The River (1984 film)
Encyclopedia
The River is a 1984 film which tells the story of a struggling farm family in the Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

 valley trying keep its farm going in the face of bank foreclosures, floods, and other hard times. The father faces the dilemma of having to work as a strikebreaker
Strikebreaker
A strikebreaker is a person who works despite an ongoing strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who are not employed by the company prior to the trade union dispute, but rather hired prior to or during the strike to keep the organisation running...

 in a steel mill to keep his family farm from foreclosure. The film was based on the true story of farmers who unknowingly took the jobs as strikebreakers at a steel mill after their crops had been destroyed by rain. It stars Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

, Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...

, Scott Glenn
Scott Glenn
Theodore Scott Glenn is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy , astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff ,Emmett in Silverado , Commander Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October , Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and The Wise Man in Sucker Punch -Early...

 and Billy Green Bush
Billy Green Bush
William Warren Bush is an American actor, sometimes credited as “Billy Greenbush”.Notable movie appearances include Five Easy Pieces , The Culpepper Cattle Company , Electra Glide in Blue , Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore , The River , The Hitcher , Critters , and Jason Goes to Hell: The Final...

.

The film was written by Robert Dillon
Robert Dillon
Robert Dillon is a screenwriter and film producer. In 1976 he was nominated by the Writers Guild of America for Best Drama Written Directly for the Screen for French Connection II. In 2001 he was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay for Waking the Dead...

 and Julian Barry
Julian Barry
Julian Barry is an American screenwriter and playwright best known for his Oscar-nominated script for the film Lenny about comedian Lenny Bruce, which Barry adapted from his successful Broadway play of the same name...

. It was directed by Mark Rydell
Mark Rydell
Mark Rydell is an American actor, film director and producer.-Career:Rydell's initial training was in music. As a youth, he wanted to be a conductor. He began his career as an actor and first became known for his role as Walt Johnson on The Edge of Night and as Jeff Baker on As the World Turns,...

.

Cast

  • Mel Gibson
    Mel Gibson
    Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

     - Tom Garvey
  • Sissy Spacek
    Sissy Spacek
    Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...

     - Mae Garvey
  • Shane Bailey - Lewis Garvey
  • Becky Jo Lynch - Beth Garvey
  • Scott Glenn
    Scott Glenn
    Theodore Scott Glenn is an American actor. His roles have included Wes Hightower in Urban Cowboy , astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff ,Emmett in Silverado , Commander Bart Mancuso in The Hunt for Red October , Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs and The Wise Man in Sucker Punch -Early...

     - Joe Wade
  • Don Hood - Senator Neiswinder

Production

Director Mark Rydell
Mark Rydell
Mark Rydell is an American actor, film director and producer.-Career:Rydell's initial training was in music. As a youth, he wanted to be a conductor. He began his career as an actor and first became known for his role as Walt Johnson on The Edge of Night and as Jeff Baker on As the World Turns,...

 viewed the characters in this drama as iconically American, and he was eager to cast Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek
Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...

 as the farm wife because of her performance in Coal Miner's Daughter
Coal Miner's Daughter
Coal Miner's Daughter is a 1980 American biographical film which tells the story of country music icon Loretta Lynn. It stars Sissy Spacek in her Academy Award for Best Actress winning role, Tommy Lee Jones, Beverly D'Angelo and Levon Helm, and was directed by Michael Apted.-Background:The film was...

and her home on a farm in near Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...

. Rydell said, "She is the consummate American rural young woman, with strength and fiber and a luminous quality." Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

 begged Rydell to let him play the Tennessee farmer who reminded him of his father, but the director was reluctant because of Gibson’s Australian accent. Before Gibson left for England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to film The Bounty
The Bounty
The Bounty is a 1984 British historical film directed by Roger Donaldson, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, and produced by Bernard Williams with Dino De Laurentiis as executive producer. It is the fifth film version of the story of the mutiny on the Bounty. The screenplay was by Robert Bolt...

, he begged Rydell not to cast the part yet. Rydell recalled, "He came back to my house in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and started reading the script, talking, reading the newspaper, in this perfect Tennessee accent. I was really impressed, even when he stood next to Sissy, who's like a tuning fork when it comes to accents, he had damn well done it."

The River was filmed in the Holston Valley area of Kingsport, Tennessee
Kingsport, Tennessee
Kingsport is a city located mainly in Sullivan County with some western portions in Hawkins County in the US state of Tennessee. The majority of the city lies in Sullivan County...

. The filmmakers purchased 440 acres (1.8 km²) along the Holston River
Holston River
The Holston River is a major river system of southwestern Virginia and east Tennessee. The three major forks of the Holston rise in southwestern Virginia and have their confluence near Kingsport, Tennessee. The North Fork flows southwest from Sharon Springs in Bland County, Virginia...

 for the farm set and planted corn. Most of the filming was done along Goshen Valley Road and around the Goshen Valley Park area. Goshen Valley Road heads south from highway 11W in Church Hill, Tennessee
Church Hill, Tennessee
Church Hill is a city in Hawkins County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 5,916 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Kingsport–Bristol –Bristol Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a component of the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol, TN-VA Combined Statistical...

. The cast and their families moved to the area a month before the start of production to connect with the local people and learn farming skills. The floods in the film were supplied by the Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected...

 and the Army Corps of Engineers with water from the dam. The bank scene was filmed in the town of Gate City, Virginia
Gate City, Virginia
Gate City is a town in Scott County, Virginia, United States. The population was 2,034 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Scott County....

. The film was completed for under $18 million.

The musical score was by John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

 and also featured songs by country artists including George Strait
George Strait
George Harvey Strait is an American country music singer, actor, and music producer. Strait is referred to as the "King of Country," and critics call Strait a living legend. He is known for his unique style of western swing music, bar-room ballads, honky-tonk style, and fresh yet traditional...

.

Reception

The River was the last of three 1984 films, including Country
Country (film)
Country is a 1984 American film which follows the trials and tribulations of a rural family as they struggle to hold onto their farm during the trying economic times experienced by family farms in 1980s America. The film was written by William D. Wittliff and stars real-life couple Jessica Lange...

and Places in the Heart
Places in the Heart
Places in the Heart is a 1984 drama film that tells the story of a Texas widow who tries to keep her farm together with the help of a blind white man and an African-American man during the Great Depression...

, that shared the themes of a family's devotion to their farm, the destructive force of nature, an unsympathetic bureaucracy and a determined woman who binds her family together. The film received mixed reviews. Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson
Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO is an American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney, Australia when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art.After appearing in...

 later regretted that his portrayal of Tom Garvey was so stubborn that the audience lost sympathy, and said that he had been miscast for the role because he was too young and "pretty" at the time.

Awards

The film was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 (Sissy Spacek), Best Cinematography
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

, Best Music, Original Score
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...

 and Best Sound (Nick Alphin
Nick Alphin
Nick Alphin is an American sound engineer. He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Sound for the film The River.-External links:...

, Robert Thirlwell
Robert Thirlwell
Robert Thirlwell is an American sound engineer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards in the category Best Sound.-Selected filmography:* Outland * The River * Back to the Future -External links:...

, Richard Portman
Richard Portman
Richard Portman is an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and has been nominated for ten more in the same category...

 and David M. Ronne
David M. Ronne
David M. Ronne was an American sound engineer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. He worked on over 120 films between 1966 and 2007.-Selected filmography:* On Golden Pond...

). It also received a special Oscar for sound effects editing.
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