Open Range (2003)
Epic, gracious, thoughtful, stunning
and gorgeous, Kevin Costner's "Open Range" builds
ever so slowly, like a glacier melting, to its emotionally
resonant climax, a 20 minute gunfight that is perhaps
the most honest and realistic picture of the Old West
we've ever seen on film. Honestly, the gunfight in
this movie had me openly sobbing, gasping for breath.
And I couldn't really tell you why, exactly, except,
like "Titanic," it had built slowly and carefully
to this realistic climax, slowly exposing characters
that were easy to care deeply about. Like that earlier
epic film, "Open Range" also features a devastating
conclusion that is so realistic and steeped in verisimilitude
that one literally has that "you are there" feeling
upon witnessing it. We, the audience, are on the streets
of a Western town. Bullets fly from guns. People are
hit and die slowly as blood oozes (it doesn't gush)
from their wounds. Men stand 10 feet apart and fire
upon one and other. Townsmen, formerly frightened
by an impending fight they wished to stay out of,
find themselves coming out of their homes and stores
and helping, thrusting themselves in an immediate
peril that is frightening and fraught with danger.
They do this for no greater reason that to be on the
side of the righteous, to stand up for what they believe
in.
The film is jaw-dropping awesome
in its ability to show you how it really must have
been. Like Lynch's "Elephant Man," the film is probably
the first of its kind in exposing us to what it really
must have been like to be on the streets of a small
town in the Old West. But while Lynch concentrated
on the gory, grubby, sooty stained world that was
Victorian England, Costner has more lush exteriors
in mind. His vast landscape of the open hills of the
American plains may harken back to his "Dances with
Wolves" but that doesn't make them any less gorgeous
or expansive. Looking at the world, America, at this
time, in this state, is not only important to the
ideas and plot of the film but it also provides Costner
and neophyte cinematographer James Muro ample opportunity
to delight us with some of the most beautiful scenery
we've seen in over a decade on the American screen.
This film is simply gorgeous, one of the best looks
at the American landscape through the camera's lens
since "Dances with Wolves."
And everything, from props to costumes
to sets, simply swim in period details. The sets here
are characters themselves. Sure, there's lot of period
props like old bottles and metal works. But the true
beauty in the film's sets is literally the unvarnished
wood used to construct them. Costner and company wisely
show us a town that is springing up in the "new" Old
West. The building features half-finished additions
and sidewalks with wooden planks jutting out into
the street to act as stairs. The jail set on the film
has unfinished wood, as if it had just been built
that week, consistently reminding us that we are in
a time of flux, a time of change and growth. Another
important idea to the plot of the story and the understanding
of the characters within that plot.
Costner and co-star Robert Duvall
are in almost every scene here and their work is unquestionably
some of the best you will ever see in a motion picture.
Duvall provides a multi- dimensional character using
only an economy of words and his own grizzled appearance.
Like the men in "Seabiscuit," the male characters
in "Open Range" have a quiet integrity, a nearly silent
nature, and use only a modicum of emotion. Yet their
mere presence on the screen, and the small vocabulary
of words they do use, hardly ever speaking of their
true feelings, speaks volumes about who they are in
the world that they inhabit. These are characters
that win us over with a look, a small gesture, a glint
in the sadness of their eyes. We come to love them,
to care deeply about them, to understand them. Costner,
the filmmaker, makes sure of this. It may seem like
he takes two hours to set up a 20 minute gunfight
but in fact he spends two hours letting us live with
these characters so that we understand this tremendous
moment in their lives that is the climax. We want
to know these characters and Costner exposes them
to us with a grace and an ease rarely seen on the
American screen. When their climax, their revelation,
their turning point, comes, it echoes with the thunder
of lives changed. It echos with the thunder of growth
and love and compassion and humanity.
Costner wisely casts Annette Benning,
Abraham Benrubi, and Diego Luna as his supporting
characters on the good side of the fight. The villains
don't really matter. They are the faceless, nameless
irrelevant characters of the Old West. The corrupt
officials and evil landowners are important to the
story but exist in the one-dimensional forum of their
ideals and deeds. We don't need too much information
to understand their histories, their deeds or their
intentions.
But the good guys... Wow! Benning
is simply perfect as the woman who could steal Costner's
Charlie's heart. While her character is paramount
to the story, Benning plays her with a reserved and
quiet dignity that almost makes her incredible work
go unnoticed. And Luna, albeit without much to work
with, makes us care deeply about what is happening
here. His character is vital to the plot of the film
and Luna's performance provides just enough sympathetic
resonance to make it all work. I will not lie, Luna's
appearance in one of my all-time favorite films, "Y
tu mama tambien," made it much easier for me to care
about what happens in the film; he had a cinematic
history for me and I cared deeply for him the minute
I saw him on screen. (Luna is too, of course, devastatingly
handsome and one of my favorite young actors, so I
had an advantage here. I cared immensely what happened
to his character from the first frame).
Costner sets up an idyllic near
homoerotic landscape for the film. His four men on
a cattle drive, free grazers, are honest, pure, hard
working and bound together in their lives. With Duvall
as spiritual guide, Costner as conscious and history,
Benrubi as fun-loving Hoss and Luna as wide-eyed innocent,
the four provide the core of a consciousness that
we desire and are drawn too. The four travel about
the beautiful landscape surviving on wit and muscle
and care for one and other and seemingly little else.
We almost wish Costner would see that he has everything
he needs in these other men and does not need Benning's
Sue to complete him. But, alas, this is a Western
and there must be a literal, sexual love interest.
It is important that by caring for both Duvall ands
Luna, Costner becomes the complete man that he is,
the one that Sue falls in love with. It is also implied,
in the films end, that these other men are a part
of the future he and Sue will share. She has found
a man whose whole existence is wrapped up in other
men, an existence that completes him as much as she
does.
"Open Range" is a masterful instant
classic, a film that will be as important and relevant
in 50 years as it is today, much like its forerunners,
"High Noon," "The Ox Bow Incident" and Costner's own
epic favorite, "How the West Was Won" as well as his
original entry into the genre, "Dances with Wolves."
This is classic American cinema.
Note:
Also with the late Michael Jeter,
Michael Gambon,
Based on the novel "The Open Range
Men" by Lauren Paine. Score by Michael Kamen. Costner
is also a producer.
The dog Tig was named after Costner's
grandmother.
Costner received his star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame around the time of the film's
release.
Viewed in Austin in August 2003.
