Kevin Costner | 3hr 1min
Though promised as a prosperous homestead for westward-bound families, the Arizonan frontier town Horizon is marked with bloodshed from the moment its foundations are outlined. Even after its surveyors are brutally massacred by an Apache war band asserting their territory, colonisers continue to flock to the flourishing settlement, ignoring the danger which skirts its borders. It shouldn’t come as a shock then that four years after its establishment, the same tribe should launch a devastating assault, burning the settlement to the ground and slaughtering its residents. From this horrific violence, Kevin Costner spins out several narrative threads among Horizon’s survivors – but at such an early point in his epic saga, even this major incident cannot account for every subplot that wanders through the film.
Maybe this is to be expected though from a film which announces itself as the first chapter of a four-part series, each instalment of which is expected to be roughly 3 hours long. The Lord of the Rings series seems to be a fair comparison in terms of story structure, though where The Fellowship of the Ring brought a sense of closure to its lengthy narrative setup, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is not so robustly constructed. Costner is playing the long game here, promising to eventually intersect subplots that for now dangle without any destination in sight, and steadily working through each at a patient pace.
As such, the fact that Horizon faltered at the box office and failed to make up its extravagant budget is no real surprise. The genre subversions that we typically find in contemporary Westerns like Django Unchained or The Revenant are nowhere to be found here, and the extraordinary run time has undoubtedly turned away many who weren’t already put off by its Chapter 1 subtitle. Perhaps if Horizon was released in the era of Dances with Wolves, it would have found a more receptive audience, though it is also clear that Costner’s adoration of John Ford roots his narrative even deeper in Hollywood history.
The stories which emerge from the Apaches’ raid on Horizon draw the strongest parallels to Ford’s films here, seeing the widowed Frances Kittredge and her daughter Elizabeth survive the massacre by hiding underground, and eventually find refuge at Camp Gallant with a detachment of the United States Army. Despite some initial tension around non-interventionist beliefs, romance begins to bloom between Frances and First Lieutenant Gephardt, while Elizabeth warms to the younger outposted soldiers. With their dark blue uniforms pressed against Utah’s red rock landscapes, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon asserts itself as the primary influence on this storyline, as Costner delicately considers the complicated relationship between love and duty.
Also carried over from Ford’s 1949 film are the moral divisions that emerge within Native American tribes, yet which are considered with far more nuance in Horizon. Where the older generation promotes co-existence with the settlers, emerging leader Pionsenay seeks to drive them from their territory, fearing that his people will soon be displaced. Anticipating reprisal from the elders, he and his war band that attacked Horizon strike out on their own, clouding their idealism with visions of war and retribution.
Meanwhile on the other side of this struggle, the vengeance which orphaned survivor Russell seeks against the Apaches effectively models him after virulently racist gunslinger Ethan Edwards from The Searchers. With his parents dead, the closest Russell has to mentors are the two hunters he has teamed up with, both driven by a hateful bloodlust that risks sending the young boy down a similar path. When they fail to successfully track the raiders who destroyed Horizon, the nonchalance with which they resolve to simply ambush whatever other Native American village they come across is chilling. The question of Russell’s own moral conscience hangs heavy over his scenes, setting up a compelling character arc that will likely resonate through future sequels.
The dusty plains of the Old West are clearly ripe for mythologising, and Costner continues to use its gorgeous vistas in a disconnected subplot concerning a wagon train set for Horizon, although its late entry into the film leaves it severely underdeveloped. Instead, it is our complete departure from the badlands altogether which ushers in a far stronger storyline, trekking across the snowy alpine terrains of Montana and the vibrant autumnal forests of Wyoming. After shooting her abusive partner, escaping with her baby Sam, and adopting a new name, Lucy inadvertently attracts the psychotic Sykes Brothers to the peaceful town she has set up a new life in. It seems inevitable that the burgeoning relationship between her roommate Marigold and horse trader Hayes should get tangled up in this looming danger as well, eventually forcing the couple to take Sam and flee town.
Casting himself in the role of Hayes, Costner does not necessarily stand out within this enormous ensemble, yet he still channels the passion he has for the project at large into this lonely, vulnerable gunslinger. Together with Marigold and Sam, the three become a makeshift family who discover a rare sort of love, and whose paths begin to verge on Horizon towards the end when a promotional leaflet winds up in their hands.
The plot movements are slow, and the scope is so vast we may doubt whether they payoff will be worth it, but from Chapter 1’s foundations it seems unlikely that Costner is navigating this story without a grand vision. His use of natural light and helicopter shots offer plenty for us to visually feast on while the pieces gradually fall into place, as does his impressive array of rural locations, defining his historical legend not by a single town, but by America as a whole. With all these elements considered together, Horizon announces itself as a project of ambition so majestically bloated that it threatens to dilute its own focus, yet which still etches out the beginnings of a sprawling, mythological saga refusing to be defined by a single perspective.
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is currently streaming on Stan, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
