More than 8,000 westerns were produced by Hollywood, not counting the reels from the beginning of the 20th century.Second century that could not be preserved lack of ambitious heritage logic. In the 1950s and 1960s, two or more westerns per week could be counted against only a handful per year today. How do you explain that the cowboy figure has fallen into disuse? Today there are only old movie breakers like Kevin Costner to attack the genre. Presented outside competition at the Cannes Festival, Horizon: An American Saga Do not lack ambition. We saw the first part of a series that could well become a monument of the genre. Explanations.
A risky bet
An eminently personal approach, Horizon is a crazy project in which Kevin Costner bet everything, starting with his four residences that he had to mortgage to convince the financiers. With less and less courageous producers, even big ones like Coppola must begin to commit their own property to make their films. The Nicolas Cage He also had to put on the table some of his lucrative vineyards as we learned in the press. After Revelation Now who had ruined him for two decades, Megalopolis Will he be his tombstone?
As with Coppola, Costner is trying a risky bet. Present in press conference, actor and director of Dance with the Wolves (1990) answered our questions during the press conference. A simple, not pretentious man, like his character. We felt at Cannes how much he cared about this project. And it can be seen from the generosity displayed on the screen. If there are CGIs, they must be very rare, because the staging is above all at the level of men. Organic, the film smells of sweat and powder still hot, tanned leather and vastness of the desert. A treat to see a movie proscribe green backgrounds and prefer the authenticity of a life-size shooting. The reconstitution of the camps and the composition of the plans give the illusion of being there.
Like video games and absolute masterpieces like the saga Red Dead Redemption twice demonstrated, Horizon is the first stone of a series of four chronological films, the third of which is currently being shot. Costner was just joining the US after the conference. The reckless actor has injected more than $20 million in addition to his pledge and we already know, unlike the model of the series, that we have almost the assurance that he will be able to carry out his saga. A reassuring announcement because the projection convinced us of the potential ofHorizon. Structured into chapters, this first part presents a mosaic of well-written characters and sharp personalities. Costner camps there in particular the role of an old cowboy who arrived in town and has a strict moral code. Trapped by chance, an altercation will drive him on the run with a young seductive woman and a baby under his arm. By the prism of his heroes and ordinary people, the director chronicled the conquest of the West just after the Civil War. After a first punching sequence in which Indians storm a colony, the relationship between natives and those who come to exploit their lands grew.
Contrary to what we read here and there, Horizon is not a film that rehabilitates the myth of the wild. It is not because it is a massacre committed by Indians that they are demonized or bestialized, on the contrary. We find the same divisions as among whites on revenge, eternal flight towards ever more violence. The scene with the Indian leader in default by his own son illustrates these quarrels and the complexity of the struggles. Some want war, others want to avoid getting worse. On the other hand, some settler formations embark on a bloody battle that is shown without angelism. Through the figure of the orphan and innocence, it is even a revulsioned look that one discovers during this sequence. Costner doesn't give any chandelier to this vendetta as cold as futile. The diversity of the characters allows a multiplicity of points of view and the plot is not only focused on this conflict. The other axes of the film allow us to follow independent but overlapping stories. Prudence with the grids of contemporary readings modelled on historical facts.
Some Chinese or African minorities emigrated to the West also show the heterogeneity of these populations gathered by the desert and the promise of a better life. Finally, female characters are among the most interesting to follow, even if no chapter crushes the other. With intelligent cutting, you find some in a natural way with discreet integration in the background. Others come to cross by chance, so we really feel like we're living a day in the West. It's simple, the session lasted three hours and it passed at all speed, thanks to a sense of rhythm but above all a chiseled writing of the characters.
Once upon a time in the west
It is not a western spaghetti, but it is not to the extent that it glorifies the founding values of the American nation. On the contrary, Costner adopts a cynical but realistic discourse through the mouth of a high-ranking army, which explains the inevitable character of colonization. It states without joy or regret that we cannot stop Europeans who are promised the paradise of the wild lands, all the more so to the scraps of society that want a second chance. « Some will fall » says he before adding « But some will hold and others will come to them » like unstoppable waves. We are here in a western fordian with the traditional archetypes of characters ranging from prostitute to alcoholic doctor and widow of good family.
The plot is complex and the care taken to make the universe credible imposes respect. As with the Houser brothers, the historical context, the customs and customs of both settlers and Indians are revealed by the attention to detail. The few shootings are also a genuine success. The weapons have percussion and the tension is palpable when the characters gauge and prepare to draw their collar from their holster. Kevin Costner signs the beginning of an epic sown with stumps and questioning about the barbarity of men. Amazing landscapes, shooting as close as possible to men, ambitious casting, Horizon has several strings at his bow to pull his pin from the game. Rarely and so pleasantly, the film never adopts a serial format with idiot cliffhangers calibrated for a netflix audience cammed with adrenaline, which also explains a ending that falls a bit like a hair on the soup.
The rhythm is that of everyday life and you live literally with your pioneers or with the Indians, even if you see them a little less at the moment. This pharaonic project should focus on a total duration of 10 hours for 35 years of gestation (nothing else). This first introductory chapter is a frank success and we must now hope thatHorizon was released on July 3, 2024, and September 11, 2024, so Costner could complete his dream without any trouble. Kevin Costner reintroduces a species in the process of extinction, so let's not squander our pleasure for its launch, which may sign the promise of a very beautiful fresco on the conquest of the West.
Trailer of Horizon: An American Saga
Cool, it's nice to have some positive feedback on this project... Adoring "Dance with the wolves" I expected it pretty much this one and the first returns me had rather cooled. I'm glad to find out!
As we talk about it in part in the podcast, we have to be wary of Cannoese enterrism. Some went to the movie without knowing that there would be three more behind. Since it does not adopt a classic serial format with cliffhangers, it may have distracted some that the interigue remains at the introductory stage. And yet it's working. For me it's the same as those who criticized Red Dead Redemption's slowness.
Another great recommendation!
I find these first criticisms of Cannes ungrateful about the work accomplished to plunge us into the great west. I sometimes felt that the public bottled in the series no longer supports formats with different structures, without cliffhangers and artifices of cardboard hanging stages. Yes, the film takes its time, but it is in no way a problem, on the contrary. He gives us the opportunity to cling to the characters without any being left on the tile as too often in choral intrigues.