This movie, with some moderately well-known actors in the cast, never seems to have had a general release before going to DVD. As such, and strictly speaking, it is not about the Donner Party itself, trapped high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains over the winter of 1847-47. The plot really focuses on an element of that party, who called themselves the Forlorn Hope, and made a desperate gamble to walk out of the mountains on snowshoes: They took sparingly of supplies, hoping to leave more for those remaining behind, and set out for the nearest settlement down in the foothills below. In this version of the story, the Forlorn Hope includes an older man, Franklin Graves (Mark Boone, Jr.) and his two daughters, William Eddy (Clayne Crawford) and his hired man, William Foster (Crispin Gover), the best hunter among the party, who left his own wife and child behind. Charles Stanton (Christian Kane) has come from Sutter’s fort with a meager amount of supplies, and Louis, a Mexican-Indian muleteer: they will guide the rest of the party to safety – or so it is hoped. But their hopes slowly unravel, in the face of misery, starvation, madness – and murder.
Alas, this account is not strictly accurate in historical detail: There had been no food cached for them by Stanton, farther down the mountains. There was no drawing of lots, for one of the party to be killed in order to feed the rest – although it was discussed, at least once, according to survivors. There were two murders committed during the ordeal of the Forlorn Hope, but not in the way depicted in this account. The sense of despair, and the slow dissolving of so-called civilized norms are probably fairly accurate, as well as incidents such as Eddy’s wife hiding a portion of dried meat in his pack, and of how he was able to bring down a deer to feed the survivors. Something of the bleakness of their experience is reflected in the colors – in that it seems there is barely any color at all. The snow is white, the trees seem black against the sky, their trunks are gray. The characters are dressed all in dark colors – seemingly only a splash of blood now and again makes any color at all.
One other curiosity – much of “The Donner Party†was shot on location, in and around Truckee, California, where the original Donner Party was stranded, and along the trail followed by the Forlorn Hope. This is one of those movies which manages to be psychologically accurate in relating a true story – but at the end, having put the characters and the audience through a wringer, concludes without any other resolution or insight other than having demonstrated what people are capable of doing to survive. Perhaps that was the point – but I would have liked to have been drawn into knowing a deeper knowledge about each character.
The Donner Party will be available January 26, from Amazon.com and other retail outlets.
Sgt. Mom is a free-lance writer and member of the Independent Authors Guild who lives in San Antonio and blogs at The Daily Brief. Her first novel “To Truckee’s Trail†told the story of an early wagon-train party, which like the Donner Party, became trapped in the same mountains by winter snow – and yet survived. Her current book project – The Adelsverein Trilogy is also available through Amazon.com. More about her books is at her website www.celiahayes.com
3 users commented in " The Donner Party: DVD Review "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackRecently saw this movie, and I really wanted to like it. However, due to the setting, I just couldn’t find it realistic.
I know the area of the Donner Camp and the Sierra pretty well. In each scene where they’re complaining about the snow and weather, the trees are devoid of any snow. The snow that they walk on is hard, indicating it hadn’t snowed for weeks. Each time they make a such a statement, I’m thinking “looks like a nice day”, “the weather doesn’t look bad at all”. So the setting just doesn’t match the dialog, which is so integral to the story.
I realize it would be very difficult to shoot the outdoor scenes in snowstorms (or at least with recent snows), but in end, it just wasn’t realistic and fell flat.
I just watched this movie and liked it a lot, leading me to this site. It felt very realistic, depressingly so! I kept wondering where the Donner characters were in the Donner movie. Crispin Glover was great- actually all the performers were strong. What a disaster, reminded me of the Titanic, if the boat took four months to sink, and everybody starved. I never imagined this movie would be so good. The subject interested me, so I gave it a chance, and was quite surprised. Way better than I expected. Not sure what the other guy is talking about- how could this movie be more realistic?? I need a cheeseburger.
As someone who grew up not too far from the Donner Party Memorial State Park, I’m quite familiar with the tragic story of a group of emigrants traveling through the treacherous Sierra Nevada Mountains to Sutter Fort in California only to encounter food shortages and horrendous snowy weather. Eventually, some of the travelers turn to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
While this tough to watch movie contains a fine cast (especially Crispin Glover) and striking cinematography, I do have to take issue with the screenplay. This movie is not historically accurate. Many liberties were taken with the characters and murders which I found off-putting. I understand needing to make the movie more intense and intriguing character wise, but why stray from the real story? You’re not only cheapening the movie but cheating the audience as well. You’re honestly better off watching a documentary on the Donner Party as it would be more interesting.
Summary: The script is a mess, but “The Donner Party” is still an engaging movie about survival. Just don’t expect to get the whole true story here.
Leave A Reply