Totally agree with chester-copperpot. There are two main plotlines, the murder mystery and the rekindling of the romance between Sam and Pilar. But like chester says, that doesn't make the rest of the scenes superfluous -- they are the PURPOSE of the film.
Roger Ebert says it best in his review. Here are some excerpts:
"Those stories -- the murder and the romance -- provide the film's spine and draw us through to the end. But Sayles is up to a lot more than murders and love stories. We begin to get a feel for the people of Rio County, where whites, blacks, Chicanos and Seminoles all remember the past in different ways."
"[Sayles] creates a sure sense of the way the past haunts the present, and how old wounds and secrets are visited upon the survivors. "
""Lone Star" is not simply about the solution to the murder and the outcome of the romance. It is about how people try to live together at this moment in America. (my emphasis) There are scenes that at first seem to have little to do with the story's main lines. A school board meeting, for example, at which parents argue about textbooks (and are really arguing about whose view of Texas history will prevail).
Scenes involving the African-American colonel (Joe Morton) in charge of the local Army base, whose father was Big Otis, owner of the bar.
Another scene involving a young black woman, an Army private, whose interview with her commanding officer reveals a startling insight into why people enlist in the Army. And conversations between Sheriff Deeds and old widows with long memories. "
"...by the end of the film, we know something about how people have lived together in this town, and what it has cost them. "
""Lone Star" is a great American movie, one of the few to seriously try to regard with open eyes the way we live now. Set in a town that until very recently was rigidly segregated, it shows how Chicanos, blacks, whites and Indians shared a common history, and how they knew one another and dealt with one another in ways that were off the official map. This film is a wonder -- the best work yet by one of our most original and independent filmmakers -- and after it isover, and you begin to think about it, its meanings begin to flower."
You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi
reply
share
Byzantine15
15 years ago
With all due respect to the OP, it seems you were looking for something a little more simple in terms of what it was trying to say. When the credits roll, we could come to the conclusion that the film was about history (personal or collective, old or new). The murder/love story may have been merely the 'parable' with which these ideas were dramatized. A common theme in the plot and subplots is a softening of a previously stubborn and unaccommodating philosophy or attitude. Sam seemed intent on demonizing his father, until he learns that Buddy was just an imperfect man. The colonel begins to show a new found tolerance when he lectures the girl who tested positive, and gradually takes on a new attitude towards his son and father. Mercedes begins to lighten up on her 'law and order' mentality towards illegal immigrants. If you're perceptive to that theme, none of the side stories are in any way redundant.
"By God, I heard the crow call my name!" exclaimed Caw.
reply
share