Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Directed by

James Marsh

Genre

documentary film, drama film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 16m

Rated

NR

Rating

5.7 of 10 from 28 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This docudrama uses black-and-white reenactments and narration from old newspaper articles to tell about strange and disturbing events in a small Wisconsin town in the 1800s. It contrasts those scenes with modern color footage of the same area.

historicalmacabreslow-burnunsettlingmelancholicbleakquietly haunting

What happens

Wisconsin Death Trip is a 1999 docudrama film written for the screen and directed by James Marsh, based on the 1973 historical nonfiction book of the same name by Michael Lesy. The film dramatizes a series of macabre incidents that took place in and around Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the late-19th century. It utilizes silent black-and-white reenactment footage contrasted with contemporary color footage of the region, along with voice-over narration by Sir Ian Holm, orating contemporaneous newspaper articles written about the occurrences. Music featured in the film includes DJ Shadow and John Cale. Marsh began developing a documentary film adaptation of Lesey's book after moving to the United States in 1995. The film was produced over approximately four years, with Marsh intermittently shooting the reenactment footage on location in Wisconsin over a one-and-a-half-year period. The film opened at the Telluride Film Festival in September 1999 before being released theatrically at New York City's Film Forum in December 1999. It premiered on Cinemax on July 4, 2000. In the United Kingdom, the film was shown on the BBC as part of the documentary series Arena, who had originally helped finance the project. Wisconsin Death Trip was largely met with critical praise, particularly for its cinematography, though some film critics criticized its structure and inclusion of modern-day footage. The film received several accolades, including two BAFTA Television Award nominations; cinematographer Eigil Bryld won the award in the category of Best Photography. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Desecration (1999)
• The Minus Man (1999)
• The Florentine (1999)
• Borrowed Time (2015)
• A Woman of Pleasure (1919)
• Vergeten straat (1999)
• Der zweite Weltkrieg - In Farbe (1999)
• Paths in the Night (1999)