Jason Sperb
My last morning in Nebraska was not as ambitious as the others. As with the first day of the journey, most of the time that particular day would be lost to the long seven hour-plus drive between Nebraska and Oklahoma, as I tried to leave the area in early afternoon so that I wouldn't pull into my home of Stillwater too late that night. I would have loved to have spent another week in Nebraska, seeing so many of the sights--both Payne-related but also importantly so many others--that I didn't have time for. But, in a way both literal and figurative, I had run out of gas by that Friday.
(As a sidenote, I did stop for dinner on the way back home in the lovely little town of Lindsborg, Kansas--a touristy hamlet in central KS that leans heavily into its Swedish immigrant roots, thus reminding me of the many such similar small towns in Wisconsin--momentarily satisfying a particular homesickness that often hits me in June, the month in which I was born but also that rare part of the yearly calendar when I have a little more time for day trips).
That said, the first half of that last day was the shortest but arguably the most memorable of my Nebraska trip, as I was invited to visit the Plainview Historical Society to look at their collection of materials regarding the making of Nebraska there in October and November of 2012. A little bit of background context here, I sent out a lot of feelers to local history museums, libraries and other related contacts I had in the weeks leading up to my NE trip. My hope originally was not only to "sight-see" but also to find some unique research materials along the way. Of all the people I reached out to, the folks of Plainview--both the historical society as well as the local newspaper--were by far the most gracious in their responses.
I made a point to initially see Plainview the day before so that I would have a point of geographical reference for any anecdotes I encountered after I got to the museum the next day, and I knew that any particular spots I missed I could then track down later. In effect, I deliberately left the whole last day open just to meet with them, unsure of how long the meeting would go.
I had a wonderful time in the museum, looking at some rare archival materials about the making of the film (such as call sheets and notes to the extras, which is a big part of the movie). It was also nice for the first time all week to spend time actually talking with folks who were as interested in the topic at hand as I was.
I appreciated being able to hear about their firsthand experiences observing this major Paramount film crew coming to town, and to see how their stories intersected with the extensive research I'd been doing recently about the making of the film in general--both within and outside the immediate Plainview/Norfolk area. A definite highlight of their collection was a wonderful 40+ minute video made by an area resident as part of her girl scout "Gold Award" project, wherein she interviewed multiple locals back into 2014 about their experiences working as extras in the film.
Some trends in those interviews? Payne and Will Forte were repeatedly referred to as friendly and generous with their time in person during the shoot--reading a little between the lines, Bruce Dern seemed to be perceived by locals as being perhaps a bit more, shall we say, "method" in his performance. Folks didn't get as much an opportunity to meet June Squibb as they'd have liked (I speculated that perhaps, based on the end result itself, it was because she didn't appear to have as many "Plainview" scenes in the final film as the other two did).
I was a little surprised that, perhaps for the same reason, no one mentioned either the since-deceased Rance Howard (Ron and Clint's real life dad, a good-sized star in his own right, who played Woody's brother in the film), or Bob Odenkirk, who plays the other son (one of the more interesting anecdotes I had earlier found out about while researching the making of the film is that Bryan Cranston reportedly auditioned at one point for Will Forte role. I can't see him in the part, so I think they made the right choice, but it took a day or so before I put two and two together on my own and realized we nearly had Walter White and Saul Goodman playing brothers in an Alexander Payne film!!!).
The Historical Society's collection of artifacts from the making of the film was also very cool to see. Some highlights included the fake tombstone from the cemetery scene filmed outside Elgin:
A sign that the crew displayed around town to indicate there was filming in the area (I only know this because of photos from the set I viewed a couple weeks ago--an image that seems as far removed from an Alexander Payne film as I could imagine):
Some extra materials left over from, ironically, the Lincoln portion of the movie, when Woody has his pick of consolation "prizes" after discovering that indeed he did not win a million dollars after all:
One of my souvenirs for the day was a copy of the "you may be a winner" letter he receives in the beginning. Supposedly, production made a ton of them at the time (probably in part for set decoration in the Lincoln office scene), and there were no shortage of extras leftover from the making of the film.
A town visitor's sign that appeared in the film (and I just realized I neglected to take a closer photo of the description):
A reproduction of the town population sign seen in the film--for some reason, they changed the size by five people (!?!) from the real Plainview sign (1,353):
The original, as I discussed in the previous post, is now on display at the local antique store (still not open the next day!). However, this reproduced sign was made by the same local Norfolk sign company that was commissioned by the film's production to make the identical one seen in the film--so it's pretty authentic in its own way (for the cost of a donation to the museum, which I was happy to make in any event, I was able to acquire my own miniature version of this sign, also made by the same company--so that was another nice souvenir of the trip).
Finally, they had the original bus bench seen in the film, where Woody and David wait for Kate (June Squibb's character) to arrive:
Afterwards, I spent another hour or so visiting some of the other locations I had missed in town the day before (and which I included, a slight cheat, in the Plainview photos from yesterday for simplicity's sake).
Then I began the long journey back home to Oklahoma.
* * *
So it was a lovely way to end an exhausting but exhilarating research trip, which if anything was even more inspiring than I had hoped. I came away from the whole Nebraska trip not only with a better appreciation for, and a uniquely up-close perspective on, many of the ideas I'd originally had for a new writing project.
But, for example, I also started to think about a whole other idea for a book just about the making of Nebraska--I've long thought about doing a more conventional kind of historical narrative non-fiction book for a more mainstream audience (more like the kind of book I tend to casually read for fun in my spare time), and I was inspired by not just seeing all the locations up close and by meeting several locals, but also by the realization that I'd already done so much research that--in a way--I knew just as much about this subject as (and in some specific ways even more than) the people who were actually there for the filming.
Looking back, I am so glad I spent so much time researching Alexander Payne's Nebraska--far beyond the details of just where certain places are located--before I headed north.
I'm also struggling right now with where to begin with the writing itself (the research is pretty solid at this point), and the latter idea seems easier as a starting point, if less ambitious in its overall design. I have 50,000 words' worth of research notes from May, but they seem to be expanding and distracting my writing focus with Payne's cinema, rather than clarifying it. But that is a post for another day.
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