A great actor-director, Kevin Costner has never been so comfortable as in the Western world. And proved it once again with the sensational “Open Range”, released 20 years ago.
“What does the western genre represent for me? Above all, it is inseparable from our country, from America. Knowing that America was founded by Europeans. I don’t think anyone takes me for anything other than a American And I totally accept it: that’s who I am.
That doesn’t stop me from enjoying the rest of the world and traveling to find out how other countries work, but I’m still American. So I regularly feel the need to come back to the western”.
This is what Kevin Costner told us, whom we had the great pleasure of meeting in 2016. The Western is indeed inseparable from his filmography. And even the image of the actor-director, who has not stopped returning to the genre since his debut under the stetson of Silverado in 1985. Let us judge: Dances with Wolves, Wyatt Earp, the mini- Hatfields & McCoys series, Yellowstone…Even Les Incorruptibles or Revenge clearly have a “western” dimension, despite their apparent modernity.
We cannot be exhaustive without mentioning the formidable Open range, released almost twenty years ago. The story ? Classic as we like. In the heart of the Wild West, four men herd cattle. For Charley (Kevin Costner), Boss (Robert Duvall), Button (Diego Luna) and Mose (Abraham Benrubi), it’s about living free and escaping their past. They do not seek violence, clinging to a code of honor, loyalty and justice. But their arrival in Harmonville, a small town under the control of the tyrannical Baxter (Michael Gambon), will force them to take action…
Pathé Distribution
The great theatrical success of Eastwood’s Merciless had allowed the western to briefly resurface, dragging other films in its wake, with varying degrees of success. But the soufflé fell back fairly quickly, like a return to square one, with its procession of difficulties in convincing Hollywood decision-makers to finance this kind of film.
“Take an option on this book [The Open Range Men, écrit par Lauran Paine] was pure madness given Hollywood’s reluctance to this cinematic genre” commented in 2003 the screenwriter of the film, Craig Storper. “The last real success in this field was Ruthless, more than ten years ago. You really have to believe in the story and find the partners who have the guts to tell it with you.”
Pathé Distribution
As at the time of Dancing with the wolveswhich Costner had defended almost alone against all, Open Range was able to be produced outside the major Hollywood studios for only 22 million dollars, via his company, Tig Productions. The almost 70 million dollars collected at the worldwide Box Office is not an insult, but it very clearly deserved more.
Rough Western with sublime photography, a tribute to the past masters of a genre that has fallen into disuse that has nevertheless shaped the history of America and its myth of the great outdoors, Open Range is also distinguished from the all-comers of the modern western by the mastery of its final settling of accounts. Here, no heroes, the men are really afraid of dying in the main street, and often miss their targets. But when they hit the mark, it hurts very, very badly…
If you haven’t seen this great movie yet, you know what you have to do. Open Range is available on VOD, as well as DVD/Blu-ray.
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Released almost 20 years ago, this is one of Kevin Costner’s best films!