This ain’t Kevin Costner’s first rodeo.
“We have a tendency to think of westerns as — they’re simple. They are not simple. They’re complicated.”
So said Kevin Costner at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, during a press conference tied to the world premiere screening of his latest effort as a multi-hyphenate: Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1. And the journalists in attendance hung on his every word because, hey, when it comes to westerns, this is definitely a man who knows what he’s talking about.
In honor of Horizon’s theatrical debut, we’re looking back at four top westerns starring the multitalented actor, director, and producer.
1. Dances with Wolves
Remember: Costner earned an Academy Award for directing the epic 1990 western drama Dances with Wolves, in which he starred to perfection as John Dunbar, a suicidal Union Army officer who’s befriended by the Lakota Sioux, and begins a new and better life in their company as he helps them battle Pawnee warriors. Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, describing it as “a simple story, magnificently told ... [with] the epic sweep and clarity of a western by John Ford,” and lauding it for seeing the Sioux in general — and Lakota chief Kicking Bird (Oscar nominee Graham Greene) in particular — “as people, not as whooping savages in the sights of an Army rifle.”
2. Open Range
More recently, Costner did double duty as director and star of Open Range (2003), a box-office hit that had him cast as Charley Waite, a grizzled cattle-driver with a history of violence. When a corrupt town boss sends his goons after them, Charley warns his more peaceable partner, Boss Spearman (Robert Duvall), to expect the worst when guns are drawn: “Once it starts, it’s gonna be messy like nothing you ever seen.” And he tells Sue Barlow (Annette Bening), the doctor’s daughter he has come to love, “Men are gonna get killed here today, Sue, and I’m gonna kill ‘em.” Trust us: He’s not exaggerating.
3. Silverado
Costner still speaks enthusiastically about his breakthrough role in director Lawrence Kasdan’s rousing 1985 western Silverado (1985), in which he rode tall as part of a heroic quartet that also included Kevin Kline, Danny Glover and Scott Glenn. Silverado showcased Costner in the attention-grabbing role of Jake, a skirt-chasing firebrand who draws guns and makes passes with the same exuberant gusto.
A relative newcomer when Silverado first hit the silver screen, he gives an exciting and ingratiating performance that every so often subtly suggests there’s a heart of darkness beating beneath Jake’s jocular bravado. Note how he doesn’t provide the beaming smile you might expect after he bests two foes at once in a shootout.
4. Wyatt Earp
Costner didn’t smile much at all throughout the entirety of Laurence Kasdan’s next Western, Wyatt Earp (1994), a western epic that was saddled with the burden of spectacularly bad timing — it was released within months of the much better received Tombstone — but managed to earn plaudits for Costner’s fearless performance in the title role. The superstar was tasked with persuasively evolving from ingenuously charming young husband and law student to cold-blooded avenger and living legend. He did all of that, and more, in a richly detailed, scrupulously subdued performance. All the while, however, Costner made no attempt to soften the hard edges and harsh temperament of the Old West icon. He was remote and finally unknowable as this revisionist biopic’s heart of darkness.
Costner comes across as a good deal more personable, even while he’s being deadly serious, in Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1, the first film in what he plans as a four-part overview of life, struggle and death during the settling of the American West. (Chapter 1 opens June 28 in theaters; Chapter 2 arrives in August.) He heads an impressively strong ensemble cast as Hayes Ellison, a taciturn horse trader whose life changes drastically after he is drawn into a gunfight with a stranger in a small Wyoming Territory town. As a result, he becomes a not-entirely-willing participant in a multilayered drama that is… well, pretty dang complicated.
Discover more about Horizon: An American Saga in our July 2024 cover story.
