Sayles isn't dealing simply in geographical borders. "In a personal sense," he says, "a border is where you draw a line and say, 'This is where I end and somebody else begins.' In a metaphorical sense, it can be any of the symbols that we erect between one another- sex, class, race, age." In an interview with TV's Charlie Rose, Sayles put it more bluntly, "Although it's set on the Texas-Mexican border, a lot of what I was thinking about when I was writing it was Yugoslavia and how you wake up one morning and have somebody come to your house and say, 'Well, here's a gun. You're a Serb. Let's go kill your next-door neighbor.'" Sayles brings those blind allegiances to the forefront in Lone Star.
There are long-kept secrets in the town of Frontera, TX, right on the border of Mexico, and Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), finds that people on both sides of the line would prefer that the truth not be revealed. A skeleton has been found on the outskirts of town, along with a Sheriff's badge from 1957. Sam's attempt to identify the body, and, possibly uncover a murder, is met with a great deal of resistance, if not outright antagonism, by the townspeople.
That would be an interesting story all by itself, but the narrative slips back and forth between the present day and 1957, when Sam's father, Buddy (Matthew McConaughey), was the Sheriff in Frontera. Back in those days, a vicious racist (Kris Kristofferson) preceded Buddy as the town's main law officer, but Buddy chased him out of the county, and no one ever saw him again. Through a collection of overlapping stories and, from a cinematic perspective, through a series of overlapping themes Sam is led into the dark heart of the place where he grew up, and possibly into the dark heart of his own father.
Sayles has hired a lot of the same actors over and over again throughout his career. He always works with a small budget (Lone Star came in at $4.5-million), and says landing performers who know the drill is a way to save both time and money. Chris Cooper had worked with the director on Matewan (1987) and City of Hope (1991), so Sayles credits their established rapport with making Lone Star a much easier shoot.
Also, in order to save time trying to draw coherent performances from his actors, many of whom were non-professionals, he wrote up short biographical sketches for each of the more than 50 characters. "I don't want to be on the set and find (the actors) playing something in a certain way, and when I ask why, they say, 'Oh, my uncle burned me with an iron when I was 5 years-old.' Because actors will do that, they'll fill it in if they think they need to. So I'd rather fill it in for them, so they're grounded."
Luckily, Sayles didn't have to jump through his usual hoops trying to find financing for Lone Star. He had worked on a screenplay for director Rob Reiner, the head of Castle Rock Productions, and the company was willing to finance the entire picture. Five million dollars would probably cover the lunch tab on one of Reiner's larger productions, so there wasn't as much of a concern in financing the movie. Lone Star received positive reviews, and Sayles was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar®. And it made its money back, which is the key in enabling Sayles to continue with his successful but still under-the-radar career.
Producers: R. Paul Miller, Maggie Renzi
Director: John Sayles
Screenplay: John Sayles
Cinematography: Stuart Dryburgh
Art Direction: Kyler Black
Music: Mason Daring
Film Editing: John Sayles
Cast: Stephen Mendillo (Sgt. Cliff), Stephen J. Lang (Sgt. Mikey), Chris Cooper (Sheriff Sam Deeds), Elizabeth Pena (Pilar Cruz), Oni Faida Lampley (Celie), Eleese Lester (Molly), Joe Stevens (Deputy Travis), Gonzalo Castillo (Amado), Richard Coca (Enrique), Clifton James (Mayor Hollis Pogue), Tony Frank (Fenton), Miriam Colon (Mercedes Cruz), Kris Kristofferson (Sheriff Charlie Wade), Jeff Monahan (Young Hollis), Matthew McConaughey (Buddy Deeds), Joe Morton (Colonel Delmore Payne).
C-135m. Letterboxed.
by Paul Tatara
