In these straightened times, the story of a whole town going broke chimes. This is a very gritty worthy film in a similar vein to Five Easy Pieces with Jack Nicholson exposing the underbelly of The American Dream, and reflecting the disillusionment of the American People, five years before the end of the Vietnam War...
Think of two lumberjacks and a logjam in a river and (in the UK at least) the Berocca advertisement when they dance a jig on a rolling log probably springs to mind.
Let's travel the full spectrum from jollity to tragedy.
Hank and Joe Ben Stamper are trying to free a logjam, and Joe Ben falls foul of a log that turns trapping him under the water. Hank tries to save his younger brother by taking breaths and passing them mouth-to- mouth under water. Now given that these are Yosemite Sam types, rootin' tootin' Oregonites, this desperate act of brotherly love strikes the trapped Joe Ben as hilarious... and he begins, to laugh, gulps water... and his brother is forced to watch him drown helpless... and we're forced to watch Hank watch Joe Ben die.
The brutal intimacy of this scene set against the scale of the American landscape also forces us to share Hank's sense of helplessness and loss.
There are films that we only watch once; not because they're not worthy of watching again... simply because they have moments that scar our sensibilities...
Think of two lumberjacks and a logjam in a river and (in the UK at least) the Berocca advertisement when they dance a jig on a rolling log probably springs to mind.
Let's travel the full spectrum from jollity to tragedy.
Hank and Joe Ben Stamper are trying to free a logjam, and Joe Ben falls foul of a log that turns trapping him under the water. Hank tries to save his younger brother by taking breaths and passing them mouth-to- mouth under water. Now given that these are Yosemite Sam types, rootin' tootin' Oregonites, this desperate act of brotherly love strikes the trapped Joe Ben as hilarious... and he begins, to laugh, gulps water... and his brother is forced to watch him drown helpless... and we're forced to watch Hank watch Joe Ben die.
The brutal intimacy of this scene set against the scale of the American landscape also forces us to share Hank's sense of helplessness and loss.
There are films that we only watch once; not because they're not worthy of watching again... simply because they have moments that scar our sensibilities...