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
Nick Nolte
Wade Whitehouse
Sissy Spacek
Margie Fogg
James Coburn
Glen Whitehouse
Willem Dafoe
Rolfe Whitehouse
Mary Beth Hurt
Lillian
Jim True-Frost
Jack Hewitt
Marian Seldes
Alma Pittman
Holmes Osborne
Gordon LaRiviere
Sean McCann
Evan Twombley
Wayne Robson
Nick Wickham
Eugene Lipinski
J. Battle Hand
Tim Post
Chick Ward
Christopher Heyerdahl
Frankie Lacoy
Janine Theriault
Hettie Rogers
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.
US
