Shotgun Stories

365 Films

Entry #85

Shotgun Stories (2007)

Directed by Jeff Nichols

Writer/director Jeff Nichols first came to my attention at a Q+A event for David Gordon Green.  Someone had asked him about an aborted adaptation he was set to do of the frat house expose novel, Goat.  He began to explain in elaborate detail about how close the whole thing had come to fruition only to fall apart at the last minute.  Then his body language and vocal timbre became noticeably more energized when mentioning his co-writer on that project.  His name is Jeff Nichols and he’s got an awesome movie of his own coming out soon called Shotgun Stories (I’m paraphrasing but you get the idea, I just don’t want you to think he was reading it off a teleprompter or something).  With an already established indie demi-god like Green giving him the stamp of approval, I knew this was a filmmaker I would be seeking out as soon as I got the chance.  Then again, if Green had mentioned the name post summer of 2008, I probably would have stayed as far away as possible (I kid, I kid).  Shotgun Stories is a triumph not only of story telling but of filmmaking in general.  Shot on a shoestring budget with a cast primarily made up of un-knowns, and a first-time director at the helm, the film is a marvel of cinematic control and pacing.  Nichols makes amazing use of a naturalistic landscape and performance style that only heightens the tension as the local blood-lust rivalry between two warring Arkansas factions rises to a boil.  Enough has been written about the astonishing gifts of Michael Shannon so all I will do is point out the serendipitous turn of events for him surrounding this film.  Shotgun Stories’ theatrical release came right off the heels of Shannon’s Oscar nominated turn in Revolutionary Road.  The fact that Shannon had been working steadily as an actor over ten years prior to this makes his victory all the sweeter (and especially redemptive considering two of his earliest breaks were in Michael Bay monstrosities).  I say congratulations to him because this is a revelatory re-introductory performance.  So while Shotgun Stories may be the cinematically crudest of Nichols’ oeuvre (take that with a grain of salt, this picture looks better than most of the shit being turned out by budgets ten times its size), it does display his remarkable gifts of a keen ear for local dialogue, and a lived-in understanding of Southern lifestyle.  As we all know, this is another facet of American life that mainstream Hollywood tends to treat with utter contempt and Nichols’ refusal to play along in that game is one of his most admirable traits.  That being said, the story telling here is not always subtle.  For example, the one-eyed character called Shampoo serves very little purpose other than to be the human drop of poison whose meddling and gossip has severe and permanent consequences.  He’s clearly a construct out of Greek tragedy, yet Nichols makes it work because of the offbeat design of the character and his obvious penchant for southern literature.  The film is at once of its time and timeless, tapping into a larger historical resonance about Southern masculinity and its dominating effect on individual life while staying true to the very real circumstances of its characters.  Firmly ensconced in the genre tradition of the revenge-western, Nichols plays up his characters’ mythic qualities so that the lack of subtlety never becomes a distraction; it strengthens the story in a way.  It’s nearly impossible to think of any film pulling off such a satisfyingly simultaneous juggling of the micro and the macro, let alone one made by a first timer director.  For that is the key to Nichols’ supreme talent, he takes big themes but presents them in a most decidedly non-ostentatious manner.  Shotgun Stories never feels like the quiet meditation on male violence that it so thoughtfully and naturally is.