Louisiana Story

There's not a lot to say about this film. We get random images of a Cajun boy in his canoe, paddling quietly through a bayou, looking, watching, listening ... an alligator here, a snake there, all surrounded by lush swampland vegetation.

The plot is thin. About the only thing of interest is the appearance of an oil well crew that sets up a rig near the boy's home. The crew and the boy become friends, the crew curious about the boy's ability to catch fish, and the boy curious about the new technology. Yet, from the viewpoint of the 21st century, this heavy machinery is an odious intrusion into an otherwise natural, pristine environment. And the boy and his naïve papa seem oblivious to the lurking menace of oil drilling.

The B&W photography probably is the best element of the film. "Louisiana Story" is a mostly visual film with very little dialogue. It's almost a kind of travelogue to a backwoods paradise, sans plot.

I could have wished for some Cajun songs. The music that is provided is all nondescript 1950s-style elevator music. At least the performances are not marred by well-known, professional, actors. All of the actors seem to be either local non-actors or obscure B-movie performers. The absence of Hollywood adds substantial realism to the video.

"Louisiana Story" is a look back in time to an era when people were part of their environment, not separate from it. As such, the film conveys an idyllic tone, peaceful, serene, with only the hint of the technological nightmare yet to appear.

Under the heading "Louisiana" I checked this documentary called Louisiana Story by Robert J. Flaherty out of curiosity from my local East Baton Rouge Parish Library. Beautiful views of the state swamps as well as fascinating scenes of the oil rig that inhabits them dominates the film which depicts the adventures of a Cajun boy on a boat fishing and hunting alligators with his pet raccoon. His father occasionally comes along for the ride and they both have friendly relations with the workers of the oil well. There are some scenes of the mother as well. Great Pulitzer Prize-winning music scored by Virgil Thomson is beautifully performed by The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra as conducted by Eugene Ormandy. Wonderful cinematography by Richard Leacock. Worth checking out as a depiction of late '40s Louisiana as well as the final film of Mr. Flaherty before his death in 1951. Update-4/29/07: The Cajun boy that starred in this film, J.C. Boudreaux, is now 73 and lives with his wife of 55 years, Regina, in a FEMA trailer in the town of Sweet Lake which is south of Lake Charles. They moved there after Hurricane Rita destroyed their home in Cameron. They had seven children who have provided them numerous grand-and great-grandchildren. Boudreaux still loves fishing. I found this out reading this morning's The (Baton Rouge) Advocate.

A Cajun boy is fishing and hunting with his pet raccoon out in the Louisiana bayou. He comes upon a crew of oil drillers and has various adventures.

This was Oscar nominated for writing which is probably the least compelling part of this movie. It can be argued that there is barely any writing involved. Its strength is the sense of reality in the swamp and the oiler crew. It's a slice of life. It's the docu-style of filmmaking. The kid may not be a great actor but he has realism on his side. There are some great scenes. I can't forget the raccoon and it's great to see a real drilling crew working. The plot isn't much. It's really just a series of swamp adventures.

Joseph Boudreaux is a Cajun boy living in the bayous. When a wildcat rig starts to drill near his home, he makes friends with the crew.

It's directed by pioneer documentarian Robert J. Flaherty. Flaherty for decades was considered the model documentarian. This was in large part because his NANOOK OF THE NORTH was wildly successful. Nowadays, the admiration has died down.He imposed story lines on his movies, and directed scenes to support them, as opposed to the modern ideal of shooting a tremendous amount of footage of things happening, and then editing the results to bring some sort of coherence to the resulting film. You can see his story-telling technique in the sequence where Boudreaux captures an alligator. In addition, the presence of the drillers is portrayed as completely benign, with no impact on the local wildlife. Modern understanding of global warming and the impact of oil spills and the Deepwater Horizon disaster makes this seem naive. However, Standard Oil underwrote this movie, just as NANOOK had been underwritten by furriers.

The resulting movie is a warm and idyllic one, with amusing details of Cajun superstition and the beauty of the local setting. Although not as informative as modern documentaries try to be, it's beautifully shot and well put together. Virgil Thomson won the Pulitzer Prize for best composition, the only time a movie score has achieved that distinction.

This is a classic film that blurs the line between documentary and fiction. Here, you won't find a very good plot, but some very interesting sequences and some of the most visually pleasing imagery ever put to screen.

From watching both this and "Man of Aran" you can tell that Flaherty is a very unconventional filmmaker. His films have staged scenes that, as I mentioned earlier, blur the line between fiction and nonfiction creating a nontraditional signature style.

In this film, we follow a young boy (and his friend, a raccoon) living an average life in his hometown. We see him paddle down rivers, walk through the woods, and have tons of entertaining adventures. Then, a bunch of oil drillers move to town. We watch these oil drillers do their work with very minimal dialogue. It's almost all expressed in visuals.

While the film may sound boring and seems to start off kind of boring, in the end, it's a truly adventurous masterpiece! One of my favorites!