10 Things to Know About 'Country' (1984)

Country stars Jessica Lange as Jewell Ivy, the mother of a family of farmers in rural Iowa. The family is trying to save their farm from foreclosure while dad, played Sam Shepard, succumbs to drinking, Jewell steps forward and rallies her farm community for foreclosure reforms.

10 Things to Know About Country

10 Sam Shepard Left his Wife and Child to be with Jessica Lange

Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange met when they were making the movie Frances and fell in love. At the time, Shepard was married with a child and Lange had a high profile affair with ballet star Mikail Baryshnikov that resulted in a child that Lange would raise as a single mom. As filming began on Country, the affair could no longer be contained. Shepard left his family to move in with Lange and her three year old daughter., Rather than setting off a controversy however, something about the Lange-Shepard pairing had entertainment writers focusing solely on their chemistry and how well they work together.

9 Inspired by a Photograph

Jessica Lange got the idea for Country when she saw a striking photo of a family in New London, Ohio, being moved out of their farm, the land having been foreclosed on by the Federal Farmers Home Administration. The photo made Lange want to tell a story about a modern farm family facing the heartbreak of eviction during a struggling farm economy.

8 Jessica Lange Testified in Front of Congress About the Farm Crisis

Off the back of the release of Country, Jessica Lange took her advocacy for farm families to Congress. Joined by Sissy Spacek and Jane Fonda, Lange used her experience researching Country, speaking to farmers and farm families about their struggles, to advocate for those farmers.

7 Ronald Reagan Hated It

Ronald Reagan was no fan of Country, though it's unclear if he actually saw the film. Reagan wrote in his personal diary, released after his Presidency, that Country was "Democrat Propaganda" that was intended to attack his Ag Programs.

6 Director Issues

Jessica Lange has a very specific vision for Country and she was not afraid to make her feelings known. This led to multiple changes behind the camera. At first, famed director Hal Ashby was hired to direct and ended up leaving during development.,

Screenwriter Richard Wittliff then stepped behind the camera only to clash with Lange over the style of the film. Witliff was fired a few days into production.

Finally, director Richard Pearce stepped in. One of his key quotes about directing Country was acknowledging that there was one decision maker on the movie “Jessica.”

5 Lange and Shepard’s Clash of Style

Speaking of director Richard Pearce he spoke of the style clash between stars Jessica Lange and Sam Shepard. Of Lange, Pearce stated that her approach was very serious, practiced, but always nuanced. Shepard on the other hand was far more relaxed and notably, never played a scene the same way twice. Lange’s focus and Shepard’s relaxed manner clash in just the right way for these two characters.

4 Why Make Country?

Film Critic Gene Siskel interviewed Jessica Lange during the press tour for Country and while he spends a strange amount of time talking about her lack of makeup and bargain bin clothes, he does get a terrific quote from Lange about why she fought to bring Country to the big screen.

“Because I do think that if in the next couple of years there isn’t a reversal of federal policy we’re going to see the end of the American independent farmer.”

3 Lange Was Worried About Two Other Farm Crisis Movies Being Released at the Same Time

Farms in crisis was an unexpected trend in the fall of 1984. Country was followed almost immediately by Places from the Heart starring Sally Field and The River starring Sissy Spacek. When Lange heard the two other films would be released so close to Country, she was angry. But then, she reconsidered, telling Gene Siskel:

“But then I thought, in the greater scheme of things, there may be a reason for it. I do believe that attention must be paid to people who are in this kind of situation now, or we’re going to lose something very precious to America. Perhaps that’s why there are three of these films right now.”

2 Critics Kind of Obsessed Over Jessica Lange’s Looks

I mentioned Gene Siskel’s odd focus on Jessica Lange’s lack of makeup and bargain bin, in his description, clothes, but he wasn’t the only critic. That same week, Philadelphia based film critic Bill Cosford also opened his article on Lange talking about her looks in terms that likely would not fly today:

“On screen, Jessica Lange looks warm and glowing and radiant and almost spectacular, even in the role of Jewell Ivy, an Iowa woman battling to keep her family farm in her new film Country. She looks, in other words, like a star. But here, in a room at the Plaza Hotel, she is not wearing makeup and she is dressed with an apparently determined frumpiness, and her face is cold and worn and even a little hard. In other words, she looks like an Iowa farmer.”

1 Century Farms

It’s rarely discussed today, in the age of the factory farm, but for years the government maintained a list of what were called Century Farms, farms that literally had existed for more than a century, maintained by the same family. Country was filmed on land in Iowa that belonged to a Century Farm Family.

Appeals from owners of Century Farms helped change legislation to support family farms. The thought of a family losing a farm that they had owned for more than 100 years became a rallying cry for reformers eager to get legislative protections against the growing number of farm foreclosures under the Reagan administration.