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Country (1984)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
7/21
7/21:
Out of the three "Save the Farm" pictures during 1984 (the other two being
The River and Places in the Heart),
Country is the dullest.
Not being informed of what happened, it's difficult to pass judgment on Ivy's family. Had I been allowed to see the big picture
going back by maybe five years in regard to their financial situation, I would be able to figure out whose fault it was. Hence, I
can't sympathize with them and think they should move on because of their inability to pay off the loans.
Given that there are four able-bodied people in the family, why not each of them get a job to make at least eight grand during the
year so that way they can contribute $32,000 toward the loan? Heck, the little girl can take on babysitting jobs for twenty
dollars a day.
As for the cast, the acting is all right. Jessica Lange's Oscar-nominated performance is overrated and doesn't do anything for
me. Any chance of redemption for Sam Shepard's character is impossible after he beat up his wife and son. If standing outside
in the freezing cold will make him look better, he has another think coming.
What really happened is: after the boom of the 70's that saw consecutive record harvests which led to greater amounts of money
borrowed by the farmers for expansion, they went bust during the early 80's after the prices of their land and crop had gone down
significantly due to high surplus because of the grain embargo against the USSR. Hence, they couldn't make their loans, and in
turn, there were many bank failures which was a record since the Great Depression. In 1962, total farm debt was $60 billion,
but it ballooned to $216 billion after thirty years. The government tried to scale back in support for the farmers as
the interest rate had increased too much in order to slow down the rate of inflation.
Elsewhere, Levi Knebel, who played Carlisle, was sentenced to ten years in prison for manufacturing meth in 2012,
and there's a mugshot of him online sporting a black eye. He had been arrested in the past for drug-related offenses. Country
was the only film he did, and he was 17 at the time. Playing the intellectually disabled son of Arlen, Jim Ostercamp of Waterloo,
Iowa, died in 2014 at the age of 60.
All in all, Places in the Heart has fast pace and terrific acting while
Country and The River are long and plain.