

A small town policeman must investigate a suspicious hunting accident. The investigation and other events result in him slowly disintegrating mentally.
Acting
Nolte's volcanic, Oscar-nominated implosion.
Direction
Schrader's coldest, most unforgiving character study.
Cinematography
Snow as suffocating prison, not postcard.

Director
Paul Schrader
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
James Coburn won his only Oscar for this role, beating out Billy Bob Thornton and Ed Harris that year. He was 70 and had been acting for 45 years.
Schrader grew up in a strict Calvinist household with an abusive father; this adaptation of Russell Banks' novel is essentially his spiritual autobiography disguised as crime fiction.