Retracing Mark Twain’s path, a filmmaker sets out to understand the mighty Mississippi

‘How do you get to know a river? How do you get to know anything?’

The US director Bill Brown is known for his short documentaries contemplating peculiar, often overlooked corners of the American landscape. Inspired by Mark Twain’s book Life on the Mississippi (1883), which recounts his time as a Mississippi River steamboat pilot, Brown’s 2019 film of the same name explores the history and identity of the river from Twain’s era up until the present. Retracing Twain’s route from Memphis, Tennessee, to New Orleans, Louisiana, Brown finds the contemporary path far less romantic but no less intriguing than Twain did a century and a half earlier.

Pondering what it means to know something as massive, complex and dynamic as the mighty Mississippi, Brown encounters museum models, riverboat simulators and an intertwining network of financial, environmental and cultural interests along the way. The viewing experience mirrors a riverboat ride, with Brown’s deliberate pace slowly revealing new scenes to assimilate into the larger picture. Ultimately, the work arrives at something quietly ambitious – a contemplation of the human need to understand and control, and the ultimate impossibility of ever fully doing so.