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Louisiana Story (1948)

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Critic Reviews: 2
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 0

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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 556

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Movie Info

Documentary film pioneer Robert Flaherty's last feature is his most beautifully photographed work, but it also proved to be his most controversial as well. Sponsored by Standard Oil, the film can be seen as a paean to the minimal effect an oil company can have on the wilderness it seeks to exploit. Flaherty also picked a cast of amateur players to act out a simple story of a young Cajun boy (Joseph Boudreaux) and his parents living in Louisiana's magnificent bayou country almost side-by-side

May 20, 2003

Cast

All Critics (14) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (12) | Rotten (4) | DVD (8)

It has a slender, appealing story, moments of agonizing suspense, vivid atmosphere and superlative photography.

February 26, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The ring of sincerity is clear in Flaherty's film.

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's a solid but tedious industrial film showing the risks and rewards of getting oil out of the ground.

June 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

As adept as it is in photographing nature, Louisiana Story is weak in capturing culture.

February 26, 2008 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment (1)
TV Guide's Movie Guide

One of all time best, and one of earliest, documentaries; with Robert Flaherty's deft style.

February 24, 2008 Comment
Video-Reviewmaster.com

...it's the virtuosic craftsmanship that makes Louisiana Story a genre classic.

April 9, 2006 Full Review Source: DVDJournal.com | Comment
DVDJournal.com

Home Vision Entertainment gives Louisiana Story the Criterion treatment on a DVD that presents a solid restoration plus enough generous extras to thrill students of 'the father of the documentary.'

April 9, 2006 Full Review Source: DVDJournal.com | Comment
DVDJournal.com

Flaherty's narrative may seem slightly naive; but his vision of a child's myth-world, and the oilmen's intrusion and acceptance into it, is perhaps his greatest achievement.

February 9, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

Louisiana Story may be Flaherty's greatest work.

September 18, 2005 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid

That Robert J. Flaherty managed to make a fascinating movie that also subtly chastises the massive oil interests (using their money to do it) is one for the record books.

October 29, 2003 Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | Comment
Apollo Guide

It displays many of Flaherty's great strengths as a filmmaker, but it also showcases some of his weaknesses, which makes it an uneven film that is not in league with his earlier works.

October 12, 2003 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | Comment
Q Network Film Desk

Dated, but it looks great.

May 16, 2003 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | Comment
Filmcritic.com

...the film has some of the most beautiful images I've ever seen in a movie yet, at the same time, some of the clunkiest, most awkwardly staged scenes I've ever seen outside of my high school's production of Oklahoma.

May 14, 2003 Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You | Comment
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
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Audience Reviews for Louisiana Story

well, the photography is nice. the story is agonizingly thin and really drags. the characters are bland and the performances are dry and passionless--the most spirited character is probably the raccoon. the dialogue is scant, and a good portion of it is in unsubtitled French. if Standard Oil wanted to promote an

October 10, 2011

Almost no dialogue, the photography I need to see again. The lead kid was innocently mischievous but not really likable.

June 24, 2009
RicC
Richard Cranium

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Foreign Titles

  • Louisiana Story (1948) (DE)
  • Louisiana Story (1948) (UK)
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