“Wait for it…”
“It’s coming…”
“Wait a minute…”
That’s what I thought for exactly 3 hours and 30 seconds (yes, that long) while watching Kevin Costner’s latest film, Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter 1.. However, “IT” never came.
I told the Warner Brothers people at the time that the only way I could think of to describe this movie was as a Western, a “Lord of the Rings” movie. Its scale, scope, ambition and cinematography were extraordinary.
So what exactly is “IT”?
Before we get into that, I want to analyze a bit about the structure of Hollywood movies. This isn’t difficult. In fact, screenplays follow a structure that has been used since the dawn of Western society. The Greeks divided stories into five parts. They called them pentalogies. “Penta” means “five” and “logia” means “discourse.”
The five-act structure was so effective that some of the greatest storytellers in history imitated it, and most of us learned about it through William Shakespeare in high school English class, where we learned about the five essential stages that make up a good story structure.
It starts with a prologue: we meet the characters, learn who to root for, who the antagonist is, and what conflict will unfold.
Next comes the action: the protagonist faces adversity as the conflict mounts.
And then the climax: our brave heroes use the tools they’ve learned to resolve the conflict.
Next comes the downward movement. The result is achieved.
And finally, the conflict is over, and the future is clear for our brave heroes.
It’s simple. It’s effective. And it’s stood the test of time, from the Greeks to Shakespeare.
But this is not how modern Hollywood tells stories: Hollywood screenwriters replaced the entire five-part structure with: Critical drinkers He likes to call it “The Message.”
This is the “IT” I’ve been waiting for over three hours for.
How will the message be conveyed this time? Who is the oppressed? How does a repressed character, presumably a strong-willed minority woman, who suddenly finds the time to blatantly flirt with her co-star, teach all of us mortals in the theater that we are all inherently evil?
It’s inevitable, and Hollywood doesn’t even try to hide it anymore: Humanity has spent millennia perfecting the craft of good storytelling, and yet an awakened collective consciousness has dismantled that achievement in a matter of minutes, relatively speaking.
But every once in a while, a good story slips through the Cultural Marxist blockade, and that didn’t happen with Horizon.
Costner’s film is truly epic, to say the least. I told a Warner Bros. rep at the time that the only way I could think of to describe it was as a Lord of the Rings Western. Its scale, scope, ambition and cinematography are extraordinary. And sometimes that’s its greatest weakness.
When watching Horizon, you have to keep in mind that it’s essentially a three-hour warm-up film.
In terms of the five-stage process, this film is very much exposition-driven, introducing several different stories that at first seem unrelated, but little by little you begin to understand what Costner is weaving together.
I’d call this a slow-paced film that unfolds over the course of four sequels (yes, it’s that epic). To be fair, it’s not that slow overall. The action scenes are intense. But hey, it’s a three-hour movie. There are bound to be ups and downs, but I think Costner could have made it shorter and cut out some of the downs.
I can’t say enough about the cinematography in this film. The old west explodes before your eyes in a way never before seen in a Western. Instead of watching a wagon train go by and scattering dust into the air, you get the taste of dirt in your mouth and wipe it from your eyes.
But through it all, the most refreshing part of “Horizon” is its absence. The frontiersmen and cowboys aren’t portrayed as epitomes of white colonial rage and evil. The Native Americans aren’t portrayed as greedy savages.
The film makes it clear that life in the emerging nation was tough for everyone – strong men and women from all sides fought and died for it – and the action scenes are unrelenting in their depiction of brutality.
But humans are not just caricatures of extremes: good and evil. Horizon clearly strives to show the duality of the human psyche. Cowboys and pioneers killed Indians, and often each other. Indians killed pioneers. They fought and killed other tribes. Costner’s epic tale depicts all this in devastating detail, but it is also quick to paint the other side of the coin. There are no simple Hollywood-style “good guys” or “bad guys” on either side, whether on the side of the rifle, revolver, or knife.
So far, Costner seems unselfconsciously committed to portraying the harsh, unforgiving times that laid the foundations of the greatest nation this planet has ever known. Founding that country wasn’t easy for anyone. It was hard for the settlers. It was hard for the Native Americans. But for all those who rose to the challenge, destiny lay on the horizon.
Editor’s note: Read Christian Toto’s review of “Horizon” here.
