Wild River 1960

1960, Drama, History, Romance,

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With a touch of humanism and social conviction Wild River focuses on a TVA dam project that will evict a family (matriarch Van Fleet) and her significant number of black employees. Lee Remick, as well as being jaw-dropping stunning as a country lass, is a widowed daughter of said family and graces the screen with another of her magnificent performances. Montgomery Clift's character, Chuck Glover, has the unenviable job as the ministry employee who must shoo the tenants to vacate. Monty and Remick establish a relationship which helps convert Cliff to the side of the righteous. Kazan's build seems slower than the erratic pace of the plot but it is still superior Hollywood fare shot in magnificent cinemascope.
There is little to add to the eloquent appreciations of Wild River by other users. Still, I want to pay my tribute. My father took me to see the film when I was a little girl and it made such an impression on me I have been searching for it for years. Odd, since I remembered nothing of the plot, retaining only fleeting images of autumn colours, Lee
Remick's autumnal hair, the old ferry, an indelible impression of Montgomery Clift's face, the old woman surrounded by still 'figures in a landscape'. And the creation of a unique atmosphere so tangible, so lyrical, so elegiac it stayed with me for 40+ years. I've been wanting to know why it clung to me so. And wondering why it seemed to have disappeared without trace. This Christmas, in the fullness of time, my niece presented me with the DVD and I have at last seen it again. Why did it affect me so profoundly? That one's easy. Why had the film disappeared. That one's complex, as you know. What I hadn't expected was that stunning performance from the incomparable Jo Van Fleet. No Oscar? Were they mad? It is intensely interesting and sobering to reflect how politics can hold art hostage.