a joy to see it again on DVD. I just wish the DVD came with audio commentary from Sayles. I’ve seen several of his films, in the theater and on DVD, and I am always amazed at how he interweaves several plot threads into a cohesive whole. Lone Star is no exception.