Most film enthusiasts are familiar with Robert J. Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922), even if only by title recognition, but not as many also know his Louisiana Story (1948). Nanook has come under fire from critics in recent years for not being a “true documentary,” as many of its most famous sequences were obviously staged for Flaherty’s camera. With so many detractors decrying him for his betrayal of Cinéma vérité it is ironic that Flaherty’s Louisiana Story is itself often described and categorized as a documentary.
Made on a budget of $258,000 financed by the Standard Oil Company, this staged and scripted narrative film was never-the-less selected to open the second Edinburgh International Festival of Documentary Films. It was in all likelihood Flaherty’s reputation as a documentarian that led to this early misconception, but having seen the film I see why further confusion has ensued. Light on dialogue due to the near impossibility of running microphone cable through swampland, the sound mix relies heavily on the natural resonance of the bayou, likely added in post-production. The resulting eerie environmental verisimilitude adds to the films suspenseful moments in a brilliant way, as does the Virgil Thompson score which won the Pulitzer Prize for Composition (the only film score to do so).
Through the perspective of a young man (Joseph Boudreaux) who the film credits simply denote as “The Boy,” the audience witnesses the quiet satisfaction of life on the bayou. Though this life is presented as simple, danger is always lurking in the form of scaly predators, and the bag of salt, used as a gator deterrent, which the boy carries on his hip, serves as a reminder of this eminent threat. His life a la Huck Finn is, however, interrupted when his father signs papers that will allow for oil drilling on their property. The foreshadowing in the scene that follows is heavy-handed as the prospector’s exiting speedboat makes waves which rock the boy right out of his raft and into the swamp.
The ensuing arrival of the oil derrick is trumpeted by the score, as it is for the young man perhaps his first view of the industrialized outside world. The work that progresses is noisy, and disrupts the quiet of life in the swamp. Though awestruck by the rig and its workers whom he befriends, like his father the boy is skeptical that the machines will be able to draw oil from the marsh. He watches intently as the roughnecks work their craft, Boudreaux conveying the character’s sense that there is more to the world than he understands. These make for some of the film’s most engaging scenes, as Flaherty and his young actor take the audience inside the boy’s perspective of fascination.
With a retrospective of the films which followed Louisiana Story to draw from, the scenes here of striking oil do not measure up in excitement to those of say Giant (1956) or There Will Be Blood (2007), but those two films and their derrick-busting moments are anchored by two of the finest performers in the history of cinema. Here, Flaherty works with non-professional actors and conveys something different than excitement. In terms of conveying the childlike sense of wonder, he and Boudreaux strike it rich.
When the well is capped the rig moves up the river on a barge as the boy and his father wave goodbye to the workers. The story here is a simple one. Flaherty mostly ignores the environmental themes at which his foreshadowing could have hinted. No doubt this simple conclusion without residual effects was required by the film’s financiers. The disruption of life in Louisiana Story, though tangible, is brief.
Grade: 2 Hats Off
Note: The audio mix on the streamed version from Netflix was awful. Dialogue is almost unintelligible as score blasts. Does anyone know if this was the filmmakers intension, simply the product of the microphone problem I noted, or just a bad digitization transfer?
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