Lone Star (Reel West Series)

A deft history and analysis of John Sayles’ 1996 cinematic masterpiece.Alison Fields places Lone Star in a western film framework and emphasizes Lone Star's ability to highlight the conflicts between socially entrenched borderlands history and its multifaceted reality. Filmmaker John Sayles has been a key voice in independent cinema since the 1970s, interrogating American legends by retelling stories about class, race, labor, sexuality, history, and violence. Lone Star, released in 1996, was ahead of its time in exploring the prevailing legends of the Borderlands through the intersectionality of Black, Chicano, and women’s narratives.Set in the fictional small town of Frontera on the Texas/Mexico border, the film opens with the discovery of a decades-old skeleton on a rifle range-the remains of racist and corrupt former sheriff Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson).It had long been presumed that Wade was driven from town by Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConaughey), who succeeded him for a long te