Chekhov's Gun: Jeff Nichols' Shotgun Stories

SHOTGUN STORIES
(Jeff Nichols, US, 2007, 35mm, 90 minutes)

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the
following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.
-- Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

Back in the 1970s, an abusive, alcoholic Arkansas man named Hayes fathered three sons. Then he left town, found God, cleaned up his act, married another woman, and fathered four more sons. 

Shortly after Shotgun Stories begins, Hayes dies. The first three sons, now fully grown, show up at his funeral. Son (Kentucky native Michael Shannon) speaks briefly to his estranged father's lousy parenting skills, spits into the coffin, and leaves with his younger brothers, Boy (Douglas Ligon) and Kid (Barlow Jacobs). The rest of the family sits in stunned silence.

[Check out the way The San Francisco Chronicle's Walter Addiego describes Shannon, break-out star of William Friedkin's Bug and Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead: "He has a face made for Westerns--you can picture him in Peckinpah's movies--and when he's on-screen, the other actors might as well just grab a chair, sit and wait till he's finished.]

Son and Kid toil at a fish farm and Boy coaches a middle-school basketball team. While the first act is devoid of guns, the title indicates that a family feud is in the offing, and it is, though Son as states flatly, "This started a long time ago." Nonetheless, calm reins for awhile. The sun beats down on the golden cottonfields and the skies are clear and blue.

Then one afternoon, six of the seven men--Son, Boy, Kid, Mark (Travis Smith), Stephen (Lynnsee Provence), and John (David Rhodes)--run into each other at a car wash and the fists fly (only the level-headed Cleaman is missing). No one is badly injured, and the fight ends before the cops arrive, but the gauntlet has been thrown.

A firearm appears in the next act while the youngest sons are hunting for snakes. Once a knife enters the picture, the cycle begins in earnest. Ultimately, someone fires a shotgun, but not in the expected manner. 

In the meantime, Nichols conjures up the rhythms of rural life, the quiet intervals between outbreaks of noisy violence. Deaths, both human and animal, occur off screen.

On the one hand, this removes his archetypal, borderline-Biblical scenario from the realm of cliché. Nichols neither shies away from nor revels in violence. On the other, there's only so much depth to these characters. The second set of siblings, especially, are mostly ciphers. That may be intentional, and the actors are persuasive, but Son, Boy, and Kid are more interesting--even occasionally amusing--than genuinely sympathetic.

Lovingly shot in widescreen by cinematographer Adam Stone (longtime associate of producer David Gordon Green), Shotgun Stories may not cut as deep as Nichols intended, but it does exemplify the way a fresh eye can create something new from the remnants of something old. Revenge dramas, after all, are a dime a dozen.

If some critics have gotten a little over-ecstatic about the filmmaker's first feature, it's not hard to blame them. Comparisons to Bob Rafelson's Five Easy Pieces and David Cronenberg's A History of Violence might seem overblown, but they're not that far off the mark, and those weren't debuts (though Rafelson's only previous movie was the Monkees oddity Head). Premiering in Seattle at SIFF '07 and arriving on DVD in July, Shotgun Stories is best enjoyed on the big screen.

Shotgun Stories continues at the Northwest Film Forum through Thurs., 5/15, at 7 and 9pm. As a side note, tonight is the final evening for John Boorman's rarely-screened Leo the Last (Wed., 5/14; show times at 7 and 9:15pm). The NWFF is located at 1515 12th Ave. on Capitol Hill between Pike and Pine. For more information, please click here or call (206) 329-2629. Images from CSPV, The House Next Door, and Internet Movie Poster Awards Gallery.