Here is a little town of boot-strapping (literally, they all have bootstraps) workers who are consistently having to pool resources to work out some problem in the community. There are subtle criticisms of the privatized ethics that characterize such an ideology laced all throughout the storytelling. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think LH is a repristination of the boldly capitalist ideals of early America. What distinguishes LH on this point is that its visual storytelling lends a gravitas to the points that it is making. And this is basically what American cinema in the 70's is all about. LH is basically extends basic American ideals to their logical extremes, whether they are good ones or bad ones. Either way, it is way too similar to the same camerawork that is exploding in the American art cinema of the time.Ģ. Perhaps it is the sort of realism that France never learned from Eastern Europe and Russia, but America tapped into. This second mode is so intentional though that it becomes meditative, even beyond a mere didacticism. It is either clear action and panorama, or the camera is letting the viewer see and digest something.
The camera will zoom in on baking bread, the building of a fire, the melting of metal, the sawing of wood.Īll this is to say that the show intentionally slows itself down and reduces its directing to two basic modes. And there is the extended look at some facet of prairie life by abstracting it from the scene, this basic shot is the most fascinating one in the show. There is the extremely extended close-up of a person's face, or a group of faces, as they react to something (best example is in the episode that Johnny Johnson falls in love with a hooker in Mankato and four times during the show the camera cuts into a ten second close up of his face with the most pantingly lustful gaze). There is the basic activity shot whether interior or exterior, the camera just groups people in the frame and lets them interact.
There is the panorama shot, almost every time the show starts out with a shot of a wagon bouncing along the dusty trail with a remix of the show's basic theme playing (sometimes this remix has a great funky doo-wop bassline to it with a jazzy little beat playing on the snare). Visually, it goes out of its way to simplify scenes as much as possible. But the series in 1974 can be characterized three ways:ġ. Granted, the acting is so poor that I often think of LH as some sort of ironical performance art so far ahead of its time that it has taken von Trier and Dogville to catch up to it. But there is such an incredible aesthetic similarity between these and the directing of LHotP that I couldn't help but start grouping the series in with these other great American films. Unfortunately, there is a complete biographical disconnect from the producers and directors of LHotP and this great generation of filmmakers. There are gritty moral undertones to these scripts, tapping into the darkest recesses of the American dream. There are a lot of films from this period that are characterized by their contemplative visual approaches, much longer takes and pans compliment wordless scenes of activity as a means of storytelling. This pretty much is right in the middle of the "decade under the influence."
This is the same year as Cassavetes' groundbreaking Woman Under the Influence (a personal favorite), The Conversation (a completely underrated American classic), Godfather II, Brakhage's "Text of Light" (which I am sure Michael Landon never watched), etc. I have just finished watching the first season on DVD (1974) and have been rather awestruck by what is going on in that series.
#LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE COMPLETE SERIES AND MOVIES ON DVD IMAVISION TV#
I wanted to put this in film rather than TV because it deserves to be in this category.