Production
The Straight Story was independently shot along the actual route taken by Alvin Straight, and all scenes were shot in chronological order. Lynch would later call the film "my most experimental movie."
Unlike his prior films (or any that would follow), The Straight Story was distributed by Walt Disney Pictures after a successful debut at Cannes, was given a G rating by the MPAA (the only Lynch film to receive such a rating) and is the only Lynch film for which Lynch himself did not have a hand in the screenplay (although it was co-written by his recurring associate, Mary Sweeney). As with many of Lynch's films, there are no chapter markers on the original North American DVD release, because Lynch wants the film to be watched as a whole.
Richard Farnsworth was terminally ill with bone cancer during the shooting of the film, which had caused the paralysis of his legs as shown in the film. He actually took the role out of admiration for Alvin Straight, and astonished his co-workers with his tenacity during production. Because of the pain of his disease, Farnsworth committed suicide the following year, at the age of 80.
Read more about this topic: The Straight Story
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The society based on production is only productive, not creative.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)