Sienna Miller. “On the Horizon, Kevin Costner gives voice to women”

He said himself. “I felt itHorizon It wouldn’t be interesting if there weren’t female characters.” Therefore, Kevin Costner has multiplied them in his new film, Titan Mural, with chapter 1 coming to our screens on July 3rd, followed by part two on September 11th (two other feature films are due to follow in the coming years ). The actor and director has been mulling over this project since the 1980s and is finally putting his personal money into it to finally see the light of day. The idea to create a Western in the purest tradition of the genre, with great spaces, duels and cavalry, to tell the story of how the United States was built, and especially this “Far West” is so often imagined, approached differently. communities at the dawn of civil war.

From a caravan of immigrants from the East to the Indian tribes trying to fight or coexist with them, including a lone cowboy (Kevin himselfall distant stares and frowns) accompanied by a prostitute (Abby Lee); Horizon – An American Saga – Chapter 1 follows the destinies of the characters as they struggle against the vagaries of fortune and often the violence on which their country was built. At the forefront are women who insist on their choice and freedom. Meeting the actresses who play them at the Cannes Film Festival, where Horizon presented as a world premiere, out of competition.

Challenge

They all remember an extraordinary experience, primarily on a physical level. Sienna Miller plays a young mother, a member of a pioneer group, who must find shelter with her daughter in a tunnel at the risk of drowning after an attack of incredible violence; “This scene was incredibly difficult, but also very important. for me, because when I read the script, it was a moment that I loved, remembers the British actress. It’s my most intense memory because it was all so real. We were really buried under the rubble. But it was great.” Ella Hunt and Isabelle Furman, who play two young women who are part of a caravan crossing virgin US soil, recall the extreme temperatures and the mud, “a lot of mud,” in which they trudged for weeks. But also the times when the machinery that transported them between the two shores was too slow, they would attach their hero mounts to speed up time. Or the beauty of the endless meadows, which the Australian abbot Lee has not forgotten.

So many challenges that the atmosphere of the shoot and the personality of their director allowed them to accept in the same spirit; “Kevin created an orchestra and made us feel like we were a part of it every day,” Jena Malone explains. , who plays a woman struggling with greedy and abusive brothers in the frigid Wyoming winter. “We were in the middle of nowhere, and it really felt like we were moving as one big organism.” Ella Hunt, who plays a delicate young bride, not yet fully aware of the dangers that await her, especially remembers one sentence uttered by the film director: “He told me. “There are days when I won’t be at my best. Others or the turn will be yours. But I promise to always be by your side and give you the best conditions to get there.” I think I cried that day.”

New stories

In Horizon, women are prey, companions, mothers and pillars at the same time. Like the role of Sienna Miller. “Frances is very resilient, very strong. He makes the best of a pretty dire situation. He is torn from his home, it’s just that his journey to the West is dangerous, frightening. But I love her bravery, her bravery, her altruism. She somehow embodies all women.” That the western has often had very little representation. “Kevin Costner gives voice to women,” emphasizes the actress. “We’ve all seen a lot of Westerns, but they rarely capture the female experience. Focusing on this point of view, giving it its full place, I find it very generous. Kevin does it for the natives (one of whom is played by actress Vasey Chief, who learned the Apache language for the role, editor’s note), for the immigrants… It’s a very unbiased view, everyone has something to say. . And that’s great.”

An approach also lauded by American Isabelle Fuhrman, for whom we can’t wait to see where she takes her portrayal of a young hothead who has decided wisely not to stay in the tank top imposed on her by her pants and corset; Westerns, large parts of the story are silent. This film is a gift for us, for our children. As an audience member, I’m both excited to see a genre I’m very familiar with, where I know exactly what to expect, while also surprised by the soothing effect of what we’re never told. We finally got to see our mothers depicted in these stories. Our mothers and our mothers’ mothers.” Kevin Costner still has three movies to get there.