Location: Rubenstein Arts Center Film Theater
The Straight Story
(David Lynch, 1999, 112min, USA, English, 35mm)
Special 35mm Screening!
A perfectly titled movie, The Straight Story is as forthright and methodical as its eponymous — and elderly — protagonist, Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth), who journeys across the Midwest on a John Deere lawn tractor to visit his estranged brother (Harry Dean Stanton). From this true story, Lynch crafts a splendid, deeply felt work as overflowing with human eccentricity as any of the director’s other masterpieces, yet fueled by a singular gentility. The casting of craggy character actor Farnsworth as Alvin Straight provided David Lynch with his most soulful lead performance since John Hurt in The Elephant Man, while the mostly exterior shooting locations unleashed a magic-hour lyricism close to that of Terrence Malick. As designed by Jack Fisk and lensed by the great Freddie Francis, this may be Lynch’s most purely beautiful movie, and proof, after a series of wildly polarizing features, that he could craft a crowd-pleaser — and, like his protagonist’s trip, do so on solely his own terms.
-- Introduced by Prof. Rick Warner (Director of Film Studies, Dept. of English & Comparative Literature, UNC Chapel Hill)
"Switching gears radically, bravely defying conventional wisdom about what it takes to excite moviegoers, Lynch presents the flip side of Blue Velvet and turns it into a supremely improbable triumph." – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“One of the tenderest, most plangent spiritual odysseys ever filmed.” – Howard Hampton, Artforum
Screen/Society screenings are free and open to the public.
Parking Info: https://artscenter.duke.edu/parking
COVID-19 Info: https://cinematicarts.duke.edu/covid-19-information
