Costner has made another Western. Well part of one. My buddy and I had to go check it out. We are lifetime Western buffs, each pushing seventy, and know something about the subject, being Western artists (on canvas). Between the two of us, we have loved, lived and painted the American West for over a hundred years. And we are fans of Costner’s cinematic legacy. Well, part of it. So up front, I have to admit, I really wanted to like this, his latest and perhaps one of his most renegade projects.
For younger viewers, Kevin Coster is the man who brought us Western classics like Open Range and Dances With Wolves. My favorite character he played was in Silverado, a crazy, gunslinging avenger in his first and probably most successful Western. His list of great movie memories is impressive; The Postman, Field of Dreams, The Untouchables, Wyatt Earp, The Bodyguard, and I won’t mention some of the others, less memorable in the movie world, which still make my eyes water. I have to mention one of my favorites, his great movie recently made for Cable viewers called The Highwaymen- the story of the Texas Ranger’s Frank Hamer and his pursuit of and confrontation with Bonnie and Clyde.
This was where we all sensed that Kevin Coster was not going down without a fight, or disappearing into television obscurity. He wanted to make important films, maybe ones that Hollywood would not or could not make. So when the word came out about his latest effort, we buckled up our seat belts.
I knew it would be long. I’ve seen his movies and have learned to anticipate that. And in a Civil War era Western, one would expect no less. We all got accustomed to Gone With the Wind and watched it for generations. I expected and got spectacular Utah scenery. I looked for and saw authentic historical architecture and clothing and tack. The cowboy hats are especially noteworthy, each one a maquette of a Coahuilan mountain range. And as expected, Kevin Costner as an actor is in vintage mode, aping his favorite persona, the non-verbal retaliator, who did not inherit a happy gene or a personality. So his film called Horizon, Chapter One has all of the elements required to form into a beloved blockbuster Western. Everything except an ending.
This is not hyperbole. The film is literally Chapter One of a sequel. It’s mostly just the prolog of much epic, exciting, Western action to come. But after three hours the viewer is left in a lurch. And it’s shameful how many characters had to die agonizing deaths, how many audiences had to suffer massacres, attempted kidnappings and gratuitous nudity and sex scenes so that Kevin Costner could prance in his own town fire fantastic. (No worries, it was just a bunch of tents.) But then, you might call this chapter Costner’s Old Testament. They have about the same message. Yes, this is a long review, but a three part movie series justifies that, so please edure!
Horizon is, I believe, Kevin Costner’s extravagant attempt to make a truly landmark Western. So big an attempt, so huge the vision, it could not fit into a single movie. He pulls out all of the stops. Chapter One kills hundreds, randomly preserves a few, horrifies and bludgeons loving women, threatens babies, rips your heart out of your chest and then rubs your nose in it. Now rich in dollars, and answering to no one, Kevin Costner is aiming to right the wrongs of Westerns made by Hollywood, make some respectable art, and in the process show the depravity of mankind. And he may at least, be succeeding at that.
There is collateral damage in the process however. After the first three hours, the viewer is no longer in sympathy with the brutal Native Americans, or the prejudiced, vermin-like White invaders, or the lethargic army, or the director for dragging his audience through nearly non-stop terror, vengeance and anxiety. At the end of Chapter One, every ethnic group has exacted sufficient revenge on every enemy, until the playing field is now even. Killing field even. Thankfully, the main characters survive, but people were never meant to endure that much punch-in-the-gut horror in the name of entertainment. Perhaps appropriate in a horror flick or torture of terrorists, or the coming political conventions, but not a jumbo-sized historical flick for a long evening’s enjoyment. This was Gettysburg and Cold Harbor and Glory rolled into one, in cowboy hats. Every artist, whether composer or painter or cinematographer, understands the audience has to have rest periods- dead spots so to speak. In art we call it negative space. Costner uses those as tiny breathers to leap from one set of bloodthirsty sociopaths to another.
My friend and I agree that we would sit through Horizon again. But I added a caveat or two. Next time I would require ear plugs. Like in the movie The Passion, there are plenty of scenes I never want to experience again. I will just pop in the ear plugs and close my eyes. Understand that before cinema, lots of people went their whole lives and never experienced even a “virtual” horrific massacre, not even a single murder. Having a heart condition, I dare not put myself through that kind of needless emotional stress again. I’m pretty sure our de-sensitized culture does not need any more savagery than what is served up every day in the average American living room. What we need is hope.
Costner has made some wonderful art in this series. He has gotten some things off of his chest. Oh, the captivating parts; the magnificent western scenery, the turning aspens, the sprawling, epic wagon trains and visual sweeps of the drone zooming over rocks and rills. The chaos of genocide. The power of hate. Here he is a master. But in his West, there is virtually no hope. These folks could never have a made a country, no one would have survived. There would only be a burned out spot on the globe there today, akin to the Sahara or the Gobi Desert. Kevin Costner is our default father of the American Western, but he has not made the ultimate Western. Perhaps bits of a movie strung together, grittier than True Grit. Moore Peckie than Peckinpah, maybe he even out-lonesomed Lonesome Dove, but there is no Gus McCrae to make us smile, or have a reason to get up tomorrow morning. Too much is missing in Chapter One to call it a stand-alone movie. Instead of a traditional screenplay structure with a beginning, middle and the much-celebrated END, which is certainly not a sacred cow, during the last part of Chapter One we get a lovely, driving, well-constructed promotion trailer for the next two chapters; to be seen at a theater near you, of course.
One would think, given the nine hours or so of so-called entertainment packaged as “HORIZON,” that its creators would sprinkle more transforming love, more passion of altruism, or more of the quiet beauty and majesty of the real West, in the negative spaces. Maybe even introduce a positive sub-plot. And some kind of resolution at the end of each “chapter.” But they cannot. What is missing in Horizon is the once prevalent spiritual center of our literary culture; the still, small voice of God. A God of Order. The power of Good. The wonder of Nature. Every artist can find it. It is why we design and create, whether we even know it or not.
For every film, every piece of art, the maker has to, more or less, play god. Thus the film director’s world view becomes very important. In Costner’s universe, love and Providence are myths to be employed but smothered, so Burning Man is more the standard for his home base. None enjoy his mercy, or escape his hand of judgement. And especially his audience. I will go see if he manages to rectify my over-all impression, and bring all of his loose ends together. Or at least part of them. But it will require a miracle from above, help from the other God, the one who invented serendipity and happy endings, if he is to do that. Or even a part of it.
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