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Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

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Wisconsin Death Trip

• 40   Metascore
• 1 hr 15 mins
• Documentary

Morbidly fascinating documentary about the small town of Black River Falls, which experienced, back in 1890, an epidemic of murder, suicide and mental illness during a period of economic depression. Directed by James Marsh.

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Wisconsin Death Trip

A series of grisly events that took place in the state of Wisconsin between 1890 and 1900 is dramatized as reported in the Black River Falls newspaper. A series of grisly events that took place in the state of Wisconsin between 1890 and 1900 is dramatized as reported in the Black River Falls newspaper. A series of grisly events that took place in the state of Wisconsin between 1890 and 1900 is dramatized as reported in the Black River Falls newspaper.

• James Marsh
• Michael Lesy
• Jeffrey Golden
• Jo Vukelich
• 33 User reviews
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• 40 Metascore
• 3 wins & 3 nominations total

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Wisconsin Death Trip

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Inspired by the book of the same name, film-maker James Marsh relays a tale of tragedy, murder and mayhem that erupted behind the respectable facade Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the 19th century.

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Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, james marsh, jo vukelich, marilyn white, jeffrey golden, marcus monroe, john schneider, technical specs.

Using archival photos, newspaper stories, and hospital records to recreate life in 1890s Black River Falls, Wisconsin-- a Protestant community of merchants, farmers, most of them recent German and Scandinavian immigrants. The multiple cases of murder, madness and mayhem make today's tabloid headlines seem tame by comparison. (Having Mendota Asylum for the Insane nearby certainly helps.) The area is plagued by ghost-sightings, bizarre suicides, teenage outlaws--and a cocaine-crazed school mistress with a compulsion to smash windows. 'Little House on the Prairie' will never look the same.

Nancy Abraham

Eigil bryld, jinx godfrey, carol hirschi, ellen kozak, michael lesy, sheila nevins, christopher russo, maureen a ryan, anthony wall.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States 1999

Released in United States 2011

Released in United States July 2000

Released in United States September 13, 2001

Released in United States September 1999

Released in United States Winter December 1, 1999

Shown at Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival October 20 - November 15, 1999.

Shown at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival July 5-15, 2000.

Shown at Telluride Film Festival September 3-6, 1999.

Broadcast in USA over Cinemax July 24, 2000.

Released in United States 1999 (Shown at Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival October 20 - November 15, 1999.)

Released in United States 2011 (Ripping Reality)

Released in United States July 2000 (Shown at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival July 5-15, 2000.)

Released in United States September 1999 (Shown at Telluride Film Festival September 3-6, 1999.)

Released in United States September 13, 2001 (Shown in Los Angeles (American Cinematheque) as part of series "The Alternative Screen: A Forum For Independent Film Exhibition and Beyond..." September 13, 2001.)

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Wisconsin Death Trip

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Watch Wisconsin Death Trip

• 1 hr 16 min
• 6.6   (1,597)

Wisconsin Death Trip is a dark and eerie documentary-drama hybrid film from 1999, based on Michael Lesy's 1973 book of the same name. Directed by James Marsh and narrated by Ian Holm, the movie explores a series of bizarre and tragic events that took place in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, during the late 19th century. Set in the 1890s, the film depicts life in this small Midwestern town as a bleak and hopeless affair. The residents of Black River Falls are plagued by a range of social, economic, and psychological problems, and their lives are marred by poverty, sickness, madness, and death. The film blends archival footage, reenactments, and contemporary interviews with haunting photographs from Lesy's book, creating a surreal and disturbing portrait of a community on the brink of collapse.

One of the central themes of the film is the pervasive sense of despair that grips Black River Falls. Against a backdrop of economic recession, rampant alcoholism, and social isolation, the residents of the town turn to various forms of escapism and self-destruction. Some indulge in opium use or prostitution, while others succumb to suicide or murder. The film traces the fates of several individuals who become caught up in this cycle of misery and violence, including a farmer who murders his wife and children, a young woman who is driven to insanity by the death of her child, and a group of children who engage in a spate of vandalism and arson.

Another key theme of the film is the role of the media in shaping public perceptions of these events. As the film progresses, we see how newspaper reports and photographs sensationalize and distort the tragedies of Black River Falls, turning them into macabre spectacles that both fascinate and horrify their readers. The film suggests that this process of media manipulation and spectacle is not just a historical curiosity, but an ongoing feature of contemporary society, as we continue to be captivated by stories of violence and tragedy.

Throughout the film, the visuals are striking and evocative, ranging from sepia-toned photographs of Victorian-era America to vivid reenactments of the town's most shocking moments. The film's score, composed by DJ Shadow, is equally haunting, blending atmospheric soundscapes with eerie spoken-word samples. Ian Holm's narration is also excellent, lending a tone of somber detachment to the proceedings.

Wisconsin Death Trip is not an easy film to watch, but it is a gripping and thought-provoking exploration of a forgotten corner of American history. By blending fact and fiction, the film creates a haunting portrait of a community on the brink of collapse, and raises important questions about the nature of human suffering, media manipulation, and the power of history to shape our understanding of the world around us. This is a film that lingers in the mind, haunting the viewer long after the credits have rolled.

• Genres Documentary Crime
• Cast Ian Holm Jeffrey Golden Jo Vukelich
• Director James Marsh
• Release Date 2000
• MPAA Rating NR
• Runtime 1 hr 16 min
• Language English
• IMDB Rating 6.6   (1,597)
• Metascore 40

Curdled Nostalgia: Why You Should Watch ‘Wisconsin Death Trip’

Welcome to  The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay that explores why you should watch the 1999 docudrama Wisconsin Death Trip.

In 1973, Michael Lesy published his first non-fiction autopsy. It was a coroner’s report on the American Dream. And its name was Wisconsin Death Trip . Lesy’s book — mostly comprised of historical photographs — lays bare a number of incidents that took place during a five-year period in Jackson County, Wisconsin around the turn of the 20th century. Eccentricity. Plague. Demonic possessions. Teenage arsonists. The works.

With sparse commentary by Lesy and excerpts from relevant texts,  Wisconsin Death Trip is primarily made up of photographs and articles from the town newspaper. How, then, do you adapt such bleak, intimate, historical rubbernecking into a film?

Almost thirty years after Lesy’s book hit shelves, James Marsh (of  Man on Wire  fame) released a docudrama of the same name, which, like its source material, became a cult hit.

Ironically, considering the film’s inherent and explicit American subject matter, Marsh’s film is notoriously difficult to find online outside of the UK. This is, in part, because the film was financed under the auspices of BBC’s  Arena .

Reminiscent of  Twin Peaks  and narrated with a simmering bile by Ian Holm,  Wisconsin Death Trip  is as hypnotic and lyrical as they come. A bleak assemblage that reeks of the despair rotting under the floorboards of rural America.

Interest piqued? Here’s a video essay that expounds further on why  Wisconsin Death Trip  is a film well worth hunting down.

Watch “Wisconsin Death Trip – Authentic Gothic Americana”

Who made this?

This video essay on the American Gothic docudrama Wisconsin Death Trip  is by  You Have Been Watching Films . United Kingdom-based writer  Oliver Bagshaw  produces the channel, creating video essays on an assortment of movies, from cult to classic strains of cinema history. You can subscribe to their YouTube channel  here .

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Wisconsin Death Trip

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• New York Daily News Jack Mathews Marsh's film alludes to the poor economy of the former mining town but has little else to say about potential causes or motivation. Marsh just piles the events on, as if there's black humor in their sheer volume. Nope, just a big boring pile.
• Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington A piece of twisted Americana that stays eerily in your mind.
• Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt Required viewing for anyone who thinks the modern media created the social ills that accost us so frequently today.
• TV Guide Ken Fox Crisply photographed in black and white by cinematographer Eigil Bryld and extremely violent, it's the hellish flip-side to Little House on the Prairie.
• Killer Movie Reviews Andrea Chase . . .a fever dream of a film that is haunting, capable of jarring moments of revelation about the timelessness of human nature. . .
• eFilmCritic.com Brian Mckay If sitting in a library basement reading random newspaper articles on microfilm for two hours is your idea of a good time, then this movie has your name all over it.
• Filmcritic.com Matt Langdon Chances are you have never seen a film quite like Wisconsin Death Trip
• New York Post Jonathan Foreman The main problem with Wisconsin Death Trip is the way the format distances you from the subject matter, so that stories may shock, but they never move you.
• AV Club Nathan Rabin Wisconsin Death Trip chronicles, in bleakly funny vignettes, the marathon of perverse, violent, and frequently inexplicable acts of violence and insanity that gripped the seemingly cursed Wisconsin town of Black River Falls during the late 19th century.
• Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector Chillingly beautiful cinematography makes the state's landscapes appear timeless as it sets the stage for a grim history.
• Variety Dennis Harvey Those who pine for the presumed simpler life and upright morals of yesteryear's small-town Midwest have a rude, albeit wry, awakening in store with Wisconsin Death Trip.
• New York Times Stephen Holden When the movie is concentrating on the book, it is a creepily enthralling document that illustrates the susceptibility to breakdown of what we think of as sanity and civilization. But the film stumbles in its color sequences.
• Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten Michael Lesy's macabre 1973 cult book of photographs has been given the documentary treatment in this seemingly made-for-the-movies true story.
• San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann In the extraordinary film Wisconsin Death Trip we see how much we have in common with our forebears.
• Village Voice Amy Taubin A tricky, empty film adaptation of Michael Lesy's overrated 1973 book of the same name.
• Boxoffice Magazine Tim Cogshell A stirring little documentary.
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold An unsettling semi-documentary narrated by Ian Holm that chronicles the bizarre goings-on in and around the town of Black River Falls, Wis., between 1890 and 1900.
• Boston Phoenix Jonathan Stern Marsh belabors the grotesque, and shock gives way to nausea as he piles on accounts of unexplained suicides, abandoned children, psychotic delusions, and other gory vignettes.
• St. Paul Pioneer Press Chris Hewitt Combines documentary photos with actor re-creations to assemble a stunning catalog of cheesehead mayhem.

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Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Genre: documentary, duration: 76 minuten, country: united states / united kingdom, directed by: james marsh, stars: ian holm, imdb score: 6,7  (1.609), releasedate: 5 september 1999.

This movie is not available on US streaming services.

Wisconsin Death Trip plot

Wisconsin Death Trip is set in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The story is made up entirely of stories from the local newspaper of Black River Falls. This northern Wisconsin town was home to an apparently respectable community of hardworking Protestant merchants and farmers, most of whom had recently emigrated from Germany and Scandinavia. The news in the 1990s, however, is dominated by bizarre stories of madness, eccentricity and despair among the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace. People in the village are haunted by ghosts and terrorized by pyromaniacs and outlaws.

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A most extraordinary experience awaits those with a taste for the strange and the bizarre in the small town of Black River Falls. Rocked by an inexplicable confluence of events in the late 1890s, this sleepy Wisconsin town generated some of the most unlikely news reports and stories ever told. Previously harmless residents including children commit a series of gruesome, violent murders. Sightings of ghosts and reports of haunting and possession run rife. An epidemic sweeps through the town and takes with it some of the residents newest born sons and daughters. Extreme cases of paranoia, insanity and delirium plague the townsfolk. And the population finds itself terrorized by a cocaine-snorting madwoman with a taste for smashing windows. Based on documented accounts and narrated by award-winning British actor Ian Holm, this haunting and surreal film beautifully evokes the otherworldly spirit and wayward madness of a time and place marked by an altogether unreal set of circumstances. Bizarre. But true.

Product details

• Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)
• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.56 x 5.35 x 0.63 inches; 2.47 ounces
• Item model number ‏ : ‎ 5023965347022
• Director ‏ : ‎ James Marsh
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ PAL
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 16 minutes
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Ian Holm, Jeffrey Golden, Jo Vukelich, Marcus Monroe, Marilyn White
• Producers ‏ : ‎ Anthony Wall, Carol Hirschi, James Marsh, Maureen A. Ryan, Nancy Abraham
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0001XLWVM
• Writers ‏ : ‎ James Marsh, Michael Lesy
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #4,678 in Kids & Family DVDs
• #10,407 in Drama DVDs

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Three Great Documentaries to Stream

This month’s streaming selections include one director’s look at a hometown ritual, the story of an improbable ruse and a celebration of student activism.

By Ben Kenigsberg

The proliferation of documentaries on streaming services makes it difficult to choose what to watch. Each month, we’ll choose three nonfiction films — classics, overlooked recent docs and more — that will reward your time.

‘The Virgin of Pessac’ (1968), ‘The Virgin of Pessac 79’ (1979)

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Jean Eustache, the French director best known for “The Mother and the Whore” (1973), directed two documentaries capturing an antediluvian ritual in his hometown. Every year, following instructions from a deceased resident’s 1896 will, officials in Pessac, France, selected a young woman to be crowned as the municipality’s rosière . That word is left untranslated in the subtitles, but the role amounts to being Pessac’s “rose”: The rosière gets paraded around with a lot of pomp and circumstance as her fellow townspeople treat her like a mascot — a woman they can objectify as part of their birthright. The main criterion for selection? Moral virtue. Eustache filmed the 1968 and 1979 competitions, if “competition” is the mot juste for a contest whose participants appear to have little say in taking part.

By prescription, the judges consist of Pessac’s mayor, the parish priest, a justice of the peace and several others, including, “preferably,” a gaggle of winegrowers’ wives. The nomination process essentially officializes gossip, as various local busybodies suggest women based on hearsay about them and their families. Candidates must have been born in Pessac and must be, per the recitations of the rules, “of nubile age.” The 1968 mayor doesn’t seem too concerned about saying cringeworthy things. “Those who film the ceremony have promised to delete anything embarrassing,” he says, referring to Eustache’s team. But later, he expresses delight at the winner’s photogenicity: “Even though we didn’t choose according to looks, I’m glad she’s so cute. It will be good for TV.”

It is not clear what Eustache might have held back. “The Virgin of Pessac” is a good illustration of Frederick Wiseman’s frequent assertion that camera subjects don’t realize how they look to an observer. Until a priest mentions the unrest of May 1968 — a touchstone in Eustache’s work — “The Virgin of Pessac” could almost pass for something shot in the late 19th century.

By the time of “The Virgin of Pessac 79,” the townspeople, while still upbeat, look marginally more mortified at carrying on the tradition, and they have relaxed some of the rules. (It’s become harder to find winegrowers’ wives, for one thing.) There are whispers of past rosières who may not actually have been chaste. Who could designate the virgin of Pessac in a post-“Mother and the Whore” era?

‘The Imposter’ (2012)

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Late in “The Imposter,” we hear about a woman who passed two polygraph tests before flunking the third. The director Bart Layton’s documentary creates a kind of lie-detector test for the viewer. You can’t trust anyone in this movie, not even the filmmaker.

Owing a considerable conceptual and aesthetic debt to Errol Morris, “The Imposter” centers on an infamous real-life impersonation case . In 1997, the title subject, a French-born man named Frédéric Bourdin, passed himself off as Nicholas Barclay, a San Antonio teenager who had gone missing three years earlier. At 23, Bourdin was clearly older than Barclay would have been. He had a French accent and several physical dissimilarities with the boy he was claiming to be. Nevertheless, he lucked into enough bureaucratic incompetence to make his way from Spain to Texas, and Barclay’s family welcomed him into their home. Did they believe him? Were they deceiving themselves?

“The Imposter” tells this story from multiple points of view. Bourdin, talking head-on to the camera, describes the cleverness of his ruse step by step. At times even he appears incredulous at his success — but naturally, everything he says ought to be regarded with great skepticism. In some ways, the bigger mysteries involve Beverly, Nicholas’s mother, Carey Gibson, his half sister, who are among the interviewees. Bourdin can describe the logistics of making phone calls and disguising himself physically, but Layton is also interested in penetrating the more abstract headspaces of Nicholas’s apparently duped relatives. The filmmaker comes to no firm conclusions, and by the end of the movie his sympathies seem to lie with a colorful private investigator who was working for “Hard Copy” — a sleuth who is presented, fairly or not, as having Bourdin’s number when authorities shrugged.

Layton’s use of re-enactments (some of which feature multiple Bourdins) may be a bit of a cliché, but it adds to the sense that nothing onscreen is stable.

‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’ (2021)

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It is not strictly accurate to call “A Night of Knowing Nothing” a documentary: This debut feature from Payal Kapadia, whose second feature will screen in competition at Cannes next month, mingles modes so freely that she has described it as “a long dream.” Visually, much of it consists of footage shot by Kapadia, her cinematographer and her friends, along with home movies and other archival material.

The voice-over, though, is fiction: The main narration comes from invented letters supposedly found at the Film and Television Institute of India, which Kapadia herself attended; their author is an imaginary student known simply as L. The letters are to the young man she loves, and who wanted to marry her. But his parents have forbidden him from seeing her because she comes from a lower caste. The dramatized narration folds in real-world events and issues: a strike by the institute’s students to oppose what they saw as the political appointment of a new chairman; the suicide of a Dalit student — a student from a group once known as “untouchables” — whose death led to protests in India; outrage at a citizenship law that opponents saw as anti-Muslim ; and the general atmosphere of suppression under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The free-flowing structure makes “A Night of Knowing Nothing” tough to reduce to a concise description, and the movie is easier to follow on a repeat viewing than the first time through. But a sense of tumult is integral to Kapadia’s design. The film is in large measure a celebration of student activism and mobilization. Actual protests are shown throughout, as both L and the director find their political voices. “Time has put us in a certain place,” a man says at the end, referring to the film students’ movement, adding that they reacted in the way that they could.

Meryl Streep to Receive Honorary Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival on Opening Night (EXCLUSIVE)

By Elsa Keslassy

Elsa Keslassy

International Correspondent

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Meryl Streep will receive the honorary Palme d’Or on the opening night of the 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival , Variety has learned.

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“I am immeasurably honored to receive the news of this prestigious award,” Streep said in a statement. “To win a prize at Cannes, for the international community of artists, has always represented the highest achievement in the art of filmmaking. To stand in the shadow of those who have previously been honored is humbling and thrilling in equal part. I so look forward to coming to France to thank everyone in person this May,” Streep continued.

Cannes Film Festival president Iris Knobloch and general delegate Thierry Frémaux said, “We all have something in us of Meryl Streep!” “We all have something in us of ‘Kramer vs. Kramer,’ ‘Sophie’s Choice,’ ‘Out of Africa,’ ‘The Bridges of Madison County,’ ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and ‘Mamma Mia!” the duo said in a joint statement. “Because she has spanned almost 50 years of cinema and embodied countless masterpieces, Meryl Streep is part of our collective imagination, our shared love of cinema,” Knobloch and Frémaux continued.

Known for playing strong and complex women, Streep has earned 21 Oscar nominations and won three of them, for “Kramer vs. Kramer” (on which he reportedly rewrote a crucial monologue), “Sophie’s Choice” and “The Iron Lady.” She broke through in 1978 with Michael Cimino’s “The Deer Hunter,” starring Robert De Niro. She also delivered an iconic performances opposite Robert Redford in Sidney Pollack’s romantic epic “Out of Africa” and in “The Bridges of Madison County,” where she starred alongside Clint Eastwood. She has also excelled in lighter fare, including “The Devil Wears Prada,” as well as the musical “Mamma Mia!”

As previously announced, the festival will kick off with Quentin Dupieux’s “The Second Act,” starring Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphaël Quenard. The opening and closing ceremonies will be emceed by Camille Cottin, who broke through in “Call My Agent!” and starred in “Stillwater” and “House of Gucci,” among others. The high-profile roster of movies slated for this year’s festival include Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” a stylized three-part story set in the present that reunites the “Poor Things” helmer with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe; Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama “Emilia Perez” starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” with Gary Oldman; and  David Cronenberg ’s “The Shrouds” starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger; Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” which sees Sebastian Stan take on the role of a Donald Trump; and Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” a female-powered horror film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley from Universal Pictures and Working Title Films.

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will take place May 14-25.

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