You could call it old age stubbornness. Costner has wanted to make a western for over 30 years, but hasn’t found anyone to finance it. It’s going to be a film with four parts, each 12 hours long. A western saga called “Horizon,” which the 69-year-old is now releasing with his own money. To do this, Costner has taken out a mortgage on a property. And presumably given up his popular role in the western series “Yellowstone.”
“Are you asking me if I’m stubborn?”
“I don’t lose faith in what I think is a good idea,” he says. “So if I read something or develop something that I think is good, I don’t give up on it, even if it might not be trendy, even if it’s not the most popular kind of film.”
Costner wants to draw portraits of different people
So what is the idea behind “Horizon”? The film is conceived as a history of the American West. Costner wants to paint a portrait of the many different people who made the USA what it is today. “This is the American story, packaged in an entertaining film,” is how he describes it.
The first part takes place at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 in New Mexico and tells of white Americans who occupy the Apache territories on their journey west. The Apaches resist the land grab. There are many different storylines and a large cast is introduced.
Kevin Costner as a taciturn cowboy
Costner plays the lonely cowboy Hayes Ellison. He is a taciturn loner who actually wants peace and quiet, but always gets caught up in arguments. Costner dreamed of this film role for so long that he even named his now 15-year-old son Hayes Costner after it.
Sienna Miller also plays a leading role. She plays a motherly pioneer who followed her husband to the Horizon Settlement and has to raise her children alone after a brutal attack by the indigenous people.
Speaking of indigenous people: Various critics complained that the indigenous population in the first part of “Horizon” was mainly seen as aggressors. There is something to that – which is particularly surprising given the fact that Costner tried to avoid clichés about indigenous people in his 1990 directorial debut “Dances with Wolves”.
It is therefore almost certain that the role of the indigenous people – played by actors Owen Crow Shoe and Tatanka Means, among others – will change in the remaining three parts of “Horizon”.
“Horizon” vs. “Dances with Wolves”
“Dances with Wolves” won seven Oscars in 1991. The legendary drama is inevitably compared to “Horizon”, but there are not many similarities. “Horizon” is set at the same time and also shows beautiful, expansive landscapes. But the film is not about the personal drama of a single protagonist.
Instead, it seems as if Costner wanted to rehearse the classic narrative patterns and characters of the Western in “Horizon”. Settler groups, indigenous people, soldiers, cowboys, outlaws and prostitutes appear. It doesn’t take long until the first duel.
It is difficult to make a judgement after only seeing the first part of “Horizon”. A lot of things are only hinted at and not explained. It is almost as if the film is just a prologue to what is to come.
Visually, “Horizon” is a delight. The story is accompanied by breathtaking images: table mountains, red rocks, rivers and endless fields are captured in panoramic images.
It’s easy to see that Costner loves the Western genre. Before “Horizon,” he directed the Western “Open Range” (2003). And then, of course, “Yellowstone”: Since 2018, Costner has played a leading role in the acclaimed Western series by director Taylor Sheridan. After several smaller films, the project helped Costner make a comeback. Fans loved his portrayal of the actually very toxic, yet somehow sympathetic family patriarch.
No more “Yellowstone”
However, he has now given up his role as ranch owner John Dutton. He will not return to “Yellowstone,” Costner said in June in an Instagram video in which he also referred to his new film. The tremendous success of “Yellowstone” is certainly helping Costner to market his own western project.
“I felt that this was something that belonged in a movie theater,” Costner says in an interview about his passion project. “That’s why I was determined to do it. I think it’s highly original and very emotional.”
It almost seems as if Costner doesn’t care what others think of “Horizon”. After his incredible success with “Dances with Wolves” and legendary film roles in “All the President’s Men,” “The Bodyguard” and most recently “Yellowstone,” the Oscar winner no longer has to prove anything to anyone. He now simply does what he wants.
