Lone Star

A film set on the Texas border. A skeleton is found in the desert: a sheriff's badge beside it and a bullet. Sam Deeds, the present sheriff, opens the case. The bones may belong to Charlie Wade, who disappeared forty years ago. Wade was a sheriff everyone feared, who took money and was said to have killed. The man who removed him was Sam's father Buddy Deeds, and there is a monument to him in town. The more Sam investigates, the further the story the town tells drifts from the records. And his father becomes the first suspect. The method is not to separate the past. As the camera drifts from one person to another the scene moves forty years back; no cut, no signal of flashback. That choice is what the film is most cited for. The narrative shows three communities of a border town together and enters the question of whose history is taught in the school. Chris Cooper plays Sam, Elizabeth Peña plays Pilar and Kris Kristofferson plays Wade. Matthew McConaughey and Frances McDormand are in the cast. John Sayles directed and was Oscar-nominated for the screenplay. Among the best of its kind for anyone who likes American independent cinema and narratives built on history. For a viewer expecting a fast detective story, the film is long and the investigation is in second place.