‘Horizon’ marks Kevin Costner’s epic journey back to the big screen

MANILA, Philippines — Kevin Costner has made his own epic journey back to the big screen as the creator, director, co-writer, producer and star of “Horizon: An American Saga,” touted as his “most ambitious”
film yet.

Chapter 1 of “Horizon,” which according to its synopsis chronicles the “lure of the Old West and how it was won — and lost — through the blood, sweat and tears of many,” premiered on Friday, June 28, with Chapter 2 arriving in cinemas in August.

The Philippine STAR recently attended a virtual interview with Costner and his all-star cast, such as Sienna Miller, Luke Wilson and Sam Worthington. The Oscar-winning director-actor was asked why this very “American story” about the expansion and settlement of the American West, set against the backdrop of pre- and post-Civil War years in the 1860s, can appeal to the global audience.

In response, Costner stressed how movies hold the power to break through cultural boundaries by way of universal themes and shared experiences. “Horizon” can resonate with anyone interested in stories of exploration, ambition, and clash of cultures, regardless of their background.

“I think movies always have that chance to relate. We’re not really all that different,” the 69-year-old star said.

“Maybe not sharing the same language or customs, but if you think about America, it’s really not that old in comparison to the rest of the world in a sense. In a sense, I say. And what that really means is we started to get news about America about 400 years ago. It was doing quite nicely without us, and America was settled by Europeans, by people coming from around the world.”

Kevin Costner takes on multiple roles in his directorial comeback in ‘Horizon: An American Saga.’ He’s credited as the creator, director, co-writer, producer and star of what has been touted as his ‘most ambitious’ film yet.

He pointed out how America, despite its relatively young history compared to other parts of the world, became a symbol of opportunity and promise for many seeking a new life (and if we may add, this is something that many Filipinos can obviously relate to).

“If they were able to make it across that Atlantic. They started to understand that there was a promise out here, that there was a land so big that it went so far that they could have what they didn’t have in Europe, what they didn’t have, what they just didn’t have,” he said.

“It was like, I refer to it as the Garden of Eden. And what they didn’t realize, there was a people (Native Americans) here who had been flourishing for 15,000 years. And these two ideas came into conflict from sea to shining sea and our story deals with that. But the people that crossed America, make no mistake, came from Europe.”

“Horizon” is the just the latest of the Hollywood star’s contributions to the American Western genre throughout his career, from “Silverado,” “Wyatt Earp,” to “Dances with Wolves,” “Open Range” and “Yellowstone.” It also marks his directorial return in over two decades and 34 years since he produced and directed for the first time in the Best Picture Oscar-winning “Dances with Wolves.”

But “Horizon” is easily considered the boldest of his filmmaking ventures. During the presscon it was revealed Costner already envisioned this as a four-part sprawling epic — or some 12 hours of viewing time — and that he’s determined to see this through, notwithstanding the performance of the first installment at the box-office.

There’s a reason why he chose to present the narrative this way: “When I do a story, I don’t wanna stop ‘til it’s finished. And when I look at it, I try to understand what it was.

Horizon’ is a ‘journey, not a plot movie’ about the expansion and settlement of the American West.

“And it was really a journey. It’s not a plot movie. And so, it was four. And, you know, my idea was not to wait to see if the first one was successful. I believe in telling this story. The only way this is successful, in my mind, is that it’s complete. Listen, we’re all given crayons in school and we each make a picfture and it looks different.

“And there’s different directors, and I don’t know what my bag is. But, you know, I just do it a little differently, and that’s just the way it goes.”

Interestingly, the story has been with Costner since the ‘90s. When asked during the presscon how much the story changed from its early days of inception to what is now seen in Chapter 1, he said, “1998 was a single movie, and when I wasn’t able to make that one, I decided I would make four more. The logic of that is purely American, I think. And what I did essentially was just re-engineer that first story, which is almost the way a lot of westerns are.”

He said, “It starts with a town, always a town, and we forget that the people that were there first, that when a stake went in the ground, and the first image that we have in ‘Horizon’ is a stake going in the ground, and out come the ants. And it was a metaphor, again, for the chaos that we started.

“And I think I had a chance to kind of ‘Wait a second. Let’s talk about how Denver started; how Tucson started, how San Francisco, Saint Louis.’ You go right down the way.

“We displaced people. And so, I really wanted to start at the beginning, and I took the characters in that original story and simply were able to re-engineer eight or nine of them, so there’s a fifth story.

“Don’t get me going. There’s a fifth story that, maybe someday, I’ll make. But it led me to a greater story. It led me to a better adventure. I feel like everything they’re talking about is real. The West is not a land in Disneyland, it was real.”

How did Costner’s love affair with Westerns begin? He shared that the ‘60s film “How the West was Won” fired up his imagination, recalling as well how watching that on the wide screen felt like.

Costner (righmost, on the set of his latest film) decided to spend about $38 million of his own money to fund his passion project after he couldn’t get any funding.

Photos courtesy of Parallax Studios, Saga Film Studios and Axinite Digicinema

“I was seven years old, and that really is the essence of movies, isn’t it, really? That we, for some reason, go and watch these things in the dark. We have all done it,” Costner said.

“We were taken there as children. It’s the one place that our parents allow us to go by ourselves. ‘Cause for some reason, the theater was considered safe. It’s where we learned how to maybe kiss. That’s how you do it,” he quipped.

“We know the difference between honorable, and we see great heroism. We see a level of cowardice. We see a level of love and compassion. For as phony as movies are, there’s really a lot to learn from them. We kinda learn who we want to be and who we don’t want to be.”

Costner also weighed in on how his acting work helped his creative process and the transition from actor to auteur overall.

“I don’t know how it helps me. I mean, you know, I went to Groundlings (improv theater in L.A.) to understand building of character and things like that. I mean, I don’t want to bore everybody with the process,” he shared.

“But I know one thing. I can’t get actors unless I have great parts. And actors have a vanity. They want to live forever. And there’s only one way you do that. You’re in a movie that can hold up that idea. Movies can live forever. And the actors that came to ‘Horizon’ will be a part of this forever in their life.”