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Louisiana Story

Louisiana Story (1948)

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No Score Yet...

Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 3 | Rotten: 0

audience

56

liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 595

My Rating

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

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All Critics (14) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (11) | Rotten (3) | DVD (8)

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

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

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
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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

May 20, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Times
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
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
Video-Reviewmaster.com

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

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

Louisiana Story may be Flaherty's greatest work.

September 18, 2005 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid
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
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
Q Network Film Desk

Dated, but it looks great.

May 16, 2003 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com
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
Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Audience Reviews for Louisiana Story

It's a little hard to judge because I (legally) downloaded a copy from, I think, the National Film Archive site? Eh, some site that has all sorts of public domain stuff available. My point is the quality of the file was rather poor, but from what I could see and hear, it was amateur actors extolling drilling for oil. Not bad, but kind of weird.
February 16, 2012
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 environmentally-friendly image of themselves, they didn't need this 78-minute yawn-fest to do it. decent score, decent photography, but overall a dull, pointless film.
October 10, 2011
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Foreign Titles

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