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February 19, 2004 Plains Folk: Wooly
We’re touchy around here. Prairie people are quick to take offense at depictions of their lives by national media and commercial cinema. That new piece in USA Today, conveying the remarkable insight that North Dakota is cold, has people howling. So it’s been interesting to observe reaction to the release of the feature film, Wooly Boys, which although filmed in 2001 was released only Jan. 23, 2004. (It took a while for the independent production to get a distribution deal.) Reaction has been, um, mostly polite. Media across the state gave joyous coverage to the release of the feature in North Dakota, the state where it was filmed. The public responded, selling out one screening after another. After that the coverage just faded away. It’s a silence of kindness. Of course, in big-city Fargo, a Forum reviewer was rude enough to note that the project had a “dumb script” with “no arc of character development.” Across town the Spectrum (NDSU student newspaper) also criticized the static characters and protested that North Dakota had been depicted as “Hicksville, USA.” All of which is true, might as well admit it. It seems the state was prepared to like Wooly Boys. The film had an executive producer from Fargo, it used locations and people we could recognize, and of course, it had the West River landscape going for it. The problem wasn’t the public. It was the film. In the first place, the film never establishes a sense of place. It needs more grass, more ranch work, more sheep, for pete’s sake. Second, the acting is ridiculously uneven. Peter Fonda is OK in his low-key way. He must be the one the reviewers have in mind when they say the film comes out well, considering the script. It’s just that his character is going nowhere. Kris Kristofferson is embarrassing to everyone else, if not to himself. Keith Carradine also should be arrested for camera mugging. Joseph Mazzello needs either to get serious about his craft or move on to a regular job. Robin Deardon, as his mother, nails her part. (More about her later.) Quick plot summary, in case you missed it. Two cranky old sheep ranchers living in the North Dakota badlands. One of them is dying. An estranged daughter in Minneapolis. A geeky grandson who turns out to be salvageable. A little gunplay, an FBI manhunt, some horses, a death-on-the-prairie scene, and everybody goes back to life as usual. Oh yes, there’s a trick horse. Since I’m not very politically correct, I’ll also mention there’s an effeminate Afro-American hearse driver. Which gets to my third point, that there is just some dumb stuff in the film. Now, here’s the element in the film that no one is talking about, but it might have been the salvation of the project. The character to notice is Kate, played by Deardon and daughter of Fonda’s character, Stoney, and mother of Charles, who is played by Mazzello. Kate, it seems, went off to Fargo for education and just kept going east, ending up as a business executive in Minneapolis. She is estranged not so much from her father as from the ranch. She doesn’t want to live there, and she doesn’t want her son even thinking about it. Deardon has one little speech and several no-nonsense moments in the film. She should have had more. We should hear more from her. Why exactly is she so determined to sever the boy from his heritage? There’s your story. Which brings me back to the front page of USA Today, Feb. 24, 2004: “Big Cities Lure Away North Dakota Youth.” Alana Bergman, thirty-something, from Jud, N.D., is now an attorney in Minneapolis. Of Jud she says, “You can’t order a pizza. You can’t rent a video.” Now we know what young people really want, I guess. No, there’s more to the story, and it’s too bad neither Deardon nor Bergman told it. ### Source:
Tom Isern, (701) 799-2942, isern@plainsfolk.com
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North Dakota State University |
