Kevin Costner Opens Western Saga 'Horizon' at Cannes – Winnipeg Free Press

CANNES, France (AP) – A month before Kevin Costner hits theaters with the first installment of his multi-chapter Western “Horizon: An American Saga,” the actor-director is at the Cannes Film Festival to unveil his self-funded passion project. .

“My two kids are fishing now,” Costner said with a smile during an interview at the Carlton Hotel. “And the three girls got into the boat. My father is here, he is in a hurry for his movie.”

The film is actually two, or if Costner is lucky, four. The three-hour film “Horizon: Part One” was released by Warner Bros. It will be shown in theaters on June 28. “Chapter Two” will be released after August 16. Costner has scripts for the third and fourth installments ready.

This is Costner's fourth time directing, following 1990's Dances with Wolves, 1997's The Mailman and 2003's The Open Range. But when he did, Costner usually did so with an obvious passion for the story and the character. This is reflected in the sprawling epic Horizon, featuring Sienna Miller, Abbey Lee, Sam Worthington and Costner.

It's also Costner's biggest gamble yet. He mortgaged his beachfront Santa Barbara, California estate to raise money for the $100 million-plus production. He's been trying to make a Horizon movie for over 30 years.

“I thank God for Cannes. “I'm an independent filmmaker and I'm alone here,” said Costner, whose film premieres Sunday. “So this is a very important moment for me because it's helping to raise awareness of the film. I don't have all the money in the world to show this movie. But this is where I have my time and my platform.”

Notes have been slightly edited for brevity.

AP: What were your calculations when deciding to invest your money in Horizon? What makes it valuable to you?

COSTNER: You can only spend your life making your pile bigger. And I wasn't very good at it. I'm like everyone else, I want it to be big. But not at the expense of not doing what I love. Unless someone helps me do this and I strongly believe in its entertainment value – I have a commercial in mind. But I don't let it overshadow the entertainment value and essence I'm trying to portray. I try not to let this fear control my instincts on any level. I don't want to live like that. If I watch a movie about me and think, “Oh, don't risk your money and do something like that,” what's that (flaw).

AP: Was it an easy decision? Have you looked around for your beachfront Santa Barbara property and asked for a lien on it?

COSTNER: No, it wasn't an easy decision, but it was one I had to make. Wow, why do I have to do this? I think I'm making mainstream entertainment. I don't know how you felt about the movie, but I felt like it was really mainstream. I do not consider myself an avant-garde type of person. But I think I have a little left. I want to see (in the scene on the wagon trail in the movie) the woman bathing because it's so obvious that she wants to be clean. If you were a woman, who wouldn't you want to be? But the next moment you realize it's against the rules, man. You may lose your life. So this scene was important to make the next scene important. For me, such a scene is as important as a gun fight. And if a scene like this doesn't want to be in a mainstream movie…

AP: Could this be a series?

COSTNER: I think so. It will be. They cut it into a hundred pieces, you know what I mean? After those four, they'll have a 13, 14-hour movie, and it's going to be 25 hours of TV, and they'll do whatever they do. This is how we live our lives, but they also take this form. It was important to me, I was sure it was. And I was the one who paid for it.

AP: The second film opens two months after the first film. What appealed to you about it?

COSTNER: The studio wanted to see it. I knew it would happen as quickly as every four or five months. It was probably easier. But these people feel like they can remember the former and relate to the latter. I edited what happens to all of them.

AP: Since doing “Dances With Wolves,” you've done “Open Range” and starred in “Wyatt Earp” and “Yellowstone.” What brings you back to the West?

COSTNER: I like to see the men's behavior make sense. I make films for men. I'm sure there are great female characters because that's really important to me. Women are really the backbone of our film. I don't like boys being stupid. I like the little boy who (fleeing the attack) took two horses and effectively saved his life. I love seeing people stay true to themselves in difficult situations. The bravery of a little boy saying “I'll stay by your side, father” is a truly powerful moment. It's my son (Hayes Costner) and it was really hard to watch.

AP: In dramatizing the settlers' quest for the West, what Native American perspective did you want to take into account?

COSTNER: Confusion about it. “If we salt the ground with their dead, the wagons won't come,” says the colonel. When you're so far away, you can't go. When people said goodbye on the East Coast, they didn't come back. Thus, the misunderstanding of the Americans was that they could not understand it. Usually if you kill enough people they won't bother you. But these Americans, these people were carrying leaflets saying you can have this land. In every century, every decade, there are salespeople who sell something they really don't know what it is. It's just America. It's just a giant experiment of hope.

AP: But America means different things to different people, right? The film also features immigrants from China.

COSTNER: When they weren't useful, they were just thrown away. And they needed to build a sense of community, and they came in droves. They got together and were very hardworking. They remain the wealthiest people in that town until a tipping point and racism sets in and suddenly they too are gone. You look. That's how it would be in real life.

AP: My understanding is that there is a tragedy here. Do you see westward expansion and your film as a tragedy?

COSTNER: There's an undeniable tragedy to it. And there are divisions. You will see that the whole tribe is divided. You see that the father lost his son.

AP: Have you started shooting the third installment yet?

COSTNER: I shot for three days, and I have to ask for money to finish it. I need to figure out what else I can do to make this happen. But I don't expect how people feel. I know what it is, and I think if people love the movie experience, there's a really good chance they're going to want to see the next movie. That's all I can believe. The sensible thing to do would be to wait, but I don't think I'm ready to wait.

AP: Some of the issues with “Yellowstone” seem to be timing and scheduling. How do you feel about your future on that series at this point?

COSTNER: “Yellowstone” was very important in my life. I really loved this world and what we were able to do in five seasons. I thought it would be one, but it was five. I was ready to do three more – five, six and seven – but it didn't happen. Certain things happened and he didn't. So the idea of ​​going back, I'm open to that idea. But it's based on everything that the first three or four were based on, the scripts.