“I think if I never made another movie, I would be happy that this was my last one.”
Welcome to Commentary Commentary, the place we sit and take heed to filmmakers speak about their work, then share probably the most fascinating components. In this version, Rob Hunter revisits Kevin Costner’s second masterclass within the western style, Open Range, by way of the filmmaker’s commentary.
If you’re a film lover, notably somebody who enjoys a fantastic western movie, then the current trailer premiere for Kevin Costner‘s upcoming two-part western epic, Horizon: An American Saga, has probably left you very, very excited. Costner’s directorial debut was the Academy Award-winning Dances with Wolves (1990), and he adopted it seven years later with the under-appreciated The Postman (1997). His most interesting movie, although — and his remaining movie till this yr — got here six years later with 2003’s Open Range.
An exciting, emotionally satisfying story of friendship, integrity, and justice on the finish of a scatter gun, Open Range is a masterpiece of the style. Costner and the nice Robert Duvall play cattlemen caught up in a battle with the unhealthy males operating a scared little city. Everything from the forged and dialogue to the cinematography and rating completely sing, and all of it leads as much as one of many massive display screen’s greatest shootouts. The movie’s all the time value a rewatch, however this time we tossed it in with Costner’s director commentary enjoying.
Now preserve studying to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Open Range (2003)
Commentator: Kevin Costner (director)
1. He thinks one of many issues that strikes you probably the most about westerns is the music. “Whether it’s The Big Country or Magnificent Seven, the great westerns have that great music.” Michael Kamen‘s rating right here is fairly nice.
2. The valley from the movie’s opening was scouted by Costner from the air, and there have been no roads in or out which made for fairly a haul throughout filming.
3. He needed to seize the little issues which can be of curiosity to him, and that features the main points of organising a camp.
4. The opening storm units off a minor theme that Costner set all through the movie concerning “certain sounds that startle you.” It’s thunder right here, and gunshots come later.
5. He needed cinematographer James Muro to have his credit score over the shot at 4:10 — “that’s a really pretty shot” — however it didn’t work out within the enhancing. Curiously, the onscreen credit score at that second is as a substitute for editors Michael J. Duthie and Miklos Wright. Costner met Muro when the latter was a Steadicam operator on Field of Dreams (1989), “and I said, ‘Look, I’m thinking I’m gonna make this movie [Dances with Wolves], and if I do I’d like you to come along.’” Muro repeated his Steadicam duties there, and when Open Range got here alongside he determined to present Muro the chance at dealing with the cinematography.
6. The first dialogue clue as to what Open Range is in the end about comes with the road from Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall) to Button (Diego Luna), when he says “A man’s trust is a valuable thing, you don’t want to lose it for a handful of cards.” Costner says it’s concerning the “kind of integrity that one needs to try to conduct himself with.”
7. One of his favourite pictures within the movie — he understandably has many — comes at 6:01 as Charley Waite (Costner) is approaching a horse along with his hat in hand.
8. “I really wanted people to settle down with this movie, with this place, and let them absorb our rhythms, the rhythms of the time,” he says, concerning the movie’s atypical pacing.
9. He laments not getting a sure shot, one exhibiting Boss from behind as he appears to be like down over the horses, however “it’s so difficult to get those damn horses to stay on their marks.” Every try left issues matching from one shot to the following. “That’s the big difference between making a cartoon and making a movie.”
10. “The movie is probably never as happy after this particular moment,” he says at 8:57. “I asked Michael Kamen to shamelessly hit this hard.”
11. Button initially mumbled “fuck!” at 10:53, however “everybody wanted to move away from that word,” in order that they added an ADR line as a substitute of him saying a a lot softer expletive. “The scene never played quite as well.”
12. The canine’s identify is Tig, which can be the identify of Costner’s manufacturing firm. It was named after his grandmother. He grew up pondering her identify was Tig, however it was only a nickname whereas her actual identify was Lily. Coincidentally, Costner named his personal daughter Lily earlier than studying that fact. Costner tries to incorporate Tig’s identify at any time when he can in a movie with out it feeling compelled. He even added it to The War (1994) within the type of a verb when he mentions a personality’s hair being pulled straight up, “tigging it up.”
13. The horse he’s using is Baby, the identical horse he rode in Wyatt Earp (1994). “Just a favorite little horse of mine, she’s just a joy to ride.”
14. He mentions that watching the movie has him enthusiastic about issues he would do otherwise, “but in the heat of the battle, trying to make the dates, trying to be on time, you make decisions under a certain amount of pressure, and I never for the most part leave anything that I’m not really happy with.” He provides that it’s in all probability a perform in everybody’s life, pondering decisions made have been the very best solely to replicate on them later and want extra time was accessible.
15. The profile shot of Boss at 15:03 was “just a grab,” as Costner seen Duvall standing towards the sunshine and requested him strategy a horse.
16. He made the intentional option to not embrace any Native American characters on this city, and in the end within the film, as a result of he felt that this specific city and its racist residents wouldn’t even permit a Native individual to be strolling the streets. “It wasn’t an omission.”
17. “I love this little actor,” he says about Michael Jeter who performs Percy. Jeter sadly died earlier than the movie was launched. “He really comes out of the finest tradition of supporting actors. You could put him right in there with Walter Brennan or Ward Bond, and if you know anything about movies you know that John Wayne, and Jimmy Stewart, and Gary Cooper wouldn’t act in a movie unless somebody like this, those kind of guys were in the movie, because they were so colorful and added so much to the movie and allowed Cooper and Stewart to play more laconic because they were actually doing this dance.”
18. “There she is, there’s our girl,” he says on the arrival of Annette Bening. “She’s Susan Hayward, she’s Maureen O’Hara, she’s Kathryn Hepburn, she’s Diane Keaton, she’s all the great ones. And I obviously have missed saying some, so if you’re watching this and you’re a great actress, my hat is off to you and my apologies.”
19. He shouts out manufacturing designer Gae Buckley for her unbelievable work on a minimal funds. “She just found that right edge between minimalist and practicality.”
20. Seeing the physician’s home with the white picket fence, Costner talks about how whereas Native peoples lived “very light on the land,” European settlers arrived and went the other approach creating roads, cities, buildings, fences. “They marked their territory… it’s a different mentality that came to this continent and altered it forever.”
21. He makes use of the river and valley as geographical marking so audiences have a way of area and the place the assorted events are positioned in relation to one another. Similarly, the tree at 28:05 was transplanted to that spot as a marker that “always lets you know where you are when you see it.”
22. “The movie changes right here,” he says a half hour in, including that for him “the first hundred pages of the book have just happened.” His comparability is to how folks will usually generalize the robust entry right into a novel, the primary hundred pages, as groundwork that we don’t all the time take pleasure in within the second whereas ready for one thing “to happen.” He says it’s a battle he fights as a filmmaker typically too.
23. “No one likes this kind of thing right here,” he says concerning the reveal that Tig has been killed. “I don’t either, and it’s not easy for me, and thematically I’ve done this before in Dances with Wolves.” This leads him to speak about check screenings with audiences leaving feedback, saying what labored and what didn’t, and ultimately resulting in adjustments made to the movie. “I kind of disagree with that, I would prefer that you see what I want you to see out there, that you feel what I want you to feel.” Test screenings for Dances with Wolves solely noticed damaging feedback concerning the deaths of the wolf and horse (and the man utilizing the journal pages for bathroom paper). Executives urged they lose these three scenes and would then have “a perfect movie,” however Costner stated no as a result of he’s not an fool.
24. “I think this is ninety-five percent of what I wanted,” says, including that he doesn’t suppose he might reside with himself if it was nearer to sixty.
25. The scene with Boss and Sue Barlow (Bening) speaking about Button sees Costner point out that typically when he’s watching a scene he finds himself caught up within the sturdy performances. That’s nice usually, however it typically occurs when he’s within the scene too and he realizes later you can see him nodding in approval to the performances. “Of course I can’t use that take.”
26. “We had to decide where we were gonna put our money,” he says, including that two of the massive issues have been the city itself and the flood scene down its foremost road. The latter value them over $300k.
27. The man taking their plates at 56:40 is performed by Herb Kohler, the vastly profitable head of the Kohler Company. He and Costner have been mates — Kohler died in 2022 — and he was a part of a household who immigrated to this nation, began an organization, and carried it ahead as an independently owned firm recognized for the alternatives it provided its staff.
28. The line about Charley and Boss not with the ability to match their knuckle into the tea cups got here from Costner’s recollections of his father all the time speaking about bare-knuckle boxing or or telling younger Kevin he would possibly lose a knuckle if he reaches throughout the dinner desk yet one more time.
29. He likes to maintain one or two issues from a manufacturing as mementos, and right here it was the chloroform bottle from the physician’s home. “I also kept my guns.”
30. There was discuss of including a flashback scene on the beat the place Charley is asleep and probably dreaming within the physician’s home, however “I haven’t very many flashbacks work in my film career.” He provides that when he sees flashbacks they’re sometimes getting used to cowl up holes or points within the movie.
31. One of the actors who auditioned for the function of Sheriff Poole introduced a fiddle to play in the course of the audition, and whereas Costner ultimately went with James Russo for the function as a substitute, he borrowed that character trait for the character. Costner mentions that he thinks the actor was Ted Demme, greatest recognized for steering 2001’s Blow, but when so, Demme wouldn’t have been capable of take the function anyway. He died of a coronary heart assault in January 2002, and filming started on Open Range in June of that yr. (It’s solely potential I’m mishearing the identify as Costner solely says it as soon as and the one further context is that the actor was engaged on a sequence in Vancouver, BC on the time. Demme has 4 performing credit from round this era, however he has no tv sequence on his IMDB after 1997, although, so take into account this one a low possibly.)
32. The scene the place Charley picks up the mud he tracked into Sue’s home earlier than noticing her within the mirror is “this movie’s sex scene.”
33. He was stunned and disillusioned that the movie acquired an R ranking. “It didn’t have any sexuality, it didn’t have a language problem. I think they based that decision on our gunfight, which I think actually isn’t even as violent as a lot of movies out there.”
34. Costner needed to ADR himself at 1:34:46 as a result of he had misplaced his voice for over per week “although the people listening to this DVD might not believe it because I never shut up.” He hates the consequence.
35. One of the appeals of the script and movie for him was seeing this window of time the place these two cowboys really talked to one another. “They probably talked more with each other these last three or four days given the circumstances than they probably have in the nine years of riding together. The circumstances forced it.”
36. “I’m a slow study as an actor,” he says, including that he’s not that fast at studying his traces. He knew the very last thing he’d need whereas directing the movie, although, was worrying about his traces, so he made an effort to be taught all of them earlier than filming even started.
37. The massive gunfight within the again finish was filmed over a number of days, and to keep away from continuity points they added digital clouds to the blue sky.
38. He requested among the buildings be positioned very shut collectively in order that the area between them was minimal — which in flip made for extra putting imagery because the unhealthy guys come pouring by way of, and later, the place Charley hustles by way of. Members of the crew made the selection of widening them, pondering they have been doing him a favor, and he rapidly corrected them.
39. “I’ve always had a thing about reloading in movies,” he says, and he hates when characters shoot off extra pictures than the gun really holds. That stated, he admits that the beginning of the shootout sees Charley unload on a man by “fanning” his revolver and firing greater than six pictures. “The fanning is such a mythical part of the western, and I hadn’t seen it in such a long time, that I had no way of justifying other than hell’s bells I wanted to do it.”
40. He loves the beat the place Boss shoots the unhealthy man by way of the wall with the blast sending him a number of toes to hit one other wall. “It was very important for me to have him twitch when he hit the ground. Probably the best single kill I’ve ever seen in movies.”
41. The outhouse kill is slightly homage to Clint Eastwood, and he mentions that the bit in Waterworld (1995) the place his character hangs off the boat and extends out his physique was a nod to the very acrobatic Burt Lancaster.
42. One of the issues he felt was vital was to comply with the principle road shootout with a take a look at the aftermath. “There are consequences for violence. Horses get killed, people are injured, the little girl with the father talking to her, there are psychological repercussions that come from violence, and while conventional wisdom is ‘come on, let’s get on with it,’ I wanted to touch on it.”
43. It was urged to him that he ought to minimize the scene after the battle with Sue going to the saloon to see Charley, however this wasn’t Costner’s first rodeo as director. Or as a person.
44. He shares a couple of ideas on screenwriting together with how his collaborations go away him unconcerned with who contributed which beat or added the very best scenes. The script is the precedence, and to that finish, he says specializing in writing the very best screenplay and characters you possibly can is vital because it will increase the chances of you attracting the very best performing skills on the earth. “That makes your job [as director] so much easier.”
45. “Making a movie, there’s a lot of people that can weigh in, and probably one of the hardest thing to do in American cinema today is figure out how to end your movie.” He says that there have been probably a couple of different factors the place the movie might have ended, however “I wanted to see those two together more than I wanted to imagine them together.”
Best in Context-Free Commentary
“Our gunshots are exceptionally loud, which they are in real life.”
“I purposely didn’t try to speed things up.”
“I don’t do that very much, I don’t settle.”
“It’s a footnote in history, but we’ll probably never know how many Americans, immigrants, actually died settling this country from just crossing and drowning in a river.”
“Making your way west was no easy thing. You died because a map was wrong.”
“Cowboys were like musicians, you didn’t necessarily wany your daughter to go out with one.”
“The movie, hopefully, to this point, has been a pleasant experience.”
“We’re not taking every opportunity to fight.”
“I could hear Robert’s voice in every line.”
“I love the movie, so it’s difficult to say which scene is my favorite.”
“Person breaks out a shotgun and it changes the dynamic of a gunfight right away.”
“Hey Becky, I got a raft, you wanna go out?”
“Sometimes showing violence is the best example of why not to have violence.”
“A movie doesn’t have to be what everybody wants.”
“And you end with big music because you’re done.”
“I think if I never made another movie, I would be happy that this was my last one.”
Final Thoughts on the Open Range Commentary
As I stated above, Open Range is a masterpiece. The western style dates again a full century and is loaded with brilliance, and I’d argue that Costner’s characteristic can maintain its personal towards the very best of them. Happily, the commentary is equally nice as Costner shares manufacturing anecdotes and technical particulars alongside greater concepts about westerns, cowboys, filmmaking, and extra. Bring on Horizon: An American Saga!
Read extra Commentary Commentary from the archives.
Related Topics: Commentary Commentary, Kevin Costner, Westerns
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