There’s a bleak sobriety to “Midwestern Gothic” in its images of desolate fields and solitary farmhouses, the staring off miles into the distance over the vast nothingness. What gives the genre its fever is the lack of accompaniment the region is known for, the alienation– the quiet at night when all you hear is the wind. But this is a greatly simplified image of the midwest and it’s gothic, a misjustice, that the docudrama Wisconsin Death Trip (1999) rectifies by situating that same-old neglected and deteriorating macabre in a dense wood.
Based on the 1973 book of the same name, the film is a visual and oral arrangement of historical record and modern footage, a constant compare-and-contrast between a “better place” and a hellscape. Divided into five “seasons”, the film walks through the stages of life, from birth to death, near Black River Falls, Wisconsin in exploring all the horrific events published about between the 1880 and 1900. Rural Americana combines with the sounds and images of rural Scandinavia, where many Wisconsonites hailed from, to create a haunting atmosphere that feels uniquely true to the state.
The main tragedy of the Midwest is its history. While a sought-after chunk of land provided much conflict in the early republic, a lot of the so-called “North West Territory” was almost instantly forgotten about when manifest destiny turned the attention of most ambitious Americans even further west. What imbibes the region with decrepit loneliness is not the lack of physical structure or its barrenness. Rather, it’s the fact that the Midwest remains, undeniably, the middle child of the United States.
Wisconsin and its neighbours appealed to many Europeans with its offers of community and security. But these stories, images, and reenactments of driftless wanderers, shoeless children, all borne of apathy and duty, living simple lives and dreaming of a better, farther place, away from a here that was already supposed to be the better life, explain how easily psychosis, mania, derangement, and murder can shack up indiscriminately in all ages and genders when hardship falls on a place. A collective air of overwhelming disappointment mixed with autonomous denial– this is what caused these atrocities, the film makes to say, this is why the likes of Gein and Dahmer wreaked havoc here of all places.
“American Gothic Building” by cwwycoff1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.