Lone Star

Interview with John Sayles (Cineaste v22, n3 (Summer, 1996):14)

Lone Star is writer-director-editor John Sayles's film version of menudo, the hearty and picante tripe stew popular in Mexico's northern states. Into his stewpot Sayles pours one-third modern Western, one-third love story with a twist, and one-third murder mystery; he stirs these ingredients briskly with a strong ensemble cast in dozens of speaking roles. The result is a realistic portrait of a Texas border town, Frontera (i.e., 'border'), where in the 1990s workaday people of different ethnicities face difficult social problems as they grapple with questions of history, identity, economic and political power, education, and the future of the town. Indeed, this may represent Lone Star's greatest achievement, because seldom in recent U.S. cinema have the social issues of small-town America been so thoroughly explored via the conflicting perspectives of different sociocultural groups. And all the while Sayles, always the engaging storyteller, spins and crisscrosses interlocking stories and personal histories in a resourceful and entertaining manner, including two surprise endings.

History looms large in Lone Star, and the search for historical truth in Frontera propels the master plot and shapes the subplots, as characters from the middle and younger generations of three ethnic communities uncover and confront the surprising truth about their elders' past. Anglo Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), the current sheriff of Rio County, initiates a criminal investigation that leads him to evidence that his deceased father, the respected and legendary Sheriff Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey), was not only a corrupt cog in the county political machine, but very likely a murderer. Even more crucial to Sam is the discovery that Buddy was a philanderer who secretly fathered a daughter, Pilar (Elizabeth Pena), who is not only Sam's former high-chool sweetheart and now his current lover, but also, Garcia Marquez-like, his half-sister. Chicana- Angla Pilar - perhaps too pointedly a high school history teacher - discovers her real parentage at the end of the film and is likewise forced to reexamine her relationship with her lover and newly discovered half- sibling. In a subplot, a teenage African-American boy, the son of a colonel (Joe Morton) at a nearby military base, finally meets his long- estranged grandfather and learns that the family is, in fact, part Native American.

Sayles visually reinforces the weight of history and the past in Frontera with seamless chronological transitions smoothly effected by means of panning or other camera movement during uninterrupted takes. The film begins in the 1990s, when Wade's skeletal remains - along with his sheriffs badge and Masonic ring - surface in a deserted area near the Army base. At critical moments in the narrative, however, camera movement leads the audience into the 1950s, when the unsolved disappearance/murder of "bribes and bullets" lawman Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson) occurred; or into the 1970s, when Pilar and Sam were teenagers in love and unaware of her lineage.

Boundaries and lines constitute Lone Star's central theme and the very core of the complex, diverse society that Sayles creates. The international border between Texas and Mexico offers an appropriate setting for exploring the dynamics among peoples who inhabit a multicultural community and the problems that arise when the distinguishing lines (whether physical barriers or symbolic constructions) of sociopolitical groups or individuals fail to coincide.

The Rio Grande, which separates Texan Frontera from its Mexican counterpart, Ciudad Leon, affords the filmmaker a natural entry into his exploration. The river marks a physical, geographical delineation of national territories, and also, because this is Mexico and not Canada, serves to divide peoples of mostly dissimilar ethnic origins and economic opportunities. Its presence as a motif in the film immediately raises the true-to-life problem of illegal immigration that currently shapes so much of the U.S. attitude towards its borders. This polemic, however, contributes only one facet to the film's intricate examination of borderlines.

Interactions among groups in Frontera are very much matters of staking out and occupying, of setting limits and containing. The dominant Anglo minority has traditionally utilized the border (both metaphorically and physically) as a political tool to establish barriers that protect its own privileges and propagate its particular values. Conversely, these same borders limit, contain, and control the presence and participation of the other ethnic groups, most notably the Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. One of the Mexican characters, a tire salesman who has lived in the U.S., neatly skewers the presumption of such practices. He illustrates a little object lesson about lines and power by inviting Sheriff Sam to step over a line drawn in the dirt with a Coke bottle. This action recalls William Travis's legendary challenge to his troops at the Battle of the Alamo, which Anglo-Texans have historically regarded as emblematic of their heroism. The updated gesture - now accomplished by a Mexican on Mexican soil using a symbol of American economic and cultural might - ironically lampoons yanqui pretensions and provides a pointed reminder that gringo laws prevail only on the U.S. side of the line.

A physical barrier may help to limit foreigners' access to Frontera, but the lines that contain the town's resident subcultures are essentially political and psychological. The parameters of the African-American community's participation in Frontera's sociopolitical life derive from the institutionalized racism of Texas' slave-holding past. As Sheriff Wade in a flashback so forcibly reminds the young Otis Payne, recently returned in 1957 from supposedly liberal Houston, black people are expected to know their place and to stay in it. Times have changed by the 1990s, but the sense of such segregation nonetheless remains with Otis (Ron Canada). He refers to the bar he owns, for instance, as the one club in the county where "our people" can feel comfortable. Uttered in a tone of solidarity and pride, his choice of words nevertheless offers evidence that the spirit of the old, differentiating boundary still survives. This attitude, more than any visible difference in skin color, suggests that Frontera's "Darktown," of which Otis is "Mayor," exists most significantly as a state of mind.

Sayles's Rio County offers passing glimpses of two other groups whose presence contributes to the rich mixture of peoples in the area. Not surprisingly in a western setting, there is the long controversial institution of containment, the Indian reservation, represented by a sole individual who significantly has chosen not to live there because the politics had driven him crazy. Secondly, there is the army base, which contains a social group in the making - the new recruits who, like one young female African-American, increasingly join up because the army offers protective barriers against the joblessness and chaos in the streets outside. Sayles uncomfortably stretches his story here to comment on a contemporary social phenomenon which, for as much as it offers a variant example of his thematic concern of barriers, nonetheless remains outside his central focus on the border society itself.

Lone Star strikingly depicts the personal psychological boundaries that confront many citizens of Frontera as a result of living in such close proximity to the border. 'The Other Side,' an oft-repeated phrase in Frontera parlance, has assumed metaphorical dimensions, variable according to the group using it. To the 'WASPish' Anglo population, 'The Other Side' suggests an experience that is foreign, different, perhaps threatening or even dangerous. To many Mexican-Americans it represents a past history. Mercedes Cruz (Miriam Colon), for example, is all too eager (until her last scene) to conceal, ignore, and deny at all costs anything connecting her to her country of birth. She has even restyled herself as "Spanish" - presumably a more socially acceptable designation the community allows her because of her work ethic and business success. A first-generation immigrant, Mercedes remains prickly and evasive on the matter of her origins and shows no sympathy for her third-generation grandson, who would like to trace his roots on the other side.

Sam's deputy Ray (Tony Plana) represents an established Mexican- American family. He has long since ceased to look backwards; he keeps his gaze resolutely directed toward further political and social advancement as a ground-floor member of the soon to be legitimized, power-brokering Mexican-American majority. A single line of dialog humorously summarizes where the deputy stands when, in response to Sam's remark about having to go over to the "other side," Ray blurts out in a puzzled and disbelieving tone, "The Republicans?"

In Frontera barriers are constantly subject to challenge and revision, to tradeoffs and accommodations that allow certain lines and their inherent codes of behavior, to be bent, blurred, and at times purposefully ignored altogether. Changing lines and malleable, leaky barriers are endemic. Illegal immigrants permeate the labor force, and Spanish locutions pepper the redneck barman's vocabulary. "Se habla American here, goddamnit," he grouses as he fulminates against the onslaught of Mexican culture.

The politically dominant Anglos may have struck an accommodation with many superficial aspects of Mexican/Mexican-American culture - the food for one - but, as the defensive tirade by the Anglo woman from the textbook committee (undoubtedly a concerned citizen and not a teacher) illustrates, they still fiercely resist relinquishing ground on more fundamental issues, such as how state history should be taught.

Accommodation is the key ingredient that holds individual lives together and preserves the social fabric in this border society, allowing a peaceful if not always balanced existence. The principal characters must all confront some manner of symbolic barrier. Except for Sheriff Charlie Wade, who refused to accommodate challenges to his strong-rm procedures and who blatantly overstepped the line of his authority, the other characters do possess the essential qualities - flexibility and willingness to negotiate - that permit them to resolve their particular predicament successfully and to get on with their lives.

Sam and Pilar face the most provocative dilemma of the film. If they refuse to honor the prohibition implicit in the kinship they have discovered between them, their refusal will take them across the line of accepted behavior and rend the social fabric. Since they have already crossed over without realizing it, however, a tantalizing question now confronts them: whether the love they have experienced in innocence and sincerity will prove strong enough to maintain them on the 'other side.' This, however, is their private border; as Otis Payne observes to his grandson in an earlier scene, there is no absolute good or bad, and blood is what you make of it.

A strong subtheme emerging from Sayles's exploration of borders is generational conflict - the lines drawn between parents and children that separate as well as bind them. As Lone Star reveals the sometimes surprisingly coincidental twists and turns of its characters' lives, Sam Deeds and Del Payne make discoveries in their professional activities which eventually allow them to come to terms with the hostility each has long felt towards his father.

Sam's conflict with his father inextricably combines both personal and official facets of his life. Sam manages to come to terms with the romantic quandary created for him by his father's philandering; but, in the political sphere, the weight of tradition makes any clear reconciliation with Buddy's memory impossible. By the end of the film, the son can absolve his father of murder but refuses to do so officially, ambiguously leaving Buddy's legend to fend for itself. Thrust, like his father, into the ethically dubious position of covering up a murder, Sam ultimately makes the same choice Buddy did and acts in a manner that abuses the power of his office. His motivation remains enigmatic. Is Sam purposefully jeopardizing his father's esteemed reputation or is he generously protecting the true culprit, now a respected senior citizen? Is this an indirect revenge or a compassionate accommodation? As with the matter of incest, Sayles is content to raise the issue of honesty and justice and then leave it for the viewer to debate.

Although Sayles's portrayal of Colonel Delmar Payne's disaffection with his father is neither as vivid nor as clear as that of Sam Deeds, the resolution reached in the Payne family when the colonel decides to finally establish a relationship with his estranged father suggests an emotional growth. Because Delmar seems close to understanding (or at least accommodating) his father's limitations, the three generations together will apparently have the opportunity to rechart the course of their family history in a more positive direction by not allowing friction with an older generation to stigmatize the lives of its children. This is a stage of maturity in human relationships that Sam Deeds never quite reaches.

In marked contrast to Sam and the Paynes, Sayles has included the pitiful figure of Sam's ex-wife Bunny (Frances McDormand), who cannot alleviate her father's influence. Designated by her father as his "lifeline," she shows no sign of the flexibility needed to achieve emotional growth and every indication that years later she will still be trapped in her claustrophobic world of pills, TV sports replays, and Daddy's private box at the football stadium.

The parent-child conflict that dominates the families of Lone Star even finds an echo in the interactions between Rio County's 'patriarchal' sheriffs and their community. First-generation Charlie Wade attempts to intimidate into compliance his deputies and other young men by addressing them as "son." His brutal authoritarianism runs in the Hispanic cacique/caudillo tradition of the strongman who personally metes out justice and punishment and demands unquestioning loyalty from his subordinates. Although this strongman tradition progressively weakens from the 1950s to the 1990s, as each of the three generations of sheriffs becomes less authoritarian and more 'accommodating,' the basic conflict remains because of the sheriff's continuing ability to wield power independently and even unjustly.

A quest for realism has guided chef Sayles in selecting the appropriate artistic ingredients to concoct and season his rich multicultural stew. The second-tier stars in the prominent roles do not bring to the screen burdensome star personas that could detract from a general sense of small-town everydayness. Their acting is low-key and understated; they really do seem to be ordinary citizens making their way in a real-life community. The exception to this understated acting style are the one-dimensional performances by McConaughey and Kristofferson as the two legendary former sheriffs, who act grandly in the mythic time of the flashbacks.

The writer John Sayles has excelled in the creation of dialog and in capturing realistically the linguistic universe of his characters. Pilar's teenage son, described by his sister as a wannabe pachuco, expresses himself with a linguistic menudo that freely shifts back and forth between English and Spanish, with the distinctive intonation inflecting both languages in the borderlands. A snappy commercial blared out in Spanish introduces the Mexican businessman know as 'El Rey de las Llantas' (The Tire King) as Sheriff Sam Deeds drives across the international bridge to conduct an interview with him. The audience is offered no translation, a reminder that in the borderlands many are bilingual; those who are not, simply miss out.

Because the director is relating several personal stories within the framework of community dynamics, the very serviceable art direction centers on public or social spaces: the international bridge, a public school, the jail, the town square, parking lots and sidewalks, and especially bars and restaurants - each with its own African-American, Mexican/Chicano, or Anglo ambiance. The most memorable setting is a drive- in theatre, the site of Sam and Pilar's teenage trysts in a 1970s flashback sequence but abandoned to the weeds in the 1990s - a powerful filmic icon of changing times a la The Last Picture Show and the scene of the climactic final sequence. It is at this deserted drive-in theatre in daylight that Sam and Pilaf meet and talk, facing the looming dilapidated blankness of the movie screen - their life likewise a worn tabula rasa as they decide to start over from scratch elsewhere, beyond the incest taboo that would keep them from living together in Frontera.

Editor Sayles has creatively and complexly structured his murder mystery and love story to force audiences to periodically reassess their understanding of the characters as more and more relevant details unravel. Though the chronological transitions effected within the shot represent the film's most striking structural-stylistic feature, other successful techniques and devices guide the audience through the geographical and chronological leaps in the story. The scene may shift with a traditional dissolve suggesting the passage of time, or with a key line of dialog that points toward a transition, or Sayles may simply cut within the same setting but across different time periods.

Sayles uses music traditionally: to comment on themes and characters, to reinforce setting, and to advance the story line. But as a creator of menudo, Sayles outdoes himself with this soundtrack, which mines the musical traditions of the three principal cultures depicted - Spanish and English-language rock, traditional Mexican folk styles, country and western, and rhythm and blues, for example.

Lone Star does have its flaws. A scene of illegals crossing the Rio Grande at night is awkwardly staged and filmed. A slip in the dialog allows a forensics expert to complete his work in an impossibly short time span. The script occasionally depends too heavily on convenient coincidences in order to link plot, characterization, and themes. Such problems, however, are greatly outweighed by Sayles's powerfully realistic and richly nuanced portrayal of the multicultural ingredients currently simmering in what used to be called America's 'melting pot.'