Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Director:

James Marsh

Writers:

Michael Lesy (book)
James Marsh (writer)

Release Date:

9 March 2000 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Wisconsin Death Trip is an intimate, shocking and sometimes hilarious account of the disasters that...

Plot Keywords:

Newspaper | Wisconsin | Death | 1890s | Murder

Awards:

3 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Ian Holm	...	Narrator (voice)
Jeffrey Golden	...	Editor (as Jeff Golden)
Jo Vukelich	...	Mary Sweeney
Marcus Monroe	...	Young Anderson
Marilyn White	...	Pauline L'Allemand
John Schneider	...	Asylum Clerk / Whispering Voice
John Baltes	...	Undertaker
Raeleen McMillion	...	Crying Woman
Krista Grambow	...	Mourning Woman
Clay Anton	...	Eloping Couple (male)
Bobby Jo Westphal	...	Eloping Couple (female)
Zeke Dasho	...	Edgar L'Allemand
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Kathryn Anderson	...	Mrs. Larson
Kevin Anderson	...	Larson Child
Liam Anderson	...	Larson Child
Molly Anderson	...	Mrs. Larson
Nathan Butchart	...	Dead Boy
Angel Hamilton	...	Fire Girl
Ali Ide	...	Winter Bride
Brittany Istre	...	Baptized Girl
Marc Jacobs	...	Hanging Man
Dana Joseph	...	Girl at Window
Joshua Kapp	...	Baby
Eddie Kunz	...	Abandoned Boy
Cody Marenes	...	Boy
Tyler Marenes	...	Running Boy
Tess Miller	...	Coffin Girl
Braden Moran	...	Husband
Michael Olson	...	Asylum Guard
Emily Roske	...	Sister
Will Roske	...	9 Year Old Shooter
Clayton Simchick	...	Hanging Man (as Clay Simchick)
Debbi Sommi	...	Servant Girl
Jeana Stillman	...	Drowned Girl
Steven Strobel	...	Union Man
M. Scott Taulman	...	The Jailer

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Black River Falls, Wisconsin, USA

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

Broadcast in the UK as part of the BBC's prestigious "Arena" (1975) series.

Soundtrack:

Ave Maria

Incoherent, misleading

Beautiful shot, emotionally distant and utterly incoherent. What interested me in the film to begin with, the story of this small town and all of the bizarre misfortune it faced, turned out to not be true at all. But the film never freely admits this. The film moves between the B&W past and a living-color present. The present documents the town of Black River Falls exclusively, a small town in northern Wisconsin. So, when we flash back to the past, we are led to believe that all of the morbid events: murder, madness and mayhem, that we're hearing about occurred in or around Black River Falls. Perhaps some of it did occur in the immediate region, but more precisely, we're getting accounts of the morbid events from the Black River Falls NEWSPAPER. So we're talking about events all over the state, not in one small town! A girl drowned herself in the lake in Kenosha? Kenosha is near the Illinois border. Not to mention that other towns in the film: Appleton, Rhinelander, Eau Claire, LaCrosse, Beaver Dam, and Madison represent points at every corner of the state. Most people wouldn't realize this, but when you do, you know the rest of the film is based on a flimsy misrepresentation and it completely loses its coherence and what makes its initial premise compelling. If the timeframe were 10 years later, they might well have represented McKinley's assassination as taking place in Black River Falls, since the paper surely had a story about it. I didn't hate the film, it has some great imagery and some of the stories are interesting enough, but I felt cheated more than anything, because in the end, there's no real through-line and as such, not only no resolution but nothing to resolve.