Louisiana Story (1948)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Louisiana Story (1948) – R. Flaherty

Late film from Robert (“Nanook of the North”) Flaherty who is well known for “staging” his documentaries, thereby capturing the ecstatic truth rather than the accountant’s truth (as Werner Herzog might have it).  Here, Flaherty makes no bones about casting his nonprofessional (and therefore “real”) actors in a loose “fictional” story about a young Cajun boy who observes oil-drilling wildcatters in the bayou.  The plot’s suspense lies in the failure of the well to produce for most of the film, until the boy superstitiously throws salt and spits in the well to bring luck.  A subplot involves his pet raccoon that may or may not have gotten himself eaten by a giant alligator.  The story, simplified to sub-Disney levels and with very little dialogue, is not the point here.  Instead, viewers are advised just to gawk at the amazing images of the bayou and the oil rig (shot by Richard Leacock) and to see how the principles of montage are used in action (e.g., shot of boy looking; shot of alligator swimming; shot of boy’s alarmed reaction).  Even the chase sequences (alligator vs. raccoon and boy vs. alligator vs. father) use cross-cutting as D. W. Griffith would have, in order to keep things moving and to keep us interested.  Overall, something seems missing, however – maybe the real Louisiana?  Selected for the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress.