September 5–12, 1996

movie shorts

LONE STAR

"There'll never be another like him." Everyone in Frontera, a town on the Mexico-Texas border, remembers Sheriff Buddy Deeds as a celebrated hero, the man who ran his predecessor, the viciously corrupt Sheriff Charley Wade, out of town back in 1957. Wade's 40-year-old remains are discovered in the desert just outside of town and it's up to Buddy's son, Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper), to find out what really happened. This lineup of lawmen is only a starting point for John Sayles' revisionary Western, which goes on to layer circumstances and characters until it becomes impossible to distinguish a single through-line of plot or motivation. Above all, the film is about the effects of storytelling, the ways that personal and collective identities are shaped by paradoxical desires to conform to and challenge expectations.

— Cindy Fuchs

(Ritz Five; Bala)