‘THE AMERICAN WEST’
PRODUCERS SPEAK
I hope that, even as
you watch each new episode of AMC’s HELL ON WHEELS, dreading the series’
imminent finale, you are staying tuned afterwards for the fascinating THE
AMERICAN WEST, the documentary series executive produced by Robert
Redford. Focusing on the brief but
tumultuous period between the end of the Civil War and the start of a new
century, the series happily has a different plan of attack from the many
entertaining but oftentimes repetitive docudrama series of the last several
years.
The two men with boots
on the ground for AMERICAN WEST are producers Stephen David and Tim W.
Kelly. Their previous history-based miniseries
work together has included THE MEN WHO BUILT AMERICA (2012) about the great
industrialists, THE MAKING OF THE MOB: NEW YORK (2015), the historical drama
SONS OF LIBERTY (2015), and many others.
They’ve earned many Emmy nominations and other laurels for their work,
and Tim won an Emmy for his sound work on SONS.
I had the chance to preview the first two episodes of AMERICAN WEST, and
to talk with Stephen and Tim.
HENRY: You’ve done both
documentaries, and recently historical dramas like SONS OF LIBERTY, and experimental
thrillers like REDRUM. What’s the most satisfying?
STEPHEN: I personally enjoy
these big historical miniseries. I like
the fact that we get to learn, that when people are watching they get to see
something they thought they knew, in a different way. Our goal is to try and get more into what
the truth is instead of the myth, or what we may have learned in school. Because of the internet, and the way
information flows now, I think people know that the mythologies that we learned
in school don’t necessarily feel right; feel real. There’s a much more human side behind all of
this. People do things because of their
own desires, their own egos, and inadvertently it has a huge effect. I love to delve into the psychology behind
them.
TIM: It’s interesting
now, with social media, you can watch live as the show’s happening , and (follow)
on Twitter. You see people reacting to
the show, and it’s happening in real-time – it’s almost instant reviews. It’s really interesting when you see
teenagers Tweeting about history.
There’s something satisfying, to open this up to a younger audience, as
well as the older audiences that are already interested in history. In a society that can be very (busy) on their
smartphones, to see them getting into history is sort of a cool thing.
HENRY: There have been
a number of Western documentary series since the mid 90s, most of them focusing
on the same less-than-a-dozen individuals.
Did you worry that they were overexposed? That there was nothing new to say about them?
STEPHEN: I’ve seen stuff where each character has an
individual episode. But what we were
trying to show was that each of these people were living simultaneously, and
had a cause-and- effect relationship on each other and the country. I think the key to our show is, what this person
did led to this, led to this. The Little
Big Horn led to the election of 1876 – you see how one thing causes another
thing to happen.
HENRY: Which is very
clear. Because your premise, if I’m not
misstating it, is that what we think of as the history of the American West is
really all an outgrowth of President Grant’s attempts to unify a post-Civil War
U.S., and fight a two-front war.
TIM: That’s one of the jumping-off points to how
the whole migration happened. It played
such a big role. I think that a lot of
these (other shows) look at the single story, and we’ve been able to look at
the bigger picture of the whole country, and see how all of these different
outlaws and politicians, and these legends of the west, all the roles that they
played came together to cause the settling of the west that we have today.
HENRY: What was the
genesis of THE AMERICAN WEST?
STEPHEN: We wanted to do something about all these
names we knew something about. And we
found that they all lived and were big characters within a twenty-year time
period, and it all came out of the Civil War.
At the end of the Civil War, the West became sort of a healing ground,
and a lot of the people who had nothing to go back to, went west. But many
people who went out there were like the P.T.S.D. (Post Traumatic Stress
Disorder) survivors of the Civil War, a generation of men that grew up in extreme
violence. (It was) a unique period in American
history where you have people who had learned to solve their problems through
violence; you had a short but ultra-violent time. We just found that fascinating, that that
existed.
HENRY: It puts a whole
different focus on what we think of as outlaws.
STEPHEN: What’s
interesting about that time period, about the world in general, is that the
people with money decide what the laws are.
And you really see that there, but I guess it always has been that way,
and still is. What we see when we talk
about outlaws is that the line is very grey.
Who is an outlaw and who is the law can change overnight; we certainly
see it with Wyatt Earp.
HENRY: You focus on a
half-dozen iconic people like Custer, Crazy Horse, Jesse James. Was it a tough weeding our process? Is there anyone you regret leaving out?
STEPHEN: If we could have kept going, I definitely
would have had Butch Cassidy in there.
It’s an amazing story, and he grew up in this west that we’re talking
about. But by the time he was really becoming
an outlaw, the West had been closed. In
1890, they declared the frontier was closed: every piece of land had been
claimed. Our first year of research and
outlines, Butch was connected; but we ended up having to take him out.
HENRY: What is Robert
Redford’s involvement?
STEPHEN: He is an
executive producer. He came in when we
sold it; you also see him throughout the show, as an expert. He is probably the most knowledgeable person
we ever met about the West. He knows a
lot.
HENRY: Obviously he
played Liver-Eating Johnson and The Sundance Kid, but I didn’t know he was a
real student of Western history.
TIM: He’s lived in Utah the last thirty years, and
he is extremely passionate about the West.
Back in the seventies he rode the whole outlaw trail, and did a book
about it, with photos, and writing the history of it. (Note: THE OUTLAW TRAIL – A JOURNEY THROUGH
TIME, by Robert Redford and Jonathan Blair, was published in 1978) I think when he got into those roles, he got
infatuated with the times, and the beauty of the west, and the characters. He’s very passionate about the whole subject,
about the Native Americans and their relationship to the land. It’s something that he is extremely
interested in, and cares a lot about.
STEPHEN: When he was
making BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, he actually met people who had
helped them out as they were riding across the country, trying to get away. They hid them, and got them fresh horses.
HENRY: That’s
remarkable. You forget what a young
country we are. But when you think that
movie was made in 1969, those wild days weren’t all that long ago. Your
commentary seems evenly split between historians and cowboy actors. How did you assemble your stellar cast? Did having Robert Redford help a little?
STEPHEN: (chuckles) I think
his name helped. We got lucky that these
people wanted to do commentary. And it
was interesting because a lot of times you get celebrities, and they may not
really know, and you give them kind of general comments. But these people really knew their
history. We found that as they prepared
for whatever historical roles they were playing, they did a lot of research.
HENRY: That’s
nice. So you didn’t have to give, say,
Kiefer Sutherland a script and tell him, this is what Jesse James was like?
TIM: Kiefer was one of the more knowledgeable – we
were amazed at how much he knew about all these characters and the stories. I think from when he did his role in YOUNG
GUNS (1988), he studied all these guys.
HENRY: Did anyone else
stand out as knowledgeable?
TIM: There’s Redford; Tom Sellick was great – he
really knew his stuff.
STEPHEN: I think what was really interesting about Tom
Sellick was he really knew the big picture.
He knew how each of these smaller things affected the bigger picture. You have to know a good deal about the
subject to see all the relationships.
HENRY: Your
reenactments are a step above what we’re used to seeing. The production values are great – it looks
like a big-budget feature. What is the
casting process like?
STEPHEN: We do film this
like a movie. We’ve done quite a few; we
were the first to do the genre on a big scale, with THE MEN WHO BUILT
AMERICA. So we’re practiced, we use the
same crews; we have a system of filming.
It feels like a drama, and you get into these characters. We don’t want it to feel like a
reenactment. We just want the whole thing
to feel emotional; have the archive and the voice-over and the drama all feel
seamless. I watch documentaries – and
there are great documentaries – but a lot of times I’m washed over with a lot
of information. Our idea was, if the information
added to the character’s stake, then you cared more about the information. So when we’re looking at what information is
in the show, and what is not, it really has to do with, does this move the
character’s story forward?
HENRY: Just as you
would do in a drama.
STEPHEN: Right.
HENRY: Have you ever
considered casting familiar actors?
STEPHEN: (laughs) If it
was in the budget.
TIM: Even with MEN WHO
BUILT AMERICA, about the industrial revolution, you know the names of these
people, but there’s very few pictures. So
you don’t necessarily know what they look like.
So we try to make the (actors) look as much like them (as
possible). If we succeed, the people
will just associate that actor; they have no other preconception. They become that character. That’s the hope.
HENRY: Where was the
series shot? How long a shooting
schedule was it?
TIM: We shot in West
Virginia and in Utah; we had a split shoot.
STEPHEN: We had a shoot
of sixty days. To make it a little more
complicated, we actually shoot with two crews simultaneously for thirty days.
HENRY: What obstacles
did the production face?
TIM: One thing that was
very important to us was handling the Native American story in a respectful
way, and telling the real story. I felt
like it hadn’t been done. So we wanted
to make sure we got people who spoke Lakota, people who could channel the
energy of these legendary characters like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. It was an obstacle, but we ended up with an
amazing cast of guys.
STEPHEN: We wanted to tell the full story; that they
weren’t just victims.
HENRY: Any favorite memories from the production?
TIM: One of the most
exciting days was when we were doing Little Big Horn and the lead-up to
it. Obviously it was a horrible
war. But you get all those horses out
there, and we had cameras and monitors set up in the ATVs, and we’re just
tearing through these fields in the ATVs alongside horses that are at a full
gallop – it was pretty exhilarating, pretty fun to get out there with the toys
and get those amazing shots.
HENRY: Speaking of the equipment,
what did you shoot with?
TIM: We shot on the
Arri Amira.
HENRY: Is there a
moment you’re particularly proud of?
TIM: To me, one of the
most fun scenes, is what they call ‘the big killing’. It’s when Billy the Kid and his gang are
tracked down to a house, and the local mayor, who is after him, brings in the
government. They bring in Gatling guns,
and they have a huge shootout with Billy the Kid in this house – bullets are
ripping through the house. His whole
crew gets killed, and he somehow escapes unscathed. It’s an intense shootout scene that’s pretty
fun to watch.
HENRY: The violence is
more unflinching than it would have been in the past: when a character is shot
in the chest, you can see his heart pumping out the blood from the wound. When Jesse James shoots a man in the face,
the back of his head explodes against the wall behind him. Why so graphic?
TIM: I think the
reality is this was a very violent time.
The amount of people who died in that war was mind-boggling; that’s what
led to this violent time, and that’s what these guys were – they were
violent. A lot of them were murderers. It’s the reality. Not every scene we do in the show is that
violent, but those moments, it’s impactful when you see that. It is brutal, but it’s showing the impact of
the war, and all that violence on them.
HENRY: I’ve only seen
the first two episodes, so I don’t know where the story goes. Does the story enter the 20th
century?
STEPHEN: We take it to
the end of the frontier, when the West is closed.
TIM: There is sort of a
coda that takes place in the 1920s – I guess it would be a spoiler if I gave it
away.
HENRY: Are you planning
on a sequel?
STEPHEN: I think we’ve
gone to the end of the West. When we
start, we essentially have a North and South that go as far west as the Mississippi
River, and beyond that you just have land.
By the end of this you have an America that’s from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, that is all one America, and you see how that all happened in 25 years;
and we think that is the story.
TIM: In the last
episode there’s a map that starts as we began the show, and it fills in where the
people have all settled. You see the states start to fill in, and it’s pretty
amazing to see the change that happened in that time period, to see that happen
very quickly in front of you on the map.
HENRY: Any final thoughts you’d like to share?
STEPHEN: As you get
into episodes 3, 4 and 5, you feel this cause and effect that is very much like
the election we’re going through right now.
The election of 1876 is very much like this election, and everything
that is leading up to it. There’s a
divided country, there’s racism, there was a recent financial collapse caused
by mass corruption. There are rigged
elections, there are political machines.
I think people are going to look at this and say, things haven’t change much
in 140 years.
HENRY: They should be
running this on CNN. What’s next?
STEPHEN: We have MAKING
OF THE MOB: CHICAGO coming on AMC.
You can read my article
on THE AMERICAN WEST in the August issue of TRUE WEST.
RIDLEY SCOTT TO HELM CRAIG
ZAHLER’S ‘WRAITHS OF THE BROKEN LAND’
Craig Zahler
Back when we spoke on
the set of BONE TOMAHAWK, writer/director S. Craig Zahler told me that much of
the attention he’d gotten in Hollywood was due to his Western novel WRAITHS OF
THE BROKEN LAND. Now it’s been announced
that WRAITHS will reach the big screen under the guidance of director Ridley
Scott and scripter Drew Goddard, who collaborated on last year’s hugely popular
THE MARTIAN.
While I knew Craig
had his hands full, prepping a pair of movies, PUPPET MASTER and BRAWL, I
wondered how he felt about someone else doing the lensing of WRAITHS. It turns out he’s even busier than I
thought. He told the Round-up, “I
just finished my fourth script of 2016 – two of which are 179 page monsters – while
prepping both those other movies and a third one to be announced. The only way something as
complicated, nasty, and challenging
as WRAITHS OF THE BROKEN LAND gets made in Hollywood is by having well
established people stand behind it, and Drew Goddard and
Ridley Scott are two such people. This director has the resources and
visual acumen to get this giant western spectacle on the screen, and this
writer has told me that he intends to retain the characters, violence, and moral
complexity of the book in his script while making it fit that medium. Goddard is a fan on the novel and has been
instrumental in moving this whole thing forward from day one, and I am hopeful
that he and Scott will inexorably push their oater agendum.”
THE NEXT GENERATION OF
LEONES TO PRODUCE ‘COLT’ SERIES
The series star is in the center
According to The
Variety, back in 1987, the great Sergio Leone got together with his writers
Sergio Donati, (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, DUCK YOU SUCKER), and Fulvio
Morsella (FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE, ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST), and began
crafting a story around The Man With No Name’s pistol from A FISTFUL OF
DOLLARS. The idea was that, like
WINCHESTER ’73, the sidearm would pass through many hands, each with a
story.
Alas, it never
happened. But now, long after the
maestro’s passing, his daughter Raffaella Leone and son Andrea Leone, who together
run Leone Film Group, are in pre-production for a six-episode (to begin)
series. It will be directed by GOMORRAH
director Stefano Sollima, son of writer director Sergio Sollima (FACE TO FACE,
THE BIG GUNDOWN).
THAT’S A WRAP!
I had a few video
reviews I was going to include, but I’m going to have to stop it there. I’m still catching up on a week and a half
lost to jury duty, and I have an audio commentary to do tomorrow, so I’ll sign
off now to prepare. By the way, the jury
duty was very interesting, and if you have the time I’d recommend not trying to
squirm out of it when they call you.
Happy Trails,
Henry
All Original Contents Copyright June 2016 by Henry C. Parke - All Rights Reserved
