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Louisiana Story

Play trailer Poster for Louisiana Story Released Sep 28, 1948 1h 17m Documentary Play Trailer Watchlist
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75% Tomatometer 16 Reviews 53% Popcornmeter 500+ Ratings
Young Alexander Napoleon Ulysses LaTour (Joseph Boudreaux) is a Cajun boy who lives with his family and his beloved pet raccoon in the Louisiana bayou. When his father (Lionel Le Blanc) allows an oil barge to drill on the family's land, the boy has questions about the process and its safety. Although directed by noted documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty and sometimes misidentified as a true story, this is a scripted film commissioned and paid for by a major oil company.

Critics Reviews

View All (16) Critics Reviews
Michael Sragow The New Yorker A powerful, swooning visualization of a wilderness childhood. Jan 25, 2016 Full Review Variety Staff Variety It has a slender, appealing story, moments of agonizing suspense, vivid atmosphere and superlative photography. Feb 26, 2008 Full Review Time Out 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. Feb 9, 2006 Full Review Vernon Young The Hudson Review Technique: No rhythm. No meaningful progression of shots. Yards of waste footage, based on the pedestrian assumption that what goes up must be shown coming clown or must be seen going all the way to the top. Jan 18, 2024 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews It's a solid but tedious industrial film showing the risks and rewards of getting oil out of the ground. Rated: C+ Jun 9, 2010 Full Review TV Guide As adept as it is in photographing nature, Louisiana Story is weak in capturing culture. Rated: 2.5/4 Feb 26, 2008 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (28) audience reviews
Steve D I found it clunky and unconvincing. Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 04/01/24 Full Review William L What The Birth of a Nation was to race, Louisiana Story was to the environment - a critically reputable puff piece that has aged incredibly poorly in its purpose. Standard Oil presents themselves as a worthy compatriot of an idyllic Huckleberry Finn-esque Cajun boy who lives in concert with the bayou, bringing wealth and leaving behind a perfectly preserved wetland for the native inhabitants to continue their way of life. Not only shameless and dishonest, but also relentlessly boring, Louisiana Story has value only as a historical representative of the dangers of allowing commercial interests too great of an influence into media production. How this piece of docufiction made its way onto any iteration of Sight & Sound is anyone's guess, apart from the soundtrack. (0.5/5) Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/13/21 Full Review Audience Member The best movie score ever composed! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member A shameless ad for the oil industry. The message is: we'll go in, drill for oil in your bayou, and leave the land pristine and native culture undisturbed, and you'll get to buy better groceries and a new gun with your share of the oil profits. The film has some endearing images of a Cajun boy and his pet raccon, plus a Pulitzer prize-winning score by Virgil Thomson, but it is little more than an industrial advertisement grafted onto the last of director Flaherty's man vs. nature docudramas. Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review s r 1001 movies to see before you die. A bizarre type of documentary about oil exploration in LA. Some cultural gems, but overall just odd. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member Lacks the intensity of Flaherty's other films. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/28/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Louisiana Story

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Louisiana Story

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Movie Info

Synopsis Young Alexander Napoleon Ulysses LaTour (Joseph Boudreaux) is a Cajun boy who lives with his family and his beloved pet raccoon in the Louisiana bayou. When his father (Lionel Le Blanc) allows an oil barge to drill on the family's land, the boy has questions about the process and its safety. Although directed by noted documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty and sometimes misidentified as a true story, this is a scripted film commissioned and paid for by a major oil company.
Director
Robert J. Flaherty
Producer
Robert J. Flaherty
Screenwriter
Robert J. Flaherty, Frances H. Flaherty
Distributor
Lopert Pictures Corp.
Production Co
Robert Flaherty Productions Inc. [us]
Genre
Documentary
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 28, 1948, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Mar 10, 2017
Runtime
1h 17m
Sound Mix
Mono
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.37:1)