A true story - The Straight Story

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title A true story - The Straight Story
Original title The straight story
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1999
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director David Lynch
script John E. Roach ,
Mary Sweeney
production Neal Edelstein ,
Mary Sweeney
music Angelo Badalamenti
camera Freddie Francis
cut Mary Sweeney
occupation
synchronization

The Straight Story - A true story is a road movie from director David Lynch from the year 1999 , based on the true story of the pensioner Alvin Straight , who covered the nearly 400 kilometer route to his brother on a ride-on lawn mower. The script was written by John E. Roach and Mary Sweeney , the latter was also responsible for production and editing. Leading actor Richard Farnsworth received an Oscar nomination.

action

The 73-year-old pensioner Alvin Straight wants to visit his brother Lyle after a very long time because he has suffered a stroke . The two have been quarreling for ten years, and Alvin now wants to end that argument. Alvin no longer has a driver's license due to his poor eyesight and does not want to be driven. So he plans to travel 240 miles (390 kilometers) from his home in Laurens , Iowa , to his brother's in Mount Zion , Scott , Wisconsin , on his ride-on lawnmower . But the health of the widower Alvin is not for the best either - he has to move on sticks because of hip damage, his doctor suspects diabetes and urges him, but in vain, to give up smoking. For this reason, too, most of his friends in the village do not trust Alvin to make the long journey. His daughter Rose, with whom he lives, is also skeptical at first, but then helps him prepare for his trip.

Alvin's first attempt fails after only a few miles when his old lawnmower breaks down on the open road. He is brought home with his lawnmower, which he shoots out of frustration. He went to the local John Deere dealer and bought an older lawnmower tractor from 1966, but the engine was much better. Alvin starts his journey all over again and is now actually making good headway. He spends the night in his trailer, which he has converted into a kind of small, helpful camper with tarpaulins and his camping equipment.

On his six-week trip, he has many encounters and experiences. He meets a young hitchhiker who has problems with her family and has therefore run away. Alvin tells her around the campfire that a single person can easily break like a simple stick, but a family is like a bundle of sticks and therefore difficult to break. The next morning the hitchhiker has already disappeared and left Alvin with a bundle of sticks. Later Alvin saw a woman driving a deer killing a deer and then desperately reporting to him that - like a curse - she had run over some deer in the past few weeks despite precautionary measures. Alvin knows how to prepare the deer for his dinner. He talks about getting older with young cyclists who pass him by.

As Alvin approaches the Mississippi River , the terrain becomes increasingly mountainous and he almost creates a serious accident. His lawnmower needs to be repaired, after which he and his trailer are allowed to spend the night in the shed belonging to the helpful couple Riordan. Mr. Riordan offers Alvin the opportunity to drive him to his brother's house, but the old man refuses because he wants to finish the trip on his own. Alvin goes out for a drink with the villager Verlyn, who like him served in World War II , and the two of them share their experiences of the war. Alvin reports increasingly emotionally about the fact that he killed many people as a sniper in the war, once even accidentally a friend of his war comrade. He has never told anyone that before. After the lawnmower has been repaired by a couple of brothers in the village and Alvin can negotiate the costs down to a level that is comfortable for him, he continues his journey and drives across the Mississippi River.

In the film, Alvin crosses the Mississippi at the Black Hawk Bridge in Lansing

Shortly before his destination, Alvin spent the night near a cemetery, whereupon the local pastor sat down with him. The pastor knows Alvin's brother Lyle, whereupon Alvin tells him about his youth together with Lyle: They grew up under harsh, barren circumstances on a farm and both had the greatest hope while looking at the stars together. Then they would have talked about their dreams for the future. Eventually Alvin finds his brother, who lives in a rather neglected hut and can only move around with sticks - but alive and apparently well recovered from his stroke. Lyle invites his brother to sit on his porch and after a few moments asks if he had mowered all the way to him. Alvin says yes and together they look up at the stars.

"A true story"

As the title suggests, The Straight Story is based on a true story. Alvin Straight (1920–1996) was a resident of the real city of Laurens in the US state of Iowa and gained fame when he covered a distance of 400 km to Mount Zion , Wisconsin in the summer of 1994 to meet his brother Henry Straight (1914 -1998) after he suffered a stroke. Since he was visually impaired due to his age of 73 and did not have a driver's license, he covered the distance with the help of a lawn mower, to which he attached a trailer containing gasoline, camping gear, clothing and food, and he could do it sleep. The team had a top speed of 8 km / h. His brother, Henry Straight, recovered from his illness and moved back to Iowa to be closer to Alvin's family.

Minor changes in the comparison between reality and the film plot have been made: the film is not set in 1994, but a few years later, in the late 1990s - which becomes clear when the 73-year-old Alvins' daughter mentions that it was during the Tenure of US President Calvin Coolidge was born. Coolidge served between 1923 and 1929, but the real Alvin Straight was born in 1920. The older brother Henry Straight was renamed Lyle .

Production background

David Lynch (2001)

The film is arguably one of David Lynch's least discussed works. It is a road movie that, unlike most of David Lynch's other films, has almost no narrative breaks and is kept at a very slow pace. David Lynch, however, called The Straight Story several times, perhaps jokingly, in interviews his "most experimental film". The title of the film uses Straight in two ways, on the one hand as an English expression for straight , on the other hand as the last name of the main character.

The Straight Story was Lynch's first non-scripted film. This was written by his then partner Mary Sweeney , who was otherwise a regular film editor for Lynch's films, and her childhood friend John Roach. Lynch found the script by Mary Sweeney and John Roach exciting and wanted to see how and by what means he could transport the movement and emotionality in the script onto the screen.

The budget for the film was around 10 million US dollars and was shot in late summer through autumn 1998. The film was shot in chronological order at the locations in Iowa and Wisconsin, which the real Alvin Straight had also passed by. In addition to Laurens and Mount Zion, the start and end points of the trip, the filming locations included the small towns of West Bend with the Grotto of the Redemption , Clerment , New Hampton , Lansing , Pocahontas , West Union and Prairie du Chien . In many of the supporting roles, mainly regional actors with little or no film experience took part.

Richard Farnsworth , "the twenty years ago old men played" ( Georg Seeßlen ), committed suicide a year after the appearance of the film at the age of 80 years due to his incurable cancer suicide . He already knew about an incurable disease while filming The Straight Story and suffered from pain. Like the character of Alvin, he could no longer move without sticks at this point, but he was still working hard on the role. That was also due to Farnsworth's great respect for the real Alvin Straight, so he talked to two sons and other acquaintances of the man, who had died two years during the filming, in order to be able to embody him more authentically. Farnsworth had previously hesitated briefly about accepting the role when he heard that David Lynch would direct it. Farnsworth was an opponent of the use of swear words in films and Lynch's Blue Velvet , which he had seen, had an unusually high number of swear words. After assurances from Lynch and the screenwriters that The Straight Story did not contain swear words like Blue Velvet , Farnsworth took on the role.

In addition to Farnsworth, The Straight Story also became the last film by cameraman Freddie Francis, who was over 80 at the time of shooting . As with previous films, the score was composed by Angelo Badalamenti under Lynch's direction , but instead of the more typical synth or experimental music, he relied primarily on the country music popular in the Midwest combined with classical music themes.

publication

The Straight Story was distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1999 , after Walt Disney Pictures had also co-produced the film. As the only movie by Lynch in the USA so far, The Straight Story has not been given an age limit by the local film inspection agency. The Straight Story had its nationwide start in the USA in October 1999, and in Germany it was released for the first time on December 2, 1999. In the USA, the film grossed around 6.2 million US dollars at the box office and thus remained below the film budget, but the cinema revenues outside the USA and the further distribution of the film are not included in this figure.

synchronization

The German dubbed version was created in 1999 for the cinema premiere at Berliner Synchron, based on a dialogue book by Alexander Löwe and directed by Clemens Frohmann . Richard Farnsworth in the role of Alvin Straight spoke Werner Ehrlicher , Sissy Spacek as his daughter Rosie Susanna Bonaséwicz and Harry Dean Stanton as Lyle Straight gave Viktor Deiß his voice.

Reviews

The Straight Story was well received by critics, with many highlighting Richard Farnsworth's acting performance and noting that Lynch would have worked well with what was for him an unusual film material. At Rotten Tomatoes , the film has a positive rating of 96% based on 91 film reviews. The US critic Roger Ebert , previously mostly negative towards Lynch's films, gave him the highest rating of four stars. He highlighted the script by John Roach and Mary Sweeney, which found "poetry and truth in the exact selection of the right, everyday words" and so reminded of the realism of the dialogues in Ernest Hemingway . Cinematographer Freddie Francis manages to stage Iowa's landscapes beautifully, but at the same time not kitschy or too pleasant.

Lovorko Maric wrote in an essay on the film that for all skeptics of Lynch who would only see the bizarre surrealism of his works, The Straight Story is a good antidote . Here Lynch also shows his soulful side, which is otherwise mostly ignored, since in his other films he mostly shows the dark corners of America full of bigotry and corruption. Lynch is celebrating the American Midwest in particular with camera shots of combine harvesters, friendly people and sunsets. Nevertheless, echoes of the gloom of Lynch's other films can be seen at one point or another, for example in the opening scene in which Alvin collapses and in the appearance of the angry driver who has killed a deer. And similar to many of Lynch's films, regret and the shadows of the past are central themes in The Straight Story .

The film service ruled that the film was staged "with great skill". He is fascinating, although he is kept at a "stretched pace": "Only sometimes does the gloomy counterworld seem to speak up, but which can do nothing against the inner calm and wisdom of the main character." The TV magazine Prisma also raised the skillful use of Slowness in the film emerges: “This film is particularly impressive because of its slowness. Because Lynch has completely adapted to the speed of the lawnmower here. Without any effects, the work is reminiscent of a wonderful, leisurely babbling brook, where a surprise can lurk behind one or the other bend. "

Olaf Schneekloth wrote in Der Spiegel that since Miss Daisy and her chauffeur “no other film has taken on the dignity of old age as carefully, touchingly and magnificently” as The Straight Story . Lynch tell “straightforwardly” and “without further ado” a story that “in its simplicity reveals the ups and downs of a whole life”. At the same time, it is also a bow to rural America, which had gotten off badly in the previous lynch films. The Straight Story , according to Schneekloth, follows the “old tradition of storytelling” and lets the main character and not other characters tell about his life: “You slowly get to know and understand Alvin. Very slowly, as Alvin twitches down the street, emotion, sympathy and respect for the old man rise, for his great gesture of reconciliation and for his moving summary of life. "

“So straight and touching that the film was distributed by Walt Disney in the USA […] a self-revision […] Even if you watch the film this way, it remains disturbingly beautiful. […] Alvin's journey to death sometimes conveys pure happiness. But there is little consolation from what he leaves behind. [...] One does not come straight to such a simplicity in the portrayal of human tragedy and its comedy . "

- Georg Seeßlen

Awards and nominations

  • 1999: Nominated Cannes Film Festival 1999 , Palme d'Or price for David Lynch
  • 1999: Winner of the New York Film Critics Circle Award , NYFCC Award for Best Actor for Richard Farnsworth and Best Cinematographer for Freddie Francis
  • 2000: Nominated Academy Award (Oscar), category Best Actor in a Leading Role for Richard Farnsworth
  • 2000: Nominated Golden Globe , category Best Original Score - Motion Picture for Angelo Badalamenti and Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama for Richard Farnsworth
  • 2000: Winner Independent Spirit Award , category Best Male Lead for Richard Farnsworth, nominated David Lynch for Best Director , nominated Mary Sweeney and Neal Edelstein for Best Feature, and nominated John Roach and Mary Sweeney for Best First Screenplay

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 'The Straight Story': Lynch Going Straight for His Most Experimental Film • Cinephilia & Beyond. In: Cinephilia & Beyond. May 20, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2019 (American English).
  2. ↑ David Lynch On THE STRAIGHT STORY. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  3. ^ The Straight Story (1999) Filming Locations. In: The Movie District. Retrieved August 13, 2019 (American English).
  4. ↑ Patrick Smith: How an old man and his lawnmower made David Lynch weep: the making of The Straight Story . In: The Telegraph . April 14, 2017, ISSN  0307-1235 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed August 13, 2019]).
  5. ^ The Straight Story (1999) - IMDb. Retrieved August 17, 2019 .
  6. ^ 'The Straight Story': Lynch Going Straight for His Most Experimental Film • Cinephilia & Beyond. In: Cinephilia & Beyond. May 20, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2019 (American English).
  7. ↑ a b Georg Seeßlen : The Unwoven Band - David Lynch's new film 'The Straight Story' overcomes postmodern cinema. In: specifically 12/1999 and www.strandgut.de. Retrieved on March 19, 2009 (from Filmzentrale).
  8. ↑ Richard Farnsworth dies of self-inflicted gunshot wound. October 7, 2000, accessed August 13, 2019 .
  9. ^ Movies You Might Have Missed: David Lynch's The Straight Story. January 19, 2017, accessed August 13, 2019 .
  10. ^ 'The Straight Story': Lynch Going Straight for His Most Experimental Film • Cinephilia & Beyond. In: Cinephilia & Beyond. May 20, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2019 (American English).
  11. ^ Movies You Might Have Missed: David Lynch's The Straight Story. January 19, 2017, accessed August 13, 2019 .
  12. ^ The Straight Story (1999) - IMDb. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  13. ^ The Straight Story (1999) - Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  14. ↑ German synchronous index | Movies | The Straight Story - A true story. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  15. ^ The Straight Story (1999). Accessed August 13, 2019 .
  16. ^ Roger Ebert: The Straight Story Movie Review (1999) | Roger Ebert. Accessed August 13, 2019 .
  17. ^ 'The Straight Story': Lynch Going Straight for His Most Experimental Film • Cinephilia & Beyond. In: Cinephilia & Beyond. May 20, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2019 (American English).
  18. ↑ A true story - The Straight Story. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  19. ↑ The Straight Story - A true story - trailer, review, pictures and information about the film. Retrieved August 13, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Olaf Schneekloth: "The Straight Story": Journey on the lawn mower . In: Spiegel Online . November 30, 1999 ( spiegel.de [accessed August 13, 2019]).