Half-Assed Review: Louisiana Story

    The Pulitzer Prize, as far as I understood it, is supposed to be a distinction of quality and innovation. Of course, this isn't really a subject that piqued my interest, being a bit more of of a film geek/engineer type, but in my futile effort to become a well-rounded person I've still taken the occasional dabble in Pulitzer winners to get some good taste. While all that written fiddle-faddle hasn't done anything for me, the Pulitzer Prizes have offered me a delightful loophole with their Music prizes. Thanks to them, I can still indulge in the pretentious pleasure of having Pulitzer-level taste without having to read a damned word. Music is purely aesthetically dependent; except for songs, which are really just poetry set to music, music has no message and has merit regardless of the historical context. By design, music can reference nothing but music (with some interesting exceptions, but that's another issue), and can have no political motive (again, with some exceptions). It's comforting to put on a record an not care about the composer's political perspective, life story, or the audience he was trying to move. Maybe my taste is pretentious, but I still like George Crumb. Most of his work is ambient and experimental and decidedly unlike anything your used to, but even his most discordant piano-mashing has a peculiarly beautiful quality to it.
    Reading through the list of winners, I found the perfect overlap in taste: The 1948 winner was for the soundtrack to the film Louisiana Story. Honestly that simple film association was enough, but in the past year I've also grown a bit fond of Louisiana. I've learned not to have high hopes for anything from the 40s, but the potential historical and sentimental meaning behind it seemed worth the 80 or so minutes it took to watch. If nothing else, I was wondering, compared to, say, The Princess and the Frog, how would they portray Cajuns and Louisiana in this film?
    Unsurprisingly, both for the era this film was produced and the nature of movies themselves, it was a wee bit idyllic, if not downright stereotyped. There was a mighty strong smell of the Great American naturalist coming out of the protagonist, what with his bare feet, affinity with wildlife, and friendly demeanor. Besides that he did live in a swamp, go hunting on a daily basis, and carry magic charms, which is probably about as stereotypically Cajun as it gets. The acting wasn't too great either, in typical 40s fashion (though to give credit where credit is due, the character of the protagonist's father was performed impeccably). But what the film did absolutely right, as far as my fantasies go, was whenever the Cajun family was in the home, they unapologetically switched to speaking French, without so much as a subtitle to explain them. It wasn't bothersome though; even without understanding a word of French, you can still understand the body language, and nothing essential to the plot is told in French (as far as I could tell).
    Speaking of the plot, there's really next to none. The best way I can describe it is, it's like There Will be Blood if nobody got hurt and they all lived happily ever after. The film plays like a documentary without a narrator. Things happen, and in the end, things happened. Regardless, Louisiana Story is a charming flick. It's not in my top 10, and it's not in my required reading list, but I recommend it if you happen to have identical taste as myself.