Mississippi River Archives - Page 3 of 3

Don’t miss it on the BIG screen. It’s filmed along the Mississippi River in a wild, swampy region of southern Arkansas where there are few roads anywhere near the big river. The photography at almost river level is so intimate with this massive force of nature that you can not just feel it but almost smell it.
The casting is perfect and the acting is superb. Writer/Director Jeff Nichols wrote the role of the main character, Mud, with Matthew McConaughey in mind and it had to be him! His sexy mix of bad boy and innocence is irresistible, but there is much more to this role than that. He is at home in the wild, wily, resourceful and wise; he will tell you any version of the truth that serves the moment and yet you feel his innate integrity and genuineness. The fierce, blind love he feels for Juniper, played by Reese Witherspoon, has not faltered since they were kids in spite of her fickle ways. Tye Sheridan gives a jaw-dropping performance as 14-year-old Ellis, one of the two river kids who discover Mud living on an island in the Mississippi and become his friends. The range of emotions behind his often stoic young face leaves you knowing how it feels to be raised in a barebones houseboat, to passionately want to believe in true love and to watch all that is familiar be dismantled board by board. Finally, Sam Shepard as Mud’s gritty, mysterious sharpshooter father figure is truly masterful.
It is a visceral experience of a vanishing culture that most of us never knew existed. “River Rats,” as they often call themselves, live with the great river, sustained by its gifts and accepting it’s wild and constantly changing nature without reservation. Changes in laws, water quality and fish populations as well as drainage, industrial development and channelization are all bringing an end to this way of life. On my 90-day road trip alongside the full length of the Mississippi River, I met Tommy Groves, a river rat who grew up near Osceola, Arkansas, just 150 or so miles north of where Mud was filmed. Tommy grew up in a little cypress shotgun house on stilts where the Mississippi River came and went and the family survived on its bounty. Tommy’s a successful city dweller now, but he goes to the river every day and he knows he was blessed to grow up there. You can read the rest of his story on my blog post at http://bit.ly/harperriverrat if you like. Happily, the movie treated this ebbing river culture with respect, without even subtle hints at condescension.
It’s 2 hours and 10 minutes of timelessness. The Mississippi River has been doing just what it does today since long before humans were around to notice. When Director Jeff Nichols wanted Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland, who plays Ellis’ best buddy, Neckbone, to feel the River’s timelessness, he handed them Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. “Just reading about the kids on the river in the late 1800s and then being able to go out and enjoy that same river, every day, was amazing,” said Sheridan according to Entertainment Weekly. As for McConaughey, he was quoted by contactmusic.com as saying, “The stage was the Mississippi river. To live there for a while, to camp out there, you quickly get the rhythm and the sense of smell and taste and humidity and weight, and how time trickles along like that river.” No matter how much agenda you walk in with, it is forgotten with the opening scene of Mud and swept away as absolutely as if you were sitting on the bank of the Mississippi.
It’s about love – first love, idealized love, irredeemable love, unconditional love, unrequited love and fatherly love – without ever taking a step toward schmaltzy. And how can you not love that?

So – do yourself a favor, give yourself a break from all that’s going on and don’t miss this one! Here’s the trailer…

A while back I talked about noticing how this journey of 90 days seems to relate to a human lifespan of 90 years. There are aspects of the river at each point that seem to match the stages of a human’s development. This is day 36. The river is working hard here. From my current vantage point on the Riverwalk in Muscatine, Iowa, I can see a lock and dam in one direction and a big industrial installation with silos and smokestacks in the other. As soon as I left the rugged “Driftless” area, the land flattened out and became seriously agricultural and industrial. The air is frequently pungent with the smell of grain processing plants. The river banks are frequently lined with strange-looking conglomerations of tanks and silos connected by giant tubes, the purposes of which are mysterious to me.

So think of yourself at 36, whichever side of that number you are on. For most of us, there is still a sense of being invincible, of being ok without much sleep or vitamins or planning for the future. We’re not careless or oblivious to those things, but there is still a sense of there being plenty of time. So, it’s often a time when we push ourselves, we keep going and keep using our resources because there is more where that came from. Often, we are becoming well-established and well-connected, feeling effective and powerful, getting the job done well, whatever our job may be. And, even though there is that little voice that says, “You really know better than this…” we multitask, over schedule, occasionally indulge in excesses and pat ourselves on the back for handling it all just fine.

That’s how the river feels to me now. I have no idea which of these industries are being responsible stewards of the resources. I’m sure some are and some are not. The river is being used hard, it is handling it, but it would be wise to listen to that little voice and take care of its health now.

Please know I am referring to how humans relate to the river. The river itself – its essence is untouched, unchanged by anything we do – just as the essence of each human is unchanged from birth to death. And please also know – I am not talking about the citizens of any particular town. I am talking about humanity. The story of human history is too often a story of greed. Before Europeans showed up, the Native peoples lived with the river and received its abundance daily. The difference, I think, is that the natural response to gifts of abundance from the Native people was gratitude. Very often, the response from the rest of us is greed – how much more can I get for me?

The vast forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin were virtually obliterated by greed. The fresh water mussels that thrived in the river were nearly wiped out by the pearl button industry. Such is the history of human development everywhere, but it doesn’t have to be. There is that little voice in each of us that knows what’s right, what’s fair, what’s healthy. It can’t effectively be legislated or coerced or demanded by any voice outside of ourselves, but we can choose to listen within.

I’ve been told that the river is healthier now than it has been in the last 60 years. People are listening. That makes my heart sing. The Mississippi River is truly one of our greatest treasures. It is the aorta of our continent. This is a very good time to do the right thing.

Thanks for listening. Gayle

5 GOOD REASONS TO SEE THE MOVIE “MUD” THIS WEEK

Listening