steven@ism70.UUCP (10/14/84)
COUNTRY Starring Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard. Also starring Matt Clark, Wilford Brimley and Levi Knebel. Directed by Richard Pearce. Written by William D. Witliff. Produced by Jessica Lange and William D. Witliff. Line Produced by William Beaudine. Photographed by David Walsh. Production Designed by Ron Hobbs. Edited by Richard Halsey. Music by Charles Gross. From Touchstone Films. (1984) I've seen _P_l_a_c_e_s_ _i_n_ _t_h_e_ _H_e_a_r_t, _C_o_u_n_t_r_y and I've read the shooting script for Universal's November release, _T_h_e_ _R_i_v_e_r, and I'll tell you this: _C_o_u_n_t_r_y is undoubtedly the most depressing, most political and probably most ambitious of the three films. _P_l_a_c_e_s has a certain nostalgic value to it that's intentional in its telling; writer-director Robert Benton wishes to recall an atmosphere as much as he wishes to tell a story. _T_h_e_ _R_i_v_e_r exhibits a strongly dramatic quality to it; things seem Hollywoodized to a certain extent to make the plight of the Garvey family palatable to a wider audience. _C_o_u_n_t_r_y, on the other hand, gives us an unremittingly harsh visual style that matches its realistic story. And it presents us with a family structure that comes under real stress instead of automatically pulling together the way the families do in the other two films. Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard play Jewell and Gil Ivy, a typical small Iowa farm family in present day America. When the U.S. government decides to pull the plug on the Ivy's $96,000 in farming loans (by giving the Ivys 30 days to pay up or have their farm repossessed), the family starts to crack under the strain; Gil goes off, drinking and running away to lick his wounds, while Jewell stands fiercely at the door of her home realizing she's still without the least idea of how to stop the impending foreclosure. _C_o_u_n_t_r_y was extremely troubled in production. My friend works at a small company in Burbank that does video press kits (assembled short 5 to 10 minute pieces about the movie, seen on cable as filler or given to TV stations to run under a local movie reviewers comments), and so I heard a lot about the behind the set quarrels. The original director, writer/co-producer William Witliff was replaced by Lange after a week of location filming in Waterloo, Iowa. Shepard was called in to rewrite the ending. The weather turned cold and wintry as filming progressed. Eventually, Disney had to complete several scenes slated for location shoots on the backlot in Los Angeles. Some of this helped make a better movie, some of this didn't. Disney execs had the crawl added to the end of the film to make it more upbeat (after seeing Shepard's quiet reconciliation ending). Richard Pearce, a more experienced director (_H_e_a_r_t_l_a_n_d, _T_h_r_e_s_h_o_l_d) than the novice Witliff, did a rather good job of direction, I think. The fierce weather the production crew faced seems to have added a lot of extra atmosphere to the story. Most of the studio stuff looks great. The entire tornado sequence was filmed in the studio but it looks fantastic. The best thing about _C_o_u_n_t_r_y, and this is not to knock _P_l_a_c_e_s_ _i_n _t_h_e_ _H_e_a_r_t or _T_h_e_ _R_i_v_e_r too much, is that it deals with a real problem without flinching and doesn't giving an easy, pat answer to it. In _T_h_e_ _R_i_v_e_r and _P_l_a_c_e_s_ _i_n_ _t_h_e_ _H_e_a_r_t, the endings are based on the audience accepting that if the family can make it through this one harvest, they'll be ok. _C_o_u_n_t_r_y doesn't give its characters that out, cause that's not the way it is in the farming business of 1984. _C_o_u_n_t_r_y deals directly with government aid programs and dollars and cents and the like. And it makes it interesting and compelling because of the way you see the effect on the Ivys. Lange and Shepard are good in their respective roles; they feel authentic. Shepard's character suffers from a certain murky quality. I didn't quite sense why he was doing all the things he did in the film, and I also didn't sense how his character could have such a different reaction to the government action than his wife when they've been so close so long (long enough to have three kids). It's certainly not a seamless film. Charles Gross' music is dreadfully inappropriate. Some dramatic histrionics seem out of place, but it is intelligent and thoughtful for the most part. Three stars out of four.