Before something new can arise, it requires people whose ideas are so strong that others will follow them. This is doubly true for Kevin Costner’s Western “Horizon.” On one hand, the city that gives the film its title is such an idea that initially inspires surveyors and gold seekers, later followed by entire wagon trains heading into the rugged nowhere of the American prairie.
They are searching for a better life that they can build in the vast land. Costner makes it clear right from the beginning that the area is by no means uninhabited. Like ants, two surveyors crawl along the river that cuts through the San Pedro Valley, measuring with stakes and strings. Mighty rocks encircle the valley, with the bluest sky hanging overhead. The camera captures the Western backdrop with a genre-typical wide shot, but then it shows from whose perspective we are observing the events, which is rather unusual: Two Apache boys watch the surveyors and wonder what the white men are actually doing. “They’re playing a game: standing with big sticks,” speculates one of the boys.
The next person to arrive in this area is a pastor. He carries a crumpled flyer that promotes the advantages of the town of Horizon and promises land at low prices. However, in his search for the flourishing town, he only finds the corpses of the surveyors, murdered by the Apaches, and digs graves for them. Soon after, the first buildings overlook these graves, as the promotional pamphlet circulates from New York among immigrants and all those in need of a fresh start. Just as determined as the adventurers and fortune seekers who believe in something so strongly that they make it a reality, Costner himself has pursued the realization of this gigantic film project.
Almost forty years ago, he wrote the first draft for “Horizon,” initially envisioning it as a single film told as a classic Western without narrative experiments. But no one wanted to finance the project. Even when “Dances with Wolves,” Costner’s three-hour directorial debut, won seven Oscars in 1990 and became a box office success, he couldn’t secure funding for his dream project. In an interview with this newspaper, he sighs when he recalls the tedious negotiations: “Maybe it was also because I didn’t want to make another ‘Dances with Wolves.’ They might have bought a sequel to that, but not to something entirely new,” says Costner. He made his next funding attempt in 2003, when “Open Range – Wide Open” (again a Western, again directed by Costner) brought major profits to Disney, but there too, they didn’t want to provide the money. Costner is unfazed by such rejections. He is stubborn. Rejection only spurs him on. “I don’t give up when I believe something is right,” he says in the interview, sounding a bit like the heroes he plays in his films.
So he continued to develop the screenplay idea, ended up with four filmic “chapters” of three hours each, and in 2022 simply started filming the first two parts. For this, he paid in advance, took out a loan against his property in Santa Barbara, showing similar commitment to that of old master Francis Ford Coppola, who reportedly sold parts of his vineyards for his grand project “Megalopolis,” which is also set to hit German cinemas this fall.
Coppola and Costner also share an unconditional dedication to the medium of cinema that accepts no compromises. Costner begins his saga in the year 1860 (the same year “Dances with Wolves” was set) and gives viewers time to get to know the characters: first Ellen (Jena Malone) from Montana, who shoots her violent husband and runs away with their baby. We meet Frances (Sienna Miller) dancing at a festival before her family falls victim to a massacre by Apaches and she hides with her daughter in a tunnel. “Women play the main role in this film,” Costner says in conversation. “I made sure that almost every narrative thread focuses on them.” Indeed, he highlights what has been inherent in this genre since its inception: where strong men wish to realize their ideals of justice, strong women who are their equals are needed (think of Grace Kelly in “High Noon” or Kim Darby in “True Grit”).
After eighty minutes, Kevin Costner finally rides into the frame
Sam Worthington and Michael Rooker represent civilization as two army leaders attempting to impose some guidelines for coexistence amidst the chaos of the lawless West – also in their interactions with the “natives.” Worthington’s sergeant refers to the locals this way, while Costner’s understanding of the problems shines through. The fact that the indigenous tribes and their perspective on white settlement policy must be part of the great narrative of nation-building has already been established in “Dances with Wolves.” This time, a distinct narrative thread is dedicated to the Apaches, highlighting the conflict between an old chief who advocates for peaceful coexistence and a young warrior who challenges his authority and calls for combat against the intruders – all in the indigenous language, with subtitles, which remains uncommon in American films.
Of course, one wants to see the director himself in a Costner film. After eighty minutes, he rides into the frame for the first time as Hayes Ellison, a taciturn trader whose demeanor already demonstrates the backbone he will show in difficult situations – the archetype of this kind of authority is Gary Cooper. The core of the character Costner plays is illustrated in a scene where Hayes walks up to a hut alongside an obnoxious gunslinger. The hothead keeps provoking the grumpy trader. He sidesteps, remains calm, occasionally growling a response – great Western heroes are not recognized for shooting immediately, but for doing so only when they have no other choice left. Costner showcases this with relish.
All storylines unfold leisurely, sometimes already hinting at where they will later intertwine. However, they never fall into the triviality of episodic storytelling, as the Coen brothers did recently with “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” Costner’s twelve-hour project is extremely ambitious; some industry pessimists are already whispering about flop potential before the start and asking why he didn’t offer it in a streaming series format, especially since he celebrated great successes with his lead role in the Western series “Yellowstone.” But wouldn’t one have liked to see the vast landscapes of Montana in “Yellowstone” on the biggest possible screen? And didn’t Peter Jackson have to defend himself against concerns for the three parts of “The Lord of the Rings” as well? Warner Brothers is now bringing the first chapter of the “Horizon” epic to theaters. The second will premiere a week later at the Venice Film Festival, where director Alberto Barbera has added it to the program at short notice. Barbera praises it as a “visionary project.” It has indeed already made cinematic history.