Deep In The Heart (Of Texas)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C Film: B-
There are
so many bad films about the South and Texas that we have lost count. That is why co-writer/producer/director
Steven Purvis should be commended for being as successful as he was with his
1997 film Deep In The Heart (Of Texas). It is based on a series of stand-up theater
skits with different storylines called Into
The West. Though the resulting film
is not Robert Altman’s Short Cuts
(1993), what is initially being passed off as a comedy is something more.
Robert
and Kate are a British couple sent to do a documentary for British TV to
capture Texas and its people, but they meet as many characters as you
might expect to find eccentrics back in England.
What looks like or is intended as comedy often becomes darker and more
serious, possibly not intended. There is
a coach, a mentally handicapped man who is smarter and more honest than most, a
baker, a Vietnam vet, an unsatisfied middle-aged woman who feels life has passed
her by, the guy who is going to introduce his black girlfriend to his likely
bigoted parents, and many more.
This is
also cast, often with the original actors who created the roles on stage, well. Fortunately, it is very watchable, but the
intercutting of the various storylines is no where near as smart or strong as
Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia
(1999) or especially Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 masterwork The Last Picture Show. It
was that last film and its failed sequel Texasville
(1990). As a matter of fact, though the
inexperience of its filmmakers shows, Deep
In The Heart (Of Texas) is
much closer in tone and feel to what Texasville
should have been and is actually the better film. Too bad it did not go even farther into the
lives of its characters and into a more complex narrative structure.
The
letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is consistent, if not imaginative, but limited in
what looks like a late analog master.
Cinematographer Thomas Flores Alcala has a knack for outdoor shooting in
particular and will hopefully go even further (if he has not already) on his
next film(s). Color is not bad, though
not spectacular and finer detail is not prominent. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has Pro Logic
surrounds from its Dolby theatrical release, especially kicking in with the
rich Country soundtrack. However, it is
not always blaring in all speakers like a Music Video or soundtrack-driven
non-Musical. The only extras are the
theatrical trailer, a nearly 15-minutes Behind-The-Scenes look at the film and
two deleted scenes. The box also notes
director’s commentary, television interviews and scene-to-scene comparisons
(stage vs. film), but they are not on this final DVD.
Vanguard
also happened to put out Picture This
(reviewed on this site) about the making of and legend of The Last Picture Show as Bogdanovich makes Texasville. I intend to
watch it again after seeing this film, because that documentary does not show
why Texasville went wrong. Deep
In The Heart (Of Texas)
inadvertently does, by being successful just enough.
- Nicholas Sheffo
