The reteaming of director Wim Wenders and writer Sam Shepard, who collaborated on "Paris, Texas" 21 years ago, yields a dry, spare, odd and oddly satisfying drama about a modern-day lonesome cowboy, lost in a desert of his own making, who seeks salvation by searching out those he left behind.
For the most part shying away from sentimentality and showing little concern for plausibility, "Don't Come Knocking" expresses itself with deadpan humor, striking imagery, Western iconography and outbursts of strong emotions.
Shepard stars in the film along with the lady of his life, Jessica Lange, and a strong cast including Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann and Sarah Polley that gives the film boxoffice luster. Since many characters are puzzling if not downright off-putting, the Sony Pictures Classics release will probably find acceptance only in adult specialty venues.
Howard Spence (Shepard) is supposedly a movie star with a career mostly in Westerns. Given that Hollywood hardly makes Westerns anymore, this is the first of the film's many puzzles. Later in the movie, he will insist that he is "washed up." Yet as the story begins, he is starring in a Western being shot in Monument Valley.
After many a night of debauchery with drugs, alcohol and young women, Howard suddenly needs to flee his life. So he mounts a horse and gallops away from the set. When the crew realizes their lead actor is missing, a call goes out to the insurance company. A detective named Roth is put on the case, and the character's buttoned-down, single-minded personality brings comic fun to all his scenes.
Maxing out his ATM cards and shedding nearly all his belongings, Howard heads to his hometown of Elko, Nev., and a mother Eva Marie Saint) he supposedly hasn't seen or even called in 30 years. She certainly greets him cheerfully enough with only mild words of rebuke.
Howard finds a scrapbook of his press clippings from which you learn that this "Western bad boy"'s real career has consisted of inebriation, scandal and police arrests. Why on Earth did that insurance company ever bond a Howard Spence picture?
His mother just happens to mention that a young woman called her about 30 years ago from Butte, Mont., saying that she was carrying Howard's child. This news apparently never reached Howard. (You have to get used to the sort of illogic that insists the woman would have no way of tracking down a film star.)
Shocked and possibly a little pleased, Howard lights out for Butte with the detective breathing down his neck. Howard's MO doesn't change much; he still gets drunk and wakes up in a bed covered in young girls.
His old flame Doreen (Lange) is easy to find in Butte: She runs the coffee shop where she once worked as a waitress. She takes one look at Howard and remarks, "Well, it took you long enough". (Shepard loves laconic understatements.) She seems amused more than upset or angry about Howard's abrupt reappearance, but you later realize she is doing some acting herself.
On their next encounter, she off-handedly points out Howard's son to him. Earl (Gabriel Mann) is a surly rock musician, who can outdo his father in loutish behavior.
Meanwhile, a young woman named Sky (Polley) arrives in Butte, clutching an urn with her mother's ashes and making inquiries about Howard. You can pretty much guess that she, too, is a product of one of Howard's short flings during that shoot in Butte.
The convergence of all these characters -- including the detective -- in this depressed old mining town results in several emotional outbursts. At one point, an enraged Earl throws his furniture and belongings out of his second-story window onto a street in an area of that appears mostly abandoned.
For two days and one night, characters turn up and hang out among these ruined belongings. Earl even salvages a guitar and plays an instant composition called "Where Is Howard?" while his hippie girlfriend (Fairuza Balk) dances on the broken couch.
In this forlorn setting, the prodigal father and two children reach not exactly a resolution but a kind of acceptance of the situation.
Shepard, cowboy handsome with a hard, lived-in face, gives Howard a perpetually startled look, the look of a man who has just awakened from a 30-year bad dream. Lange uses irony and calculated coolness to disguise her rage at this selfish and cowardly man she once loved.
Mann and Polley express polar opposite reactions to the father who unknowingly abandoned them: The son vehemently rejects Howard, while Polley clings to a yearning curiosity.
Western-tinged music from T Bone Burnett and the open spaces and worn-out town captured by Franz Lustig's crystal-clear cinematography locate this tale in last vestiges of the Old West -- perhaps a reminder that Howard's rugged individualism also is a relic of the past.
What the movie deigns not to answer is the question Howard's mother poses to him: "How'd you get to be such a mess, Howard?" "Don't Come Knocking" only tries to pull him out of this mess.
DON'T COME KNOCKING
Sony Pictures Classics
HanWay presents
a Peter Schwartzkopff production by Reverse Angle
Credits:
Director: Wim Wenders
Screenwriters: Sam Shepard, Wim Wenders
Producer: Peter Schwartzkopff
Executive producers: Jeremy Thomas, In-Ah Lee, Wim Wenders
Director of photography: Franz Lustig
Production designer: Nathan Amondson
Music: T-Bone Burnett
Costumes: Caroline Eselin
Editors: Peter Pzygodda, Oli Weiss
Cast:
Howard Spence: Sam Shepard
Doreen: Jessica Lange
Sutter: Tim Roth
Earl: Gabriel Mann
Sky: Sarah Polley
Amer: Fairuza Balk
Lulu: Eva Marie Saint
Director: George Kennedy
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 126 minutes...
For the most part shying away from sentimentality and showing little concern for plausibility, "Don't Come Knocking" expresses itself with deadpan humor, striking imagery, Western iconography and outbursts of strong emotions.
Shepard stars in the film along with the lady of his life, Jessica Lange, and a strong cast including Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann and Sarah Polley that gives the film boxoffice luster. Since many characters are puzzling if not downright off-putting, the Sony Pictures Classics release will probably find acceptance only in adult specialty venues.
Howard Spence (Shepard) is supposedly a movie star with a career mostly in Westerns. Given that Hollywood hardly makes Westerns anymore, this is the first of the film's many puzzles. Later in the movie, he will insist that he is "washed up." Yet as the story begins, he is starring in a Western being shot in Monument Valley.
After many a night of debauchery with drugs, alcohol and young women, Howard suddenly needs to flee his life. So he mounts a horse and gallops away from the set. When the crew realizes their lead actor is missing, a call goes out to the insurance company. A detective named Roth is put on the case, and the character's buttoned-down, single-minded personality brings comic fun to all his scenes.
Maxing out his ATM cards and shedding nearly all his belongings, Howard heads to his hometown of Elko, Nev., and a mother Eva Marie Saint) he supposedly hasn't seen or even called in 30 years. She certainly greets him cheerfully enough with only mild words of rebuke.
Howard finds a scrapbook of his press clippings from which you learn that this "Western bad boy"'s real career has consisted of inebriation, scandal and police arrests. Why on Earth did that insurance company ever bond a Howard Spence picture?
His mother just happens to mention that a young woman called her about 30 years ago from Butte, Mont., saying that she was carrying Howard's child. This news apparently never reached Howard. (You have to get used to the sort of illogic that insists the woman would have no way of tracking down a film star.)
Shocked and possibly a little pleased, Howard lights out for Butte with the detective breathing down his neck. Howard's MO doesn't change much; he still gets drunk and wakes up in a bed covered in young girls.
His old flame Doreen (Lange) is easy to find in Butte: She runs the coffee shop where she once worked as a waitress. She takes one look at Howard and remarks, "Well, it took you long enough". (Shepard loves laconic understatements.) She seems amused more than upset or angry about Howard's abrupt reappearance, but you later realize she is doing some acting herself.
On their next encounter, she off-handedly points out Howard's son to him. Earl (Gabriel Mann) is a surly rock musician, who can outdo his father in loutish behavior.
Meanwhile, a young woman named Sky (Polley) arrives in Butte, clutching an urn with her mother's ashes and making inquiries about Howard. You can pretty much guess that she, too, is a product of one of Howard's short flings during that shoot in Butte.
The convergence of all these characters -- including the detective -- in this depressed old mining town results in several emotional outbursts. At one point, an enraged Earl throws his furniture and belongings out of his second-story window onto a street in an area of that appears mostly abandoned.
For two days and one night, characters turn up and hang out among these ruined belongings. Earl even salvages a guitar and plays an instant composition called "Where Is Howard?" while his hippie girlfriend (Fairuza Balk) dances on the broken couch.
In this forlorn setting, the prodigal father and two children reach not exactly a resolution but a kind of acceptance of the situation.
Shepard, cowboy handsome with a hard, lived-in face, gives Howard a perpetually startled look, the look of a man who has just awakened from a 30-year bad dream. Lange uses irony and calculated coolness to disguise her rage at this selfish and cowardly man she once loved.
Mann and Polley express polar opposite reactions to the father who unknowingly abandoned them: The son vehemently rejects Howard, while Polley clings to a yearning curiosity.
Western-tinged music from T Bone Burnett and the open spaces and worn-out town captured by Franz Lustig's crystal-clear cinematography locate this tale in last vestiges of the Old West -- perhaps a reminder that Howard's rugged individualism also is a relic of the past.
What the movie deigns not to answer is the question Howard's mother poses to him: "How'd you get to be such a mess, Howard?" "Don't Come Knocking" only tries to pull him out of this mess.
DON'T COME KNOCKING
Sony Pictures Classics
HanWay presents
a Peter Schwartzkopff production by Reverse Angle
Credits:
Director: Wim Wenders
Screenwriters: Sam Shepard, Wim Wenders
Producer: Peter Schwartzkopff
Executive producers: Jeremy Thomas, In-Ah Lee, Wim Wenders
Director of photography: Franz Lustig
Production designer: Nathan Amondson
Music: T-Bone Burnett
Costumes: Caroline Eselin
Editors: Peter Pzygodda, Oli Weiss
Cast:
Howard Spence: Sam Shepard
Doreen: Jessica Lange
Sutter: Tim Roth
Earl: Gabriel Mann
Sky: Sarah Polley
Amer: Fairuza Balk
Lulu: Eva Marie Saint
Director: George Kennedy
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 126 minutes...
- 5/19/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
VENICE -- In very different ways, Paul Jeffries and his niece Lana have each gone the extra mile in their love for their homeland, America. Paul was with Special Forces in Vietnam and Lana has been a missionary in Africa and the Middle East. Now they are both in Los Angeles dealing with their reaction to the events known as 9/11.
Wim Wenders has crafted a thoughtful exploration of the impact of that infamous day on two Americans who love their country but seek to defend it in conflicting ways. In a political year, Land of Plenty could connect with audiences interested in examining how fear and prejudice can affect individuals and society as a whole.
The setting is a Los Angeles rarely seen in movies, a part of the city that could be any place in the Third World, where people are so poor it is known as the hunger capital of America. Lana, played with sparkling intelligence by Michelle Williams, has returned from Tel Aviv to live and work at a mission house in downtown L.A. Her mother has died and she wants to connect with her Uncle Paul, who has been out of touch for many years.
Paul is played by character veteran John Diehl who richly justifies Wenders' decision to cast him by delivering a multi-layered portrayal of a loyal soldier blasted to bewilderment by events in Vietnam. Exposed to Agent Pink exfoliate during that conflict, Paul's increasing psychological wounds are brutally punctured by watching the fate of New York's twin towers.
Grizzled, tired and sometimes drunk, Paul has formed a one-man defense unit, driving around the city with surveillance equipment, recording images and commentary covering potential suspects who invariably look like his idea of Arabs. He has a pal, Jimmy (Richard Edson), who has a contact or two in the police department and is always willing to run suspicious items through the more extreme elements of the Internet.
Roaming the city at night, Paul spots a man in a turban carrying boxes of Borax. Jimmy cracks an evil joke that it would be pretty funny when they're looking for a "dirty bomb" if terrorists turned out to use a heavy-duty cleaner, but Paul doesn't see the humor in it.
When the homeless man with the Borax boxes is gunned down in his cardboard crib close to Lana's mission house, Paul happens to be there on surveillance. His tape of the shooting ends up on network television and soon Lana is helping find out who the man was. Uncle and niece team up to get to the bottom of the shooting but Paul's paranoia becomes ever more extreme and dangerous. It will put Lana's sincere spirituality and concern for the troubled ex-soldier to the test.
Wenders' eye for locations and richly evocative work by director of photography Franz Lustig and production designer Nathan Amondson combine to give the film a powerful sensory impact. The music score and tracks featuring Leonard Cohen add greatly to the piece. Wenders' screenplay with Michael Meredith turns the cliche of the shell-shocked veteran on its head. The sense of wonderment and desire for understanding that envelop the old soldier and the young disciple create a mood of profound optimism.
Credits:
Director: Wim Wenders
Screenplay: Michael Meredith, Wim Wenders
Story: Wim Wenders, Scott Derrickson
Producers: In-ah Lee, Samson Mucke
Gary Winick, Jake Abraham
Executive producers: Peter Schwartzkopff, Jonathan Sehring, Caroline Kaplan, John Sloss
Director of photography: Franz Lustig
Editor: Moritz Laube
Production designer: Nathan Amondson
Costume designer: Alexis Scott
Composers: Thom & Nackt (cq)
Cast:
Lana: Michelle Williams
Paul: John Diehl
Hassan: Shaun Taub
Henry: Wendell Pierce
Jimmy: Richard Edson
Sherman: Burt Young
Youssef: Bernard White.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 118 mins...
Wim Wenders has crafted a thoughtful exploration of the impact of that infamous day on two Americans who love their country but seek to defend it in conflicting ways. In a political year, Land of Plenty could connect with audiences interested in examining how fear and prejudice can affect individuals and society as a whole.
The setting is a Los Angeles rarely seen in movies, a part of the city that could be any place in the Third World, where people are so poor it is known as the hunger capital of America. Lana, played with sparkling intelligence by Michelle Williams, has returned from Tel Aviv to live and work at a mission house in downtown L.A. Her mother has died and she wants to connect with her Uncle Paul, who has been out of touch for many years.
Paul is played by character veteran John Diehl who richly justifies Wenders' decision to cast him by delivering a multi-layered portrayal of a loyal soldier blasted to bewilderment by events in Vietnam. Exposed to Agent Pink exfoliate during that conflict, Paul's increasing psychological wounds are brutally punctured by watching the fate of New York's twin towers.
Grizzled, tired and sometimes drunk, Paul has formed a one-man defense unit, driving around the city with surveillance equipment, recording images and commentary covering potential suspects who invariably look like his idea of Arabs. He has a pal, Jimmy (Richard Edson), who has a contact or two in the police department and is always willing to run suspicious items through the more extreme elements of the Internet.
Roaming the city at night, Paul spots a man in a turban carrying boxes of Borax. Jimmy cracks an evil joke that it would be pretty funny when they're looking for a "dirty bomb" if terrorists turned out to use a heavy-duty cleaner, but Paul doesn't see the humor in it.
When the homeless man with the Borax boxes is gunned down in his cardboard crib close to Lana's mission house, Paul happens to be there on surveillance. His tape of the shooting ends up on network television and soon Lana is helping find out who the man was. Uncle and niece team up to get to the bottom of the shooting but Paul's paranoia becomes ever more extreme and dangerous. It will put Lana's sincere spirituality and concern for the troubled ex-soldier to the test.
Wenders' eye for locations and richly evocative work by director of photography Franz Lustig and production designer Nathan Amondson combine to give the film a powerful sensory impact. The music score and tracks featuring Leonard Cohen add greatly to the piece. Wenders' screenplay with Michael Meredith turns the cliche of the shell-shocked veteran on its head. The sense of wonderment and desire for understanding that envelop the old soldier and the young disciple create a mood of profound optimism.
Credits:
Director: Wim Wenders
Screenplay: Michael Meredith, Wim Wenders
Story: Wim Wenders, Scott Derrickson
Producers: In-ah Lee, Samson Mucke
Gary Winick, Jake Abraham
Executive producers: Peter Schwartzkopff, Jonathan Sehring, Caroline Kaplan, John Sloss
Director of photography: Franz Lustig
Editor: Moritz Laube
Production designer: Nathan Amondson
Costume designer: Alexis Scott
Composers: Thom & Nackt (cq)
Cast:
Lana: Michelle Williams
Paul: John Diehl
Hassan: Shaun Taub
Henry: Wendell Pierce
Jimmy: Richard Edson
Sherman: Burt Young
Youssef: Bernard White.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 118 mins...
- 9/10/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Eva Marie Saint has signed on to co-star in Don't Come Knocking, an independent feature film being directed by Wim Wenders and starring Sam Shepard. The story centers on an aging cowboy star (Shepard) who rides off the set midshoot on a voyage of self-discovery. Saint will play Shepard's mother. Shepard wrote the screenplay, which is based on a story by Shepard and Wenders. Knocking is a Reverse Angle production and is being produced by Peter Schwartzkopff. Production starts this summer. Saint most recently co-starred in Wayne Wang's Because of Winn-Dixie, to be released in January by 20th Century Fox. She is best known for her work in On the Waterfront, for which she won a best supporting actress Oscar, and North by Northwest. Saint won an Emmy for her work in the 1990 TV movie People Like Us. She is represented by ICM and managed by Jeff Sanderson.
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