Indian runner

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Movie
German title Indian runner
Original title The Indian Runner
Country of production United States , Japan
original language English
Publishing year 1991
length 127 (PAL-DVD) minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Sean Penn
script Sean Penn
production Don Phillips
music Jack Nitzsche
camera Anthony B. Richmond
cut Jay Cassidy
occupation

Indian Runner is a in 1991 by Sean Penn turned his debut as a drama about the relationship between two unequal brothers, Joe and Frank. The film is based on the song "Highway Patrolman" by Bruce Springsteen from his album " Nebraska ". It is set in a small town in Nebraska in the late 1960s and spans about a year and a half.

action

1968: The small town sheriff Joe Roberts is happily married to the Mexican Maria and the proud father of a young son. One day he shoots a criminal in self-defense. This incident is difficult for the correct police officer. Then his younger brother Frank, who has always been the black sheep of the family, returns from Vietnam. He is psychologically brutal and full of aggression because of his experiences in Vietnam. While his brother advocates the law, the self-destructive Frank comes into conflict with him again and again and ends up in jail - even after he visited his brother briefly without dropping by his parents. It wasn't until later that Joe found out that Frank was in jail in Ohio, when his father told him casually after his mother's funeral. The parents had received a card from a girl named Dorothy stating that Frank had beaten them up and that their father had insisted that a complaint be filed. But she would stand by him and stand by him.

Joe then drives into town to the prison where Frankie is being held to pick him up on the day of his release. When he sees that he is being picked up by a young, blonde woman (Dorothy) and that the two look very much in love, he stays in the background and only follows them to find out where they are going. Frankie lives in an hour hotel, as Joe finds out during his visit the next day, Frank's girlfriend, a former hippie girl, still with her parents. He wants to persuade Frankie to come with him and live with him and Maria for the time being, as Joe had agreed with Maria. However, Frank doesn't want to come with me for the time being.

Only after the father's suicide by being shot does the younger brother return to his hometown and get drunk at home. His girlfriend drives to Joe and Maria's house and asks them to come along. Joe tries to get the unpredictable and violent Frankie out of his alcohol and crime life.

Dorothy is pregnant, the two of them settle in Joe and Maria's parents' house and Frankie looks for work on a construction site. He works hard, takes every shift that he can only get extra, is loving to his girlfriend, whom he eventually marries, tries to rebuild the friendship with his brother and he seems to have found his inner peace. Despite all his efforts, he does not manage to control himself in the long run. He freaks out, goes to Caesar's (Dennis Hopper) tavern, where he gets drunk and starts a fight with another guest. It is only thanks to the intervention of his brother that his opponent does not file a complaint.

When the time for the birth came, he didn't stay with Dorothy to help her, but went to the bar, where he got drunk. Things are escalating. Joe talks to Frank and injures himself in the process, his blood dripping on the counter. When Frank is about to leave, Caesar wipes the blood away. Frank, who obviously sees this as an insult in his own confusion, freaks out and kills Caesar with a chair. Then he drives to the house where Dorothy is, but then realizes that his brother has to arrest him for the murder and flees towards the border. At the border, Joe catches up with him and they both stop at a distance from each other. The decision whether Joe will arrest him is in the room until Frankie accelerates and drives over the border.

Remarks

Eileen Ryan, Sean Penn's mother, who is also an actress, had a small role in the film.

The film is partly told by the older brother, Joe, and flashbacks to the childhood of the two are shown again and again, their game together, in which the character of the two is shown at an early age.

Sean Penn used the budget of almost seven million euros, which is unusually low for Hollywood standards , for his film and did not have to go begging to studio bosses. Penn said he found an independent producer in Don Phillips who stood by him. The executive producer was Stephen Bannon , who later made a career as a political commentator and adviser to US President Donald Trump .

Penn really wanted Viggo Mortensen for the role of Frank after seeing him in Tender Love .

The title refers to a line of text Frankie speaks in conversation with Joe. He speaks of an Indian myth in which the Indian, who brings a message as a runner, becomes the eternal message himself. "I am a message" ( I am a message ) he says to his brother. In dream-like sequences, such an Indian appears twice in the film, who walks through the scene, namely during the conversation in the wheat field and at the end during the chase on the border.

“Dedications and thanks” went to Hal Ashby († 1988), John Cassavetes († 1989), Frank Bianco and Bruce Springsteen . 

Reviews

TV Spielfilm wrote that this was a small, atmospheric film with differentiated characters for great acting achievements and an astonishingly secure directorial debut by Sean Penn, who also wrote the screenplay.

In the OÖN of November 23, 1991 it was read that once again the Indian had to serve as a metaphor for unrestrained American savagery in order to represent social outsiders. It belongs to nostalgic US cinema, just like the typical US small town and the ever-recurring conflict between adaptation and freedom. Despite the cheap clichés, the film would captivate with its camera work and montage, and with its effective video clips it is at least in line with the current trend.

The lexicon of international films judged: "An image-effective, melancholy" morality "about law and order, strict morality and family spirit, which condenses the social conflicts in America in the late 1960s into a symbolic struggle for the human soul."

Awards and nominations

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Full cast and crew for The Indian Runner (1991). In: IMDb . IMDb.com, Inc, accessed August 13, 2008 .
  2. ↑ Indian Runner. In: TV feature film . Thomas Mende, Ltg, accessed on August 13, 2008 .
  3. ↑ Indian Runner. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used