For the Static-X album, see Wisconsin Death Trip (album)

Wisconsin Death Trip (album)

Wisconsin Death Trip is the debut studio album by the American industrial metal band Static-X. Originating in the Midwestern United States when lead singer Wayne Static , and drummer Ken Jay , met at a Virgin Records store in Chicago, it was not long after they were introduced by the lead singer of...

.

Wisconsin Death Trip is a non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 by Michael Lesy

Michael Lesy

Michael Lesy is a writer and professor of literary journalism at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. His books, which combine historical photographs with his own writing, include Wisconsin Death Trip , Time Frames: The Meaning of Family Pictures , Bearing Witness: A Photographic Chronicle...

, first published in 1973. It has been adapted into a film.

The book is based on a collection of late 19th century photograph

Photograph

A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...

s by Jackson County, Wisconsin

Jackson County, Wisconsin

Jackson County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of 2009, the population estimate was 19,886. Its county seat is Black River Falls. Jackson County was formed from Crawford County in 1853.-Geography:According to the U.S...

 photographer Charles Van Schaick, mostly in the city of Black River Falls, and local news reports from the same period. It emphasizes the harsh aspects of Midwestern rural life under the pressures of crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

, disease

Disease

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...

, mental illness

Mental illness

A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...

, and urbanization

Urbanization

Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....

.

The film, which was directed by James Marsh

James Marsh (director)

James Marsh is a film director known for directing the cult film Wisconsin Death Trip starring Marcus Monroe and Sir Ian Holm. He won 2008 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for directing Man on Wire....

, was released in 2000

2000 in film

The year 2000 in film involved some significant events.The top grosser worldwide was Mission: Impossible II. Domestically in North America, Gladiator won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor ....

. In a docudrama

Docudrama

In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....

 style, and shot entirely in black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 (except for contrasting sequences of modern life in the area, in color), it combined re-enactments of some of the events described in the book with a voice-over narration by Ian Holm

Ian Holm

Sir Ian Holm, CBE is an English actor known for his stage work and for many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear...

. Its visual style was intended to carry the content of the film - as Marsh said:

"I wanted to convey in the film the real pathos contained in a four line newspaper report that simultaneously records and dismisses the end of someone’s life" http://www.wisconsindeathtrip.com/about.html

The book also inspired the Pictorialist album by the band Static-X

Static-X

Static-X is an American industrial metal band from Los Angeles, California. They were formed in 1994. They are signed to Warner Bros. Records and have released six albums, their most recent being Cult of Static, which was released on March 17, 2009....

, a song by the Bethel

Bethel, Maine

Bethel is a town in Oxford County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,411 at the 2000 census. It includes the villages of West Bethel and South Bethel...

, Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

-based thrash metal

Thrash metal

Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...

 band Theory of Negativity off of their 1994 self-titled album, and an opera entitled Black River (composed 1975, revised 1981) by Conrad Susa

Conrad Susa

Conrad Stephen Susa is an American composer, particularly known for his operas. His 1973 chamber opera, Transformations, set to texts from the poems of Anne Sexton, is one of the most frequently performed operas by an American composer and was one of the featured operas of the 2006 Wexford Opera...

. A song by Jerry Joseph also shares a name with the book; but it is not clear whether the song was also inspired by the book.

Most recently, the book was adapted into a bluegrass, roots-rock opera by Tim Raphael and composer Jeff Berkson, making its world premiere at Georgetown University

Georgetown University

Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

's Davis Performing Arts Center on February 1, 2008.

The Australian author Rod Jones cites Wisconsin Death Trip as an inspiration for his novel Billy Sunday.

According to the director's commentary on the 2-disc DVD release of the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There

I'm Not There

I'm Not There is a 2007 biographical musical film directed by Todd Haynes, inspired by iconic American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Six actors depict different facets of Dylan's life and public persona: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw...

, director Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes

Todd Haynes is an American independent film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his feature films Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, Poison, Velvet Goldmine, Safe, and the Academy Award-nominated Far from Heaven and I'm Not There.- Style and themes :The writes that "Haynes is...

 explained that much of the imagery for the town of Riddle in the Richard Gere

Richard Gere

Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol...

 segment of the film was inspired by Lesy's book of photographs.

Stephen King

Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

's book of novellas, Full Dark, No Stars

Full Dark, No Stars

Full Dark, No Stars, published in November 2010, is a collection of four novellas by the author Stephen King, all dealing with the theme of retribution...

, cites Wisconsin Death Trip as the inspiration for the story 1922

1922 (novella)

1922 is a novella by Stephen King, published in his collection Full Dark, No Stars .-Synopsis:1922 is a first-person account by Wilfred James, the story's unreliable narrator. He writes a lengthy confession for the murder of his wife, Arlette, in Hemingford Home, Nebraska, in 1922.Wilfred owns...

.

External links

• Wisconsin Death Trip audio slide show - includes an interview with Michael Lesy, images from the book, and other Victorian post-mortem photographs
• Wisconsin Death Trip Images on WHS Images - Wisconsin Historical Society digital collection of photographs taken by Charles Van Schaick and used in Wisconsin Death Trip
• Photographs by Charles Van Schaick on WHS Images - Wisconsin Historical Society digital collection of all photographs taken by Charles Van Schaick
• Wisconsin Death Trip - official site for the film