Customer Reviews

Country [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

County and The River came out virtually simultaneously. They have the same theme, farms in crisis. The main difference is Country is more political in nature.

Country is not a true story but is based on a number of true stories. This film is about a family owned farm that is in trouble. This trouble was not really their fault. It was a combination of changing economies and a pullout of government funding. During the 70's, the government threw loans to the farmers, encouraging farmers to overextend themselves. In the 80's, when crop prices plummeted, the government foreclosed on the farms. This made way for large corporate farmers to buy them for pennies on the dollar.

Real life husband and wife, Jessica Lange and Sam Sheppard, play the Jewel and Gil Ivey. They have a farm and government loans. When they can't make the harvest payment, the bank forecloses on the farm. Jewel is determined not to lose the farm.

This is tour de force performance by Jessica Lange. Wilford Brimley plays her curmudgeon father and gives a perfectly measured performance. This would become his signature character that he would be cast as for the remainder of his career.

Richard Pearce's direction and William Witliff's screenplay keep the film from getting to preachy or too sentimental. This is the best film made on the subject of the farm loan crisis.

DVD EXTRAS: None

Screen Star Jessica Lange was offered the role as a farmers wife in "The River", but she didn't feel it portrayed the farmers plight well enough, so she co-produced this film and starred in it. She gives a warming and heart felt performance as Ivy, a woman who is a fighter for her family and a sacrificing mother before she's a "farmer's wife". Sam Shepard portrays Gil as a weak man who can not face the troubles of his family until he realizes that he needs them more then they need him. This is one of the few films to portray the farmers plight with such truthfulness that it breaks your heart at every turn to know that this actually went on and is still going on.
1984 Academy Award Nomination:
BEST ACTRESS-JESSICA LANGE

This movie depicted what happened to so many farmers in the 1980's when interest rates went so high that it was impossible to survive if there was any debt against what you owned. Jessica Lange of course, was brilliant as the all-suffering farm wife and Sam Shepard as the husband who could not accept that there was no support from "the bank". It is the heart-warming, but flawed depiction of a family coming together in the hard times to save their way of life.

Jewell and Gil Ivy, who run a small farm in Iowa that has been in Jewell's family for several generations; her father Otis lives with them, along with their three children. While the work is hard and the earnings are slim, the Ivys have been able to get by, like most of their neighbors, until a one-two punch threatens to devastate the Iowa farming community. First, a tornado devastates the area, then the Farmers Home Administration calls in the loans on most of the farmers in the area, which they are in no position to repay. With thirty days to voluntarily liquidate their property, the Ivys, like most of their friends and neighbors, are desperate to find a way to hold on to their property, and when the stress causes Gil to buckle, Jewell must step in to keep the clan going. A well acted insight into the farming crisis of the mid 80s. A very strong and entertaining drama.

Along with "Night Crossing," "Tex" and "Never Cry Wolf," "Country" is one of the early Disney serious attempts at broadening their motion pictures beyond the slapstick comedies of the '70's, as well as broadening their audience to anything other than kids bored during the summer. Several of these "in-between" films were serious flops (but not all without things to admire), including "Something Wicked This Way Comes," "The Black Hole," and "Trenchcoat." Most of these films filled the gap between Disney's Ron Miller era and the Michael Eisner era--set in motion by the previous studio heads, and completed under the current studio heads. Of course, Eisner and Co. weren't particularly interested in these films, as they had little to do with them. Still they were released, and some found admiring critics, if not droves of ticketbuyers. "Country" is a beautifully shot, written, and acted film that honestly deals with the pain of family farming under the dreadful reagun administration. Sincerity is the key, here. No Hollywood hokum. And one of the BEST tornado sequences in motion picture history.

We love this movie, and when our tape wore out we had to get it on DVD. Just a warning, the DVD advertises as 5.1, but it's only 2.0.

Tells the story of what people were going thru then. The courage to fight back. Got right away, thanks Amazon.

A good movie that shows the hard times farmers have Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard were good actors and this is a movie for all farmers to see.

jessica lange was always in streep's shadow but also was as good or sometimes better. Country is a movie that allows Lange to showcase her true to life living. A true country girl who was no stranger to hard work in a farming community. A wonderful film and a wonderful performance!!

A moving story, very impressive. What a pity there are no subtitles! For people who speak English as a foreign language, it is not easy to understand it completely. And of course, every film should have subtitles for the hearing-impaired.