Wisconsin Death Trip (1999) on Netflix

NR19991h 16mCrime Documentary

The mines around Black River Falls, Wisconsin close and the economy collapses. In immigrant communities, bizarre and violent events begin, and schoolteacher Mary Sweeny is caught up in them.

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Netflix3.6/5
IMDb6.7/101,708 votes
Rotten Tomatoes75%

Plot summary

A 1973 nonfiction book of the same name provides the starting point: Black River Falls, Wisconsin in the decade after 1890, when closed mines and failed banks left the German, Swedish and Norwegian settlers there struggling. The accounts that follow are macabre. Parents abandon infants, diphtheria kills children, a schoolteacher named Mary Sweeny smashes windows while under the influence of cocaine, and a deaf and mute boy shoots his sister. Religious delusion drives others: John Isaacson threatens a Christian meeting with a knife, believing he is routing Satan, and a German immigrant starves his livestock, blaming witches. Silent black-and-white reenactments and historical photographs carry the stories, set against color footage of the region today, while newspaper reports from the period are read aloud.

Cast

Ian Holmas Narrator (voice)

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Wisconsin Death Trip was shot in episodes: director James Marsh would film for one season, reflect on the footage, shoot more the next season, then run out of money and go back again, making it a protracted production.
Several European companies rejected Wisconsin Death Trip for distribution, calling it morbid, distasteful and obsessed with the wrong aspects of human life, and the filmmakers' submission to the PBS series American Experience got no response.
James Marsh shot in preserved Wisconsin historical homes that held "historically correct, sometimes priceless antiques"; he said the crew was granted permission at almost every historical site they requested, giving a nominal donation in exchange.
The film mixes actual historical photographs with black-and-white reenactments that contain no dialogue; director James Marsh called Michael Lesy's book "unfilmable" and built the film from its photographs juxtaposed with reenactments of the stories.