Wisconsin Death Trip

A bored teenage girl plays with fire while a former school mistress skips town on a cocaine binge. A snakebitten opera singer gorges on cow food as infant mortality rates skyrocket. And did we mention the suicides? A spellbinding, demented twist on the historical documentary genre, Wisconsin Death Trip catalogues a decade of life in Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Utilizing town newspaper clippings, police accounts, journal entries and records from the Mendota Asylum for the Insane, director James Marsh presents a series of bizarre, sad and sometimes funny tales from 1890s America. Marsh’s recreations – filmed on location in crisp black-and-white – are hypnotic, and his calm sense of pacing breathtaking. Inspired by Michael Lesy’s cult classic coffee table book of the same name, Wisconsin Death Trip marks the cinematic breakthrough of a master storyteller. –True/False