The Straight Story
It is around three hundred miles from where Alvin Straight lives in Laurens, Iowa, to where his brother Lyle stays outside Mount Zion, Wisconsin; once close friends, following a dispute they have not spoken in ten years, but with Alvin’s daughter Rose taking a call telling her that her uncle has suffered a stroke, Alvin realises that he must make the journey to make amends before it is too late.
His mobility poor and his vision failing at seventy-three years old, he is unable to drive, and nor is there a direct bus route, and too stubborn and proud to ask for help he chooses to cross the fields of the midwest on a ride-on lawnmower, pulling behind him a small wagon with the barest essentials he needs to endure, a personal quest on the backroads of America through sunsets and storms, sleeping each night under the stars.
Based on the true story of Alvin Straight who made the journey in 1994 and filmed along the actual route he took, the opening scenes filmed at the house where he lived at the time, The Straight Story was to many a strange choice for director David Lynch, his films most often layered with darkness, betrayal, intrigue and mystery, yet in all his works there has been an element of kindness, here allowed to rise to the surface.
Originally released in 1999 and written by John Roach and Lynch’s long time collaborator Mary Sweeney, The Straight Story is similar to her own directorial debut released a decade later, the small-town reflections of Baraboo, both slow films of honest people who endure what life has given them and taken away, Richard Farnsworth terminally ill while filming his final role as Alvin Straight but uncomplaining, a man dedicated to his mission until the end.
The open road giving him freedom and purpose, cornfields to the horizon and the blue skies above, where Mulholland Drive was about individuals tainted and rendered anonymous in a corrupt city and Twin Peaks explored the duality of a remote town caught between the lumber industry and the haunted forest upon which it depended, The Straight Story is a return to Lynch’s rural roots, an elegy to the farmlands upon which the nation depends, silent thanks to the breadbasket of America and the humble people who toil within.
Rose played by Carrie and Badlands’ iconic Sissy Spacek, a friend of Lynch’s since Eraserhead and her husband Jack Fisk the production designer, she is uncomplicated, her stutter meaning that many mistake her for simple, but like her father she is determined to be self-sufficient, never a burden upon others, keeping her own counsel because what she carries is weighty, pain which time has never lessened, a longing never satisfied.
Another Lynch regular, Fire Walk With Me’s Harry Dean Stanton is Lyle, frail but refusing to capitulate, his own final lead role in the film Lucky serving almost as a companion piece to The Straight Story, while the gentle soundtrack is a departure from Angelo Badalamenti’s jazz noir yet which still carries his signature ethereal qualities, all luminously shot by two-time Academy Award winner Freddie Francis, his third collaboration with Lynch.
Presented in 4K UHD for the first time, StudioCanal’s new edition of The Straight Story is supported by a plethora of material including a new commentary by film historian Peter Tonguette, reflections on the production by the location managers, an archive interview with the famously tangential artiste Lynch, an examination of the soundtrack, behind the scenes footage, an image gallery and trailers.
The Straight Story will be available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from StudioCanal from Monday 9th February
