Wesley Fenlon | Not with a bang but a whimper.

As an independent filmmaker, John Sayles has a penchant for creating movies that are simultaneously entertaining and thought-provoking. Though directors are often considered the visionaries responsible for the quality of whatever movie they’re helming, a strong script is always essential. Sayles takes the best of both worlds — he writes all his own projects.

Sayles hasn’t directed every film he’s written — some of his early screenplays (such as the now-classic Piranha) earned him the money to finance his own projects, and since the early 1980s he has written and directed over fifteen movies. Despite his success as a genre screenwriter, Sayles’s real passion lies in crafting culturally conscious films that present some sort of social criticism, but it an examination of racism, class, or politics.

One such film is Lone Star, starring Chris Cooper and Matthew McConaughey, who wasn’t yet a bigtime Hollywood celebrity in 1996.  Lone Star examines a variety of serious social issues that are likely commonplace for anyone who lives in a Texas border town, such as the one in which the film is set; race relations play a big part in the film, but they’re not the only focus.

More universal concerns such as family relationships are just as emphasized.  Throughout much of the film, Chris Cooper is trying to learn more about his deceased father (McConaughey), and as he unearths more and more he’s forced to challenge the image he’s constructed in his own mind.

That’s one of the coolest things about Lone Star — it’s entirely possible to watch the film for the political and social overtones, but you don’t have to.  Wrapped up in the weighty cultural concerns is a clever murder mystery that continually alternates between Cooper’s present-day search and the past, in which his father was the town sheriff.

Thanks to the film’s numerous interwoven plotlines, there’s a lot to like in Lone Star.  Still, nothing really can compare to country-singin’ legend Kris Kristofferson’s performance as corrupt former sheriff Charlie Wade.  With a devilish gleam in his eyes, Kristofferson totally dominates every scene he’s in, and with just a few minutes of screen time he manages to be the most memorable and entertaining character in the movie.  He’s twisted and evil, but delectably so.

More Kris Kristofferson could have only made Lone Star better, but ultimately his perfectly sinister Charlie Wade would’ve only gotten in the way of the real focus of the film.  The last few moments of the movie offer up one hell of an ending as all the pieces come together to blow your mind with a Sixth Sense-caliber revelation that suddenly clarifies a number of mysterious moments throughout the story.

Shifting gears a bit, let’s think of Lone Star as a teaching tool.  What better way to engage students in important social issues than by presenting those problems in a tightly-wrapped mystery?  It’s the classic bait and switch: lull them into enjoying the film before they realize it’s worth thinking about.

In fact, a little Googling results in the unearthing of a guide to doing just that: using Lone Star in an academic light.  Officially titled “Teaching John Sayles’ Lone Star : A Guide for Teachers of Grades 10-12,” the guide is impressively detailed: it includes useful subjects of discussion and questions for incorporating Lone Star into a classroom setting.

This is how I originally discovered the film, myself: while taking a class on multicultural literature, my professor showed us a few minutes of the film to complement the discussion we were currently having.  And given the number of subjects Lone Star covers in its 135-minute running time, the film is unusually ambidextrous — if you’ve got something serious to discuss, it’s probably relevant in one way or another.

Continue past the cut to read my own analysis of how John Sayles examines a wide range of sociocultural issues in Lone Star.

Wesley Fenlon
Pizzino
ENGL 2400
24 April 2008

John Sayles’s Lone Star presents a complex look at the relationships between individuals in a small Texas border town, as well as the larger social and cultural implications of the interactions between people of various ethnic backgrounds.  One of the most prominent issues in the film, the struggle for identity, is examined from multiple angles in the form of several different characters.

One of the more prominent members of the community, Mercedes Cruz, does her best to eliminate any hint of her past.  She regularly insists that her employees speak English, and claims to be of Spanish origin, a claim that can be conceived as more dignified or less controversial than being Mexican in a border town.  However, at the end of the film, we discover far more about Cruz’s past, and her character.  Sayles reveals that Mercedes Cruz is actually an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and was helped across the border by her future husband, Eladio Cruz.

Despite her outward contempt for illegal immigrants, when one of her employees, Enrique, approaches her for help after his fiancée is injured crossing the border, Mercedes finally breaks from her typical behavior and helps Enrique, divulging an empathy for their plight that stands in stark contrast to the cold facade she projects.

Sayles presents another angle of the search for identity with the Payne family, both with Colonel Delmore Payne and his son, Chet.  Chet desires to remove himself from his father’s shadow and does not want to enter the military, and also has a strong wish to develop a familial bond with his grandfather, Otis.  Colonel Payne has his own father issues, however, as he grew up without Otis in his life.  When he discovers that Otis actually had great interest and pride in Delmore’s accomplishments throughout his life, the anger issues that had defined his personality begin to dissipate, and he allows himself to reach out for the family life he never had.

Sayles best exemplifies this in Colonel Payne’s heart-to-heart with his son near the film’s conclusion, in which he makes the comment that “the army isn’t for everybody” — Payne finally recognizes that the order, discipline, and “family” provided by the army, which were important to him growing up without a father, are not necessarily what his son needs.

Though the characters and the mystery surrounding Buddy Deeds is the main focus of the movie, one of the most overtly politically-charged scenes is a confrontation between teachers in the local high school.  The argument presented clearly demonstrates the tension between people of different ethnicities — several white teachers feel that the version of history Pilar Cruz teaches her students “tear[s] down the heritage” of the state of Texas, or, more specifically, the white Americans who fought against the Mexicans.

One teacher refers to Mexico as “the other side,” a term that carries a variety of implications — disdain for and fear of Mexico’s culture, history, and people, as well as an implied superiority or “rightness” of the white American version of history.

The white teachers clearly demonstrate a lack of openness to Mexican culture, which Cruz is trying to bring to the classroom; instead of accepting a more rounded view of historic events, they claim that “winners get the bragging rights” and seem convinced that an open mind is a danger to the “values” of their families.  As a border town, the mixing of cultures is inevitable, and this scene in Lone Star realistically shows how difficult it can be for people to accept differing cultures and opinions, a problem that, even today, there is no easy solution for.

Despite providing a plot that closely follows the mystery surrounding the murder of Sheriff Charlie Wade, John Sayles tackles multiple issues in Lone Star.  Family life, the difficulty of immigration and clashing cultural values are all featured in several scenes throughout the course of the film.

Several white citizens of the town express typical “conservative” American values that negatively look upon topics such as interracial marriage and Mexican culture, but even in these situations, not everything is as simple or obviously “bad” as it seems.  By the film’s conclusion, Sheriff Sam Deeds is forced to reevaluate his opinion of his father, who he discovers may not have been as corrupt and self-serving as he had long assumed.