John Sayles builds his films around communities, and we value the time he gives to lives beyond the central story. His patient storytelling pays off in Lone Star, though his writing can connect people rather too neatly.
Fi1m perspective
In Lone Star (1996), Chris Cooper makes a man thinking worth watching. As Sam Deeds, he gives the murder investigation a quiet centre while the film attends to the surrounding Texas border town. John Sayles allows family loyalties, racial divisions and a romance to occupy time that a brisker thriller would reserve for clues. We recommend his patience here: understanding why these people struggle to live alongside one another becomes part of the pleasure of the mystery.
His directing debut, Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980), began an independent career sustained in part by script work for other people. Historical stories became a substantial part of that work with Matewan (1987) and Eight Men Out (1988). The Irish folklore of The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) took him beyond his usual American communities. Across those changes, the recurring interest is in groups of people, with dialogue doing much of the work of explaining how they live.
Lone Star also answers the complaint that Sayles is stronger with words than with images. Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh helps different periods feel like the same place, while Sayles's editing lets the film move between them without strain. We were moved by those returns to earlier generations, because the divisions in the present no longer seem inevitable once we see how they were inherited. The transitions ask us to reconsider people we thought we had understood; they are doing more than keeping the investigation legible.
Elizabeth Peña's emotional directness as Pilar Cruz is especially valuable amid the careful unravelling. She and Cooper give us a reason to care about conversations that might otherwise become explanations of the town's history. The weakness comes when Sayles makes the connections between these lives too neat. His writing occasionally asks us to believe that so many separate stories would fit together this well, and the careful construction starts to distract from the people.
Start with Lone Star, but give its early stretch time to settle. The film needs us to remember the surrounding lives as well as follow the investigation. It is a poor choice for an evening when getting to the answer quickly is the chief requirement.
Biography
John Sayles (born John Thomas Sayles) is an American independent film director, screenwriter, editor, actor and novelist. Born on 28 September 1950 in Schenectady, New York, he graduated from Williams College in 1972 with a degree in psychology. He began his career writing screenplays for low-budget films before directing his debut feature, Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980).
Sayles is known for writing and directing films including Matewan (1987), Eight Men Out (1988), Passion Fish (1992), The Secret of Roan Inish (1994) and Lone Star (1996), on which he also served as editor. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay for Passion Fish and Lone Star. He has frequently collaborated with producer Maggie Renzi and often edits his own films. He has also written novels and received a MacArthur Fellowship.
