Louis Malle

God’s Country

God’s Country

In 1979, Louis Malle traveled into the heart of Minnesota to capture the everyday lives of the men and women in a prosperous farming community. Six years later, during Ronald Reagan’s second term, he returned to find drastic economic decline. Free of stereotypes about America’s “heartland,” God’s Country, commissioned for American public television, is a stunning work of emotional and political clarity.

Film Info

  • United States
  • 1985
  • 89 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.33:1
  • English

Available In

Collector's Set

Eclipse Series 2: The Documentaries of Louis Malle

The Documentaries of Louis Malle

DVD Box Set

5 Discs

$55.96

God’s Country
Cast
The citizens of Glencoe, Minnesota
Credits
Director
Louis Malle
Producer
Nouvelles Éditions de Films
Screenplay
Louis Malle
Cinematography
Louis Malle
Sound
Jean-Claude Laureux
Sound
Keith Rouse
Editing
James Bruce

Current

Jenni Olson’s Top 10
Jenni Olson’s Top 10

Jenni Olson is an acclaimed filmmaker, writer, archivist, LGBT film historian, and online pioneer.

From the Eclipse Shelf: God’s Country
From the Eclipse Shelf: God’s Country
Louis Malle’s God’s Country is a remarkable account of one hamlet in the heartland of the United States—Glencoe, Minnesota—as seen first in 1979 and then again in 1985. Malle was fascinated by what he saw as a very American brand of provincia…

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Louis Malle

Director

Louis Malle
Louis Malle

Crime dramas, comedies, romances, tragedies, fantasies, documentaries, and, of course, coming-of-age stories­—director Louis Malle did it all. This most unpredictable and eclectic of filmmakers enriched cinema over a nearly forty-year career that took him from Jacques Cousteau’s watery depths (his first film was the Cousteau-codirected Oscar winner The Silent World) to the peripheries of the French New Wave (Zazie dans le métro, The Fire Within) to the vanguard of American moviemaking (My Dinner with André). Malle had an intellectually curious nature that led him to approach film from a variety of angles; he was as comfortable making minimalist works like the wordless Humain trop humain and the talky André as phantasmagorical ones like Black Moon. He is probably best known, though, for his deeply personal films about the terrors and confusions of childhood, such as Murmur of the Heart and Au revoir les enfants. Perhaps not as well-known is his parallel career as a master of the nonfiction form—one of his many documentary achievements was the seven-part Phantom India, which would be a stunning career centerpiece for anyone else; for this director, it was simply a fascinating side project. Malle died in 1995, shortly after directing his final film, the typically experimental Vanya on 42nd Street.