Troublesome Creek - A Midwestern
by Jeanne Jordan, Steven Ascher
Our Price: $22.85
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $9.43 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bob Blankenship, Dean Eilts, Gini Jordan, James Jordan Jr., Marge HaroldDirector: Jeanne Jordan, Steven Ascher
Brand: Genius
Producer: Jeanne Jordan
Writer: Jeanne Jordan
Writer: Steven Ascher
Producer: Bob M. McCausland
Producer: Chas Norton
Producer: Joseph Tovares
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-02-14
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product features:
- Red River, High Noon, Gunsmoke - Westerns, where the bad guys sometimes won but never prevailed. Troublesome Creek is a Midwestern. It's the story of the Jordan family's struggle to save their Iowa farm. From crossing the Mississippi in 1867 to driving to Daddy Date Night in 1967. From fighting off the Crooked Creek Gang in the 1880s to fighting off the bank today. Now, with their backs ag
Movie Reviews of Troublesome Creek - A Midwestern
Movie Review: illustrates that small farm life is not all that
Summary: 5 Stars
Disabuses us of any fantasy we have about farm life.
A clear eyed, unsappy presentation on how farm life is cruel, harsh, and financially precarious. Even the most modest level farmers borrow lots of money for necessary operating expenses. Every year, some of the farmers have bad luck (bad weather, catastrophes, health problems) and become unable to pay back the bank and lose the family farm. Just like the city folk.
Farmers, I learned, just like city folk, are dependent on credit, and live life mortgaged to the hilt. They die owing shitloads.
Feudalism is alive and well, right here in the new world. We are tied to the land, either metaphorically or literally, and are literally weighed down by our debts.
Freedom is an illusion - everyone owes money to the bank and the Man. "The only choice we have is choosing which bill to pay first." Ouch.
Another poignant scene is when the elderly parents are watching Hollywood black and white western movies, and you see how far the real midwestern farm life is so, so far from the kind portrayed in the media. In real life, there is no dignity, no heroes, no hand of god, no cool dialogue, only drudgery and painkillers.
Summary of Troublesome Creek - A Midwestern
Red River, High Noon, Gunsmoke - Westerns, where the bad guys sometimes won but never prevailed. Troublesome Creek is a Midwestern. It's the story of the Jordan family's struggle to save their Iowa farm. From crossing the Mississippi in 1867 to driving to Daddy Date Night in 1967. From fighting off the Crooked Creek Gang in the 1880s to fighting off the bank today. Now, with their backs against the wall, the Jordans confront the very worst with their very best. Troublesome Creek is wry and emotional without being sentimental. It's a cliffhanger about history, loss and the humor and deep character that settled America, and now preside at its unsettling.Filmmaker Jeanne Jordan and her husband/coworker Steven Ascher decided to turn a 1990 visit to Jordan's parents--lifelong Iowa farmers--into the beginnings of a personal, self-deprecating film essay about one chapter in the plight of American family farms. Besieged with bank debt and ignored by a marketplace that favors huge corporate crop growers, the Jordans call it quits after spending their entire lives helping to feed this nation. Rather than rant about it, however, Jordan, who narrates the film and is often seen on camera with the rest of her rallying relatives, creates with Ascher a bemused, cinematic sigh over the decline of rural family life and the heroic dreams that fuel it. Watching as her parents silently watch old Westerns on TV--the elder couple's favorite pastime--Jordan notes how a life spent in heroic accord with the seasons (and on the wrong end of the global economy) is like the life of a movie cowboy who takes his stands and faces his showdowns. As we witness the Jordans dismantle their lives, resign themselves to retirement, and auction off most of their things, the family's sadness is palpable. But so is a certain bittersweet freedom that comes with change. In the end, Troublesome Creek is not only about farming but about the mutable nature, for better or worse, of everything in American life. --Tom Keogh
Similar DVD Movies
SweetgrassPBS; Release date: 2010-08-03; DVD
Best price: $23.01
Price in other shops:
Our Daily BreadRelease date: 2009-01-13; DVD
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
CountryBuena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2003-12-09; DVD
Best price: $7.53
Price in other shops:
The Future of FoodHart Sharp Video; Release date: 2007-11-13; DVD
Best price: $7.75
Price in other shops:
GaslandNVG; Release date: 2010-12-14; DVD
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops:
King Corn (Standard Packaging)New Video; Release date: 2008-04-29; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
My Father's GardenRelease date: 1995-09-01; DVD
Best price: $24.95
The Real Dirt on Farmer JohnGAIAM AMERICAS; Release date: 2008-01-08; DVD
Best price: $3.98
Price in other shops:
American FarmRepnet LLC; Release date: 2008-02-19; DVD
Best price: $12.94
Price in other shops:
The Farmer's WifePBS; Release date: 2006-01-17; DVD
Best price: $15.98
Price in other shops: