Kevin Coster worked on it Horizon: An American Saga, a feature film whose first two parts will be released this summer and which he financed himself. And the producer, co-writer, director and actor chose Sienna Miller, Jamie Campbell, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Danny Huston and many others. Interview…
“With cinema we have the opportunity to create a work that transcends time and whose interest extends beyond the weekend of its release. I have never bet on the earnings of the release weekend, but always on the fact that the audience wants to see works. I have often been told that I am stubborn. So if the studios [Disney] Since I didn't want to finance Horizon anymore, I decided to make four myself, and it took me 30 years to publish the first two,” Kevin Costner explained to a group of journalists, including the QMI Agency, during the presentation of the first Trailer for Horizon.
This Western, which Kevin Costner sees as a saga about the conquest of the West, will initially be presented in two parts, which will be released in cinemas on June 28th and August 16th.
“I wanted to move away from what we traditionally see in Westerns. Usually we see a city that has grown there like a mushroom, a guy comes, we don't know much about him, except that he has certain skills that the residents will quickly need. It's a recipe, but often it's a poor excuse for us to watch a good guy defeat an evil idiot. Yes, we have a lot of bad westerns because they are too simplified. However, the Western is complicated by definition,” emphasized the filmmaker, who hasn’t stepped behind the camera since 2003’s “Open Range.”
Indians and women…
“We’re not in Disneyland. It's about real life, about people who tried to get to the West, about women who made sure their families were clean and well fed and basically worked themselves until death. Women had very short lives, they worked themselves to death. It's the little details that attract me, the things that people have had to endure. Of course I’m coming to the pistol duel, but I really wanted to tell the story of Horizon,” he added.
Photo provided by Warner Bros.
Between Dances with Wolves, Wyatt Earp and many others, Kevin Costner's name is inextricably linked to the Western, a genre that, in his opinion, is not anachronistic.
“It is a mistake to judge the actions of people from another century because we apply our own sensibilities. In addition, a dispute is currently resolved through lawyers. Back then you had to resolve your differences yourself and so it was always pretty dramatic, especially when you were dealing with a sociopath.”
For the co-author, the conquest of the West is a “turning point” in the history of his country, inextricably linked to the civil war.
“We must never forget that the United States had just emerged from a terrible civil war. And for anyone familiar with post-traumatic shock syndrome, that means a lot. At this point the country had a population of about 30 million and the war lasted four years. “We lost 56,000 men in the Vietnam War and 600,000 during the Civil War,” explained Kevin Coster, without going into the details of the Horizon story.
“Many people went to the West with hope, but others because they were broken, and others because they were running from something. The Native Americans were crushed by this movement. They had no chance of surviving this rain of blood.”
Horizon: An American Saga will be presented in two parts, releasing on June 28th and August 16th.