Lone Star Film Analysis

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The 1996 film Lone Star, written and directed by John Sayles, is a neo-western suspense thriller set in Rio County, TX on the Mexican/American border. Chris Cooper plays a county sheriff, Sam Deeds, who returns home after his father, sheriff Buddy Deeds, played by Matthew McConaughey, has passed away. After returning home, Sam begins an investigation into the death of Charlie Wade, the long-missing and former sheriff of Rio County played by Kris Kristofferson. During his investigation, Sam learns much about the history of Rio County and how events of its past helped to shape its present. Lone Star is a story told through a variation of the Classical Hollywood Narrative (CHN) with a focus on the complexity of human interaction and its impact across generations.

The style of the opening scene functions to establish referential meaning for the viewer. As the camera pans across the rocky expanse of the desert, made green by pear cactus and sage, the image is accompanied by the sound of Latin music. Following the discovery of a skeleton, the local sheriff, Sam Deeds, arrives on the scene and the stage is set for a western film. As is the common formula of the CHN, his subsequent investigation is the impetus driving the tale. Sam’s goal is to uncover the truth, and he is met with multiple obstacles along the way. His quest reveals much of the county’s history, through multiple flashbacks in scenes from its past depicting characters and events that shaped its evolution. The development of the film takes shape as the history of Rio County is revealed from the perspective of multiple people living in the present. The final form of the film is approximately D (present), A (past), E (present), B (past), C (the past and present come together). Toward the middle of the film, there is a sense of disunity created as some of the stories appear to be peripheral (e.g., the story about the local army base shutting down), and not connected to Sam’s investigation. However, as the main point of the film comes into focus, there is a final sense of unity. The symptomatic focus of the film is the complexity of the shared history of people belonging to multiple cultures and the positive and negative impact of human interaction. This theme is explicitly referenced throughout the film. The viewer learns that Charlie Wade, who was white, had engaged in racially motivated extortion. Sam’s father, Buddy Deeds, who was also white, had been a deputy when Charlie was the sheriff. Buddy was
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As with the CHN, the story has one primary protagonist, the character Sam Deeds. However, in a multifaceted variation of the CHN, the symptomatic theme of the tale is the central focus of the film rather than any one character. The development of the film reflects the complexity of the ideology it presents as those living in the present tell the story of the county’s past. It is only in seeing the direct and indirect impact of human interaction through the generations that the film’s unity is understood. Nevertheless, while the symptomatic focus is the main point of the film, its mysteries are revealed. Following the standard form of the CHN, the character Sam discovers the truth about Charlie’s death and, for the viewer, there is a sense of

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