A skull has turned up in the desert along the Texas-Mexico border, and near it lies a sheriff’s badge.
So opens John Sayles’ 1996 Lone Star — newly restored and available on home video from The Criterion Collection — a magnificently constructed story combining history, politics, romance and mystery with some of the best-realized characters you’re likely to find in movies, then and now.
Two friends stumble upon the skeleton in a retired army rifle range that’ll soon be the site of Frontera, Texas’ new jail. Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) knows they don’t need a new jail, but Frontera’s mayor says otherwise. Too bad for him, that old rifle range holds a lot of secrets: “Start diggin’ holes in this country; no telling what’ll come up.”
Those words of wisdom belong to Otis (Ron Canada), just one of two dozen pitch-perfect players comprising Lone Star’s ensemble. Yes, Sayles is cribbing the Texas state nickname for the title Lone Star, but there’s a nice bit of irony in using the word “lone” in a film featuring this many characters.
Lone Star is a movie about punching holes in our collective mythology, and Sayles starts with the myth of the West: a place and a state of mind most see as shaped by lone, rugged individuals who did the best they could with the circumstances handed to them. Sayles blows that apart. And not the part where people do the best they can with what is given to them, but the underlying notion that they did it alone.
Sheriff Deeds anchors Lone Star’s narrative and unravels the mystery of the skeleton out in the rifle range. The only problem is that once Deeds starts pulling threads, a lot more truths bubble up. Sayles presents these discoveries as flashbacks winding their way through the narrative so fluidly it’s like the past is a river the present keeps slipping in.
If you haven’t seen Lone Star before, you’ll be gob-smacked a movie this good isn’t talked about more. It should be: The citizens of Frontera are beleaguered by the same issues you’ll find in today’s newspapers — right down to the school PTA arguing over how history is taught. Not much has changed in 30 years.
What has changed is the idea of diversity on screen. Sayles, a progressive since his early days as an independent filmmaker, knows that representation that fails to go beyond visibility is hollow. People are the products of their privileges, their obstacles, their choices and their consequences. They are the sum of their stories. Often, those stories become so intertwined with others that we all become brothers and sisters. That’s not always a comfort. Sometimes, the past is an ugly thing to face. It’s like looking at a blank movie screen, digging holes in the desert or poking around your parent’s effects: There’s no telling what you’ll discover.
ON SCREEN: Lone Star is available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from The Criterion