Appaloosa

Bob Thompson: Best bets at this year's film fest
Posted: September 03, 2008, 5:35 PM
by Brad Frenette

Conventional wisdom at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival suggested that the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men and Jason Reitman’s Juno deserved some Oscar love, but both would get the kiss off on nomination day.

So much for being jaded. No Country picked up major trophies including best picture. Juno surprised many by earning four nominations including a best actress nod for Haligonian Ellen Page and an Oscar for Diablo Cody’s script.

Other 2007 festival films Oscar honoured included Michael Clayton, Atonement, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Eastern Promises and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Here is the Oscar tip sheet for this year’s festival, based on early previews and positive pre-release buzz. All of it offered with the understanding that sometimes wishful thinking just isn’t enough.

The Secret Life of Bees Set in 1960s South Carolina, the film based on the popular book has a conscience and a voter-friendly point of view covering kindness and friendship in a cruel racist world. That might mean multiples in the nomination department with special attention going to Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson — again.

The Duchess Keira Knightley must think nice Oscar thoughts when she shows up here. Previously, her performances in the festival’s Pride & Prejudice and Atonement went on to earn her best actress nominations. Looks like this charming period-piece adornment will make it three.

Burn After Reading Despite early previews from disapproving scolds, the Coen Brothers’ film showcases some rewarding portrayals. Especially notable and definitely nomination worthy is Brad Pitt’s disarmingly dull fitness dude who gets in too deep.

Appaloosa An oater featuring the intense dudes Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris as cowboys in the Old West trying to get along. Who can resist those stares? Pick one for a nod.

Blindness Julianne Moore can see in the sci-fi thriller. Others can’t. For Moore, that’s sometimes enough.

Miracle of St. Anna Spike Lee’s Second World War profile of an African-American unit in Italy just could get some Academy recognition for the writer-director’s brave new genre switch.

Pride And Glory In the corrupt cop melodrama, Jon Voight as the police patriarch cries, slurs drunkenly and pleads plaintively. Who could ask for anything more?

It Might Get Loud It will get a documentary Oscar nod for Davis Guggenheim’s history of the rock guitar as told and played by three generations of rock ’n’ jagermeisters — Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White.
– Bob Thompson

Not a very nice review

Appaloosa Review

By Keith Uhlich

"...the various symbols never coalesce into metaphor so much as they stand stagnant and hollow at the edges of the frame."

The strongest image in Appaloosa: a mountain lion overlooking a steam-engine locomotive, a feral beast contemplating industry and its movements (forward and away, receding into the expansive horizon). It also illustrates the disconnect between nearly every element of director/co-writer/star Ed Harris' adaptation of Robert B. Parker's novel, exploring the friendship between gun-for-hire Virgil Cole (Harris) and his right-hand man Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) - the various symbols never coalesce into metaphor so much as they stand stagnant and hollow at the edges of the frame.

Unsurprising for an actor assuming the directorial reins (his second such effort after 2000's Pollock), Harris indulges his performers to the point that they each seem to be inhabiting a different movie. Mortensen is all mustache and soul patch, asked to drone an embarrassingly nail-on-the-head voiceover at film's opening and close. Harris himself trades on the opaque, internalized psychosis of his brilliant turn in Alex Cox's Walker (except in the presence of the opposite sex when he becomes a stuttering, rom-com befuddled mess). And as Allie, an out-east pianist come to town to start anew, Renee Zellwegger is downright embarrassing: she's supposed to be the complicated, sexual heart of the piece, but her apple-cheeked smile-'n'-squint routine is more off-putting than alluring (and it hardly helps, besides, that Zellwegger's face now seems permanently fused - Botox I 'spect - into a rigid Joan Crawford fright mask).

The stellar supporting cast - which includes Jeremy Irons (as murder-minded ranch-hand Randall Bragg), Timothy Spall (as a foppish local politco, always with the indignant glares), and Lance Henriksen (as one half of a team of bounty hunter brothers) - makes little impression beyond the cliched poses of western lore. When Irons appears in the shadowy doorway of his isolated cabin in the film's prologue, it suggests a reverse-angle Searchers (he doesn't emerge into the landscape so much as the landscape waits, apprehensively, for him, a slave to his each and every action), but the character's sense of menace steadily evaporates until he becomes, by Appaloosa's end, an empty representation of the take-no-prisoners outlaw remade, via the trappings of industry, as a cowardly suit-and-tie businessman.

The change is hardly believable, and this extends to each of the characters in Appaloosa, all of whom move as the narrative moment dictates, with little heed paid to internal psychology or emotional resonance - they're flimsy paper dolls defined and bedeviled, and ultimately trampled, by cut-out period apparel.


UGO Rating
Writing: D+
Direction: D+
Performances: C
Visual Appeal : C
Overall: C-

Vitals

Release Date: September 19th, 2008 (limited)/October 3rd, 2008 (wide)
Studio : New Line Cinema
Director: Ed Harris
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellwegger, Ed Harris, Jeremy Irons, Timothy Spall, and Lance Henriksen
Genre: Western
MPAA Rating: R

A new poster:

Phoenix wrote:

A new poster:

That's so cool!!!!
Thanks, Jen,

From this bristol.co.uk:

Jeremy: Ed is rare and surprising

Friday, September 05, 2008, 18:36

It was a Friday morning like no other as journalists made a date with Renee Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris, who kicked off the first of the Toronto International Film Festival's press conferences.

Speaking about their new Western film, Appaloosa, based on the Robert Parker novel, the star-studded cast revealed that they had no qualms about saying no to the part.

"It was a very easy decision. I'm a big admirer of Ed's and it's a dream for an Englishman to be playing in a Western," said Jeremy.
Renee recalled: "I was working on Leatherheads at the time and I got a call from Ed.

Viggo added: "It's hard to get good Westerns. 99 percent of them are horrible - I won't name them. But you also get good ones and the ones that are good are really good. This one has the makings of a great one.

Ed, who wrote, directed and starred in it, hopes that audiences will like it.

"The film was made to be enjoyable," he said.

"The story is well told yet it still takes its time. It's about friendship, trust, loyalty and sacrifice. It's a roughly elegant film."

Jeremy added: "What's special about this film is that Ed read the book, then wrote, directed and starred in it. He takes it all the way. That's rare and surprising."

From thisiscroydentoday.co.uk:

Tacos were great, says Renee

Friday, September 05, 2008, 19:37

Renee Zellweger found herself drawn into a debate about tacos at the Appaloosa press conference in Toronto.

The award-winning actress was asked about how she found the tacos during the filming experience in New Mexico.

"The tacos are great," she said, as co-stars Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris laughed and stamped their feet.

In the western film, Renee plays an attractive widow who tries to win over the two characters played by Ed and Viggo.

"I questioned every day if I was sure who she was," she revealed.

"I enjoyed it. It would have been complicated if I lived in that period. Complicated and interesting."

While she has been acting for over 16 years, the Bridget Jones star, who had to strip off and jump into a river with a stranger on her first day, said making a film is still a challenge.

"Filming is always tough, it's always tough. It's madness, it really is. The miracle is when it gets to the end of the shooting schedule," she admitted.

"But that's part of the fun too," she added.

You're welcome Vigs

From the Los Angeles Times:

ON THE SET

Ed Harris ramrods unconventional western 'Appaloosa'

By John Horn, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2008

GALISTEO, N.M. -- AUTHENTIC westerns feature authentic dirt -- muddy chaps, weather-beaten storefronts and hair that's far from blow-dry clean. But the dust storms that occasionally raged during the making of “Appaloosa” took actor-director Ed Harris’ old-fashioned gunslinger story from the realm of the genuine into the domain of the wind tunnel.

On a cool afternoon last October, Harris' filmmaking team was battling the dermabrasion elements as the director raced a quickly setting sun. Electricians hid behind goggles. Carpenters covered their mouths with surgical masks. A handful of the crew donned welders' visors. And pretty much everyone would spend a long time in the shower that night, trying to wash the fine grit out.

In addition to directing and co-writing the movie, Harris was playing Virgil Cole, who with partner Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) has taken charge of the frontier town of Appaloosa in an unspecified Southwestern state to defend it from the ruthless rancher Randall Bragg ( Jeremy Irons) and his malevolent gang. Toward the film's end, the habitually law-abiding Hitch decides he must use some extrajudicial tactics to square up accounts and prepares for a gunfight in front of the town's hotel.

As the scene unfolded, Mortensen stood rock solid, waiting to draw his Colt .45. And then his hat went flying away, a Frisbee on steroids. Harris reset the scene, and then cinematographer Dean Semler ("Dances With Wolves") ran out of film. "That's why I like to shoot digitally," he muttered to Harris.

As the light was rapidly failing, Mortensen walked into the frame again, and once more his hat sailed off. Mortensen cursed under his breath, and Harris said, "Screw it, let's do it again."

With the hat at last refusing to take wing and Hitch's victim dispatched, Mortensen (despite lots of equine work from "The Lord of the Rings" and "Hidalgo") in consecutive takes struggled to reload his gun, untie his horse and climb into his saddle.

"It's OK, take your time," Harris told Mortensen, although he knew the clock was ticking, as the sun hurried toward the horizon. "OK, we've got 30 seconds to get this right," Harris said coolly.

And as he spoke, the wind suddenly died down, Mortensen's hat, bullets and stirrups finally cooperated, and Hitch rode off into the sun-dappled distance. "Wow, that was nice," said Renée Zellweger, who plays Cole's love interest, Allison French. "Look at that man ride!"

'Things haven't changed'

FOR ALL of its faithfulness to the western genre -- for instance, the production found the right locomotive in Arkansas and brought it to New Mexico -- "Appaloosa" carries a pedigree with little relation to cattle drives and saloons.

The film, opening Sept. 19, is adapted from a novel by Robert B. Parker, a crime writer famous not for westerns but for the Spenser detective series. Harris' only other directing job, 2000's "Pollock," was a biographical drama about a troubled abstract painter. And "Appaloosa's" financiers, Groundswell Productions ("The Visitor," the upcoming "Milk") and New Line Cinema ("Rush Hour," "Austin Powers"), are respectively better known for contemporary dramas and high-concept crowd-pleasers.

But Harris, who adapted Parker's book with Robert Knott, says the "Appaloosa" story is deceptively current, even though the action unfolds in the 1880s.

In a change from Parker's book (there's now a sequel novel), Harris and Knott made the villain Bragg more modern monopolist than old-fashioned robber baron; he's sort of a Wall Street raider in spurs.

It's particularly noteworthy, Harris says, that when Bragg ends up in legal trouble, he is able to call in a favor from Washington and get out of jail -- presidential pardons are a lot older than Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

"To me, it's amazing that things haven't changed in 125 years," Harris says during a break in filming "Appaloosa" on the Old West street set built for 1985's "Silverado" that's now part of fashion designer Tom Ford's massive New Mexico ranch.

What attracted Harris to the novel -- and what Warner Bros. is banking on to market the film -- is the core relationship between Hitch and Cole. They have been together for years, work brilliantly as a team, but are willing to make sacrifices for the other's happiness.

"If Hitch and Cole have a problem, they deal with it," Harris says. "There's a lot of subtext, a lot of things that are not said." Adds Knott: "The movie is not sentimental. We don't apologize for the characters' behavior."

If "Appaloosa" is ultimately a modern buddy movie trapped in a landscape filled with horses and cows, the film's earliest potential backers didn't see it that way. "Nobody was willing to give us the money we needed -- they run through their numbers and say, 'We can't sell westerns,' " Harris says. "It felt like eternity trying to get it set up."

But unlike "Pollock," for which Harris had limited resources and had to help pay for its production out of his own pocket ("On the second day of filming, I knew I was in trouble," Harris says of his Oscar-winning film about the painter), the director had enough means from New Line and Groundswell to make the movie he wanted. "Although it's certainly not extravagant," he says of the $20-million budget.

Indeed, about the only thing excessive on the film was the wind. And when the time came, even it stepped into line.

From the Toronto Sun:


Viggo is one straight shooter




Like the laconic lawman he plays in Appaloosa, Viggo Mortensen doesn't mince words.

Case in point: His opinion of the majority of Hollywood dusters.

"Most westerns are pretty terrible as far as acting goes and just as art," the 49-year-old told journalists yesterday at a downtown news conference. "But this one was really well-written ... The ones that are good are really good. High Noon's an interesting one ... Man of the West -- that's an interesting movie with Gary Cooper when he's older. There are also newer ones like The Missouri Breaks. One-Eyed Jacks is very entertaining. Even very recently there's one that turned out very good and had some nice things about it. And like this one, at the heart of it, there's a relationship between two men ... and that's what Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall played in Open Range. And like our movie, as far as the gun-fighting and shooting, they handled that pretty well too in that it was kind of messy and direct a quick. It wasn't glamourizing the violence. It was just -- this is what happens. Either we'll live or we won't, that's how it goes. I liked it."

Based on the book by Robert B. Parker, Appaloosa stars Ed Harris and Mortensen as Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, two gunmen-for-hire enlisted by the titular town's residents to rid them of a corrupt rancher (Jeremy Irons) who lurks menacingly above the law. Renee Zellweger rounds out the cast -- and thickens the plot -- as Allie, the woman who wriggles herself between all these grizzled alpha males.

The western marks Harris's first directorial effort since 2000's Oscar-winning Pollock. In searching for an actor to portray his right-hand man, he said Mortensen was always his first choice.

"We'd worked together on A History of Violence and I really enjoyed working with him. Not only do I have a great respect for him as an actor but as a human being. He's a really decent guy. He's great on the set, treats everybody really respectfully. I just thought he'd be perfect. These were two guys who had to communicate a lot about being who they were and the knowledge of each other without really talking about it ... If Viggo couldn't have done it, I don't know if I would've made the movie. I got the script written, I showed it to him and said, 'Will you commit to do this?' and he said, 'Yes, I will.' And I said, 'Yeah?' and he goes, 'Yeah.' Basically, he gave me his word. He was extremely busy. He was doing other films, he's got a publishing company. We had to push back the filming to try and squeeze the time in. It would have been a lot easier for him in his life for him not to do the film. But he said he'd do it and he did."

For Mortensen, Appaloosa marks the latest in a string of projects removed from the contemporary world: whether it be the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Hidalgo or his forthcoming post-apocalyptic drama The Road based on the Cormac McCarthy novel. "It's a business. People have seen me in these movies and they've done well ... (But) I do enjoy period pieces, and do think that storytelling-wise or food-for-thought, philosophy, whatever it is, a lot of times, if you say something in the past or another place other than the place you're living in now, you can learn about yourself in a way that you don't if somebody just throws it in your face -- 'This is your life, this is cinema verite.' ... But (these films) are also fun. I like being outdoors. We had a lot of fun riding horses ... You get to get out of your clothes with a whole other world to live in."

An Old West shootout at the Toronto film festival

By Cameron French

TORONTO (Reuters) - Westerns have been around as long as moving pictures, and two movies at this week's Toronto film festival, including Ed Harris's "Appaloosa," show how the old standard has taken wildly different looks over a century.

From 1903's "The Great Train Robbery," westerns have traditionally painted a black-and-white picture of good versus bad, but Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" in 1992 updated -- or to some critics, redefined -- them by stripping away romance from a tale of a cold-blooded killer struggling to change his ways.

For actor-turned-filmmaker Harris, 57, who won acclaim with his 2000 directing debut "Pollock," the "revisionist" tag was far from his mind when tackling the genre he was raised on.

"I knew in my head when I was doing this that I didn't want to modernize it, I didn't want to make apologies for it. I didn't want it to be shot in a way that felt modern or new," Harris told Reuters.

In fact, he takes a straight-shooter's approach to adapting the Robert B. Parker novel about a pair of hired guns, Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), whose job is to protect a mining town from a powerful rancher.

Harris said he stepped back from the director's chair after "Pollock" to spend time with his daughter. But after reading the novel, he took an immediate liking to it, particularly the friendship between the hired guns.

Shot on a lean $20 million budget and a tight schedule, the film opens with a murder and ends with a shootout -- traditional plot points that bookend the story. In between, a woman (Renee Zellweger) threatens to come between the two men.

"Yeah, it's got action, and yes people get shot, and yes there's tension, but it's about human beings," said Harris.

Festival showcases familiar themes

New films stay true to winning genres

By DUANE DUDEK
Journal Sentinel film critic
Posted: Sept. 7, 2008

Toronto - The genre film is alive and well and living at the Toronto International Film Festival.

For reasons having to do with good things enduring - or a shortage of fresh ideas - filmmakers with films showing here have flocked to familiar forms like comfort food. And while each adheres to aspects of their respective genres, none of them renews them beyond recognition.

Spike Lee's "Miracle of St. Anna" is a World War II picture from the rarely seen perspective of an all-black unit, with the romanticized camaraderie and frictions among the usual cast of battlefield stereotypes.

Pewaukee native and screenwriter David Koepp's comedy "Ghost Town" is his third film as a director, each of which has been a ghost story of a sort. In "Ghost Town," which opens nationwide Sept. 19, he uses or ignores supernatural rules of the road as needed.
"Appaloosa" - directed by Ed Harris, who stars with Viggo Mortensen - has the open skies and stoic characters of every Western ever made.

At a news conference Friday, Harris and Mortensen discussed the vast library of Hollywood Westerns they consulted in making their film.

"A lot of them I'd seen before but started to look at in a different way," Harris said. " 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,' 'High Noon,' 'The Ox-Bow Incident,' 'My Darling Clementine.' Some of Clint (Eastwood)'s stuff. 'The Wild Bunch.' (Directors Edward) Dmytryk, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann. Just really immersed myself.
"Because one of my intentions . . . was not only to be authentic to the period, but to be authentic to the genre in terms of its classicism. I wasn't trying to modernize anything. Or make it exciting for anybody."

Mortensen, who wears the genre like a second skin, said most Westerns "are terrible."

"But the ones that are good are really good."

Among the latter, Mortensen cited Mann's "Man of the West," with Gary Cooper "when he's older," and "Missouri Breaks," with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson.

And 2003's "Open Range," with Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner, which, like "Appaloosa," "has at the heart of it a relationship between two men."

And, like Harris and Mortensen's film, the violence and gun-fighting are "messy, direct and quick."
"It didn't glamorize the violence. It was, 'This is what happens. We'll either live or we won't. And you don't always hit someone when you shoot.' "

As a director, Mortensen said, Harris "was trying to respect the genre. You do see the great landscapes, the design of the clothes and the design of the town. Then the trick was for him to put it all together in the editing room so that it wasn't a slow-paced movie. . . .
"Because it does have a lot of dramatic tension as you go along. But somehow, he also kept that leisurely pace that harkens back to those great old movies."

Mortensen delves into America's cowboy mentality

Co-star of Appaloosa sees classic archetype disappearing amidst shift in politics, values

Katherine Monk, Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, September 07, 2008

TORONTO - Just how fearless is Viggo Mortensen? Forget his naked fight scene in the movie Eastern Promises. The man is wearing a Habs T-shirt in the middle of Leaf Nation.

"Yeah. I've been booed on the street," says the man with the now-famous chiseled face as he speaks, barefooted, from a plush stage in Toronto's Royal York hotel.

"The press has been on me ... but I don't care. I love the team as a team -- not for any single player."

Mortensen says the concept of teamwork is important in any effort involving more than one person, which is why he sees professional sport and acting endeavours in the same light.

It's also why he wanted to work on Appaloosa, Ed Harris's revisionist western based on Robert B. Parker's novel about two gunslingers who clean up a frontier town riddled with bad guys and bullet holes.
"There isn't much difference between sport and drama -- except in sport, you don't know what's going to happen. But otherwise, it's about conflict and rising to the challenge before you. Both have props. Both have a stage, whether it's ice or a field. In a lot of ways, they're the same."

Right now, however, Mortensen is a little more articulate than your average jock in front of a microphone as he talks about his time with Harris on the Santa Fe set of Appaloosa, as well as the most recent turns in American politics.

In the film, Harris and Mortensen play Marshall and loyal sidekick, respectively. Both men carry guns, squint into the open plain and communicate with long, almost loving silences. They're the archetypal cowboys and the base layer of the American psyche that believes in riding into the sunset and heroic endings.

Mortensen says he loves the cowboy ideal as well as the cowboy esthetic, but the classic old codes are fast becoming obsolete as the western world faces a looming geopolitical shift as well as a climate crisis.

"We're going to hell in a handbasket. And just watching the recent (political) conventions, I'm amazed at how the very lack of discussion about certain issues is actually defining each candidate," he says, tucking his bare feet under one of the sofa cushions and nibbling on a chocolate bar.

"I made a disparaging remark recently about Sarah Palin -- and I won't repeat it -- but the thing that really bothered me about watching the Republicans was how they're trying to sell this idea of country first. It's the same thing Bush did. F--- the rest of the world, and I find that so weak. There's no real policy. They're philosophically bankrupt."

Mortensen acknowledges that most people don't like hearing bad news about the future, or the idea that change often demands personal sacrifice. He also acknowledges an affinity for dreaming big, and emphasizing the idea of possibility instead of pragmatics are particularly American obsessions -- beliefs forged in the red-hot crucible of the formula western.

Appaloosa revises that western code by offering up a few simple, but important, changes such as a complex female character played by Renee Zellweger, as well as a somewhat warped notion of justice that allows the lawmen to overlook certain parts of the law when it gets inconvenient.

The one thing that doesn't change is the importance of the gun -- in Mortensen's case, his character walks around with one of the biggest, longest firearms ever seen on film: an eight-gauge shotgun, or "punt gun."

"It was so big, I didn't know at first if I could walk around with it in the movie because it was so huge. Then we made the decision that he should walk around with it everywhere. The gun would be his bad-ass friend and sidekick," says Mortensen, who recently started his own publishing house dedicated to criticism, poetry and other forms generally poo-pooed by the publishing world.

"The gun is used as a sort of nuclear deterrent."

Mortensen says even the horses he and Harris ride in the film are bigger and taller than the rest of the ponies.

"When Ed and I cross the river and get to the other side (where all the baddies are waiting), our horses are that much bigger than everyone else's, so you get this psychological intimidation factor."
Mortensen says the tendency to puff up and have one hand on the holster at all times is not just an "American thing."

"When I did A History of Violence, the Europeans were saying it was all about gun culture and America's fascination with guns and violence. But I say first, they missed the whole point of that movie. I also say it makes them hypocrites. As far as violence and aggression goes ... no nation is innocent."

From the Boston Globe

By Christopher Muther, Mark Shanahan & Paysha Rhone

Globe Staff / September 9, 2008
'Appaloosa' screen test

Robert B. Parker was happy to take Hollywood's money when it wanted the rights to his Western "Appaloosa." "And if you take the money, you can't whine about the movie they make," he told us yesterday. "It's like if you sell your house and you don't like the color they paint it, tough [expletive]." Judging from the early word on "Appaloosa," which screened over the weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, the plain-spoken Parker has nothing to whine about. The film, directed by Ed Harris, and starring Harris, Viggo Mortensen, and Renee Zellweger, is good. "It is," insists Parker. "Would I lie to you? Yes, but it really is." The Cambridge writer and his wife, Joan, had just returnedfrom Toronto, where they walked the red carpet. "We got there early in case anyone wanted to talk to us, but no one did," Parker said, laughing. "Appaloosa" opens this weekend's Boston Film Festival.

From Philly.com:

* Viggo Mortensen, who was here last year for "Eastern Promises," returned this year in "Appaloosa," Ed Harris' adaptation of the Robert B. Parker Western.

"I've watched a lot of them over the years and I think most of them are terrible," Viggo said about the genre.

Harris said he cast Viggo for one simple reason: "I don't know, I had to pick somebody."

Actually, the deciding factor was "I wanted a guy I could ride next to for 10 hours and not say a word to and feel comfortable."

Harris knew Viggo from their work together on "A History of Violence."

"Appaloosa" bad guy Jeremy Irons isn't the first guy you'd think of for a western, and he wouldn't disagree.

"Like many kids, I was brought up watching westerns," the British actor said, "but I never thought I'd be in one. I never thought I'd be in a movie."

Character Counts In This Western

Co-Star Viggo Mortensen Talks About "Appaloosa"

NEW YORK, Sept. 10, 2008



(CBS) From "Lord of the Rings" to "Hidalgo" to "History of Violence," Oscar nominee Viggo Mortensen seems to always draw high praise for his performances.

In his new movie, "Appaloosa" Mortensen plays a loyal deputy of a marshal, portrayed by Ed Harris, brought in to clean up a town in New Mexico and rid it of a corrupt rancher (Jeremy Irons) who's kept himself above the law.

On The Early Show Tuesday, Harris, who produced, directed and co-wrote the movie, called it a "character-driven piece."

And on the show Wednesday, Mortensen told co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez he thinks most westerns are terrible -- but this one's an exception.

"There were a lot more westerns (films) when I was a little boy," Mortensen said. "And there were western TV series. And there isn't so much of that anymore. But people still like them, I think. I grew up riding horses and liking that genre. You know, every year, there's one or two. ... I think this year, 'Appaloosa' is the one people will go see. I can't lie to you, I had a lot of fun riding around on horseback, and (with) those really good actors that were working with us."

More to the point, Mortensen continued, "Whether you're a kid or a grown-up, I think you gravitate toward people, whether your parents or teachers or friends, who are honest with you, who look you in the eye and, even if it's something you don't want to hear, they're honest with you. Those are the people you stay friends with. ... And the relationship with Ed Harris is not only funny but, in a way, there's these awkward moments that are kind of funny. You know, we have each others' backs, really. We've been friends for over a dozen years, worked together as law men."

Renee Zellweger makes things interesting as the object of the males' desire.

"She comes into the mix," Mortensen says, "a very interesting woman's character. Not what you usually see in westerns. She comes in and kind of drives a wedge between us in a way. And it changes the dynamic of our friendship. That also -- there's a lot of humor that comes out of it, too."

Mortensen carries a gun in most scenes and admitted to Rodriguez, "The first day, I said, 'I know it's in the book, I know it's an important part of the character. But it's a big gun.' And I thought, 'It's going to be a long couple of month if I have to do this every day.' But by the second day, I liked it. And I said, 'Actually, I want to have it everywhere, have it when I'm in bed, when I'm having dinner, when I'm walking down the street.' And it is kind of intimidating. It was like my -- my scary friend, you know? But it had a psychological effect. It's like that thing you fight sometimes, the obstacle becomes your friend, you know? So, it was alright."

Shot on location in New Mexico, "Appaloosa" feels like a real Western. It hits theaters next month.

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Ed Harris takes the reins

by Angela Dawson - Sept. 12, 2008 12:00 AM
Entertainment News Wire

HOLLYWOOD - Ed Harris started reading Robert B. Parker's "Appaloosa" during a family horseback-riding trip a few years ago. Harris picked up the novel purely for enjoyment, but before he was through he called his agent. Were the film rights available? They were, and from that moment on, bringing "Appaloosa" to the big screen became Harris' goal.
"Appaloosa" marks Harris' first directing project since "Pollock," his 2000 directorial debut, which earned him the third of his four Oscar nominations for his portrayal of troubled artist Jackson Pollock.
"It had been nearly eight years or so since I last directed, so I was up for it again," says the handsomely rugged actor from Toronto, where his Western is screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The New Jersey native is a Western aficionado from way back. As a kid he would watch Roy Rogers and Gene Autry on TV; he would play cowboys and Indians with his buddies. As he got older, he'd go to the movies and watch Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and John Wayne settling scores in the Old West. "These guys were just tremendous," he says.

Harris, 57, lived out a childhood fantasy when he starred in the 1996 TV adaptation of Zane Grey's "Riders of the Purple Sage" with his wife, Amy Madigan. On "Appaloosa," he not only stars and directs, he also co-wrote the adapted screenplay and recorded a song he wrote for the end credits.

Harris plays Virgil Cole, a lawman for hire, who rides into the dusty town of Appaloosa circa 1882. Appaloosa's civic leaders have summoned him to bring order to the once thriving mining town. His first task: capture a ruthless local rancher believed to have killed a man in cold blood and then to have killed the town marshal who tried to arrest him. The rancher, Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons), accompanied by his gang of outlaws, is virtually untouchable in his fortress on the town's outskirts. He also has friends in Washington.

Vowing to bring Bragg to justice, Cole takes the job, accompanied by Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen), his longtime friend and business partner. But soon they meet a provocative newcomer, Allison French (Renee Zellweger), a lovely widow who harbors secrets and threatens to undermine Cole and Hitch's efforts to collar Bragg.

Harris counts himself lucky to have assembled such an exceptional cast, many of whom he had worked with before. He and Mortensen co-starred in the 2005 crime drama "A History of Violence," where they developed a friendship, though their on-screen characters were at odds. "I just read the first few chapters of Appaloosa,' and I thought of Viggo immediately," reveals Harris. "He's the only guy I ever wanted to do it, and I'm glad he wanted to do it."

Harris knew the challenge was to establish Cole and Hitch's friendship from the start. Everything hinged on conveying that friendship to the audience and making it feel authentic. "Chemistry is something you can't act," he insists. "I felt if we were both relaxed and knew our characters and had a good time, it would come across that we had spent some years together. I feel that the relationship is kind of beautiful."

In one comical plot device, Hitch assists Cole with his vocabulary on occasion. Cole may not always know the right words to say, but Hitch does and helps out his friend. "There's some of that in the book," observes Harris, "and then we probably added about 50 percent of it."

Harris met with Zellweger in North Carolina, where she was filming "Leatherheads," and talked to her about playing the enigmatic Allison. "Renee really was excited about the challenge of playing her, and I thought she'd be really good at it, and she was," says Harris. "She has such a unique energy and a great imagination."

He tapped Irons, who's British, for the role of his on-screen adversary because he felt the actor could handily convey an intellectual threat as well as a physical threat. "Bragg's somebody who is slippery, more in a politician sort of way," notes Harris. "Jeremy has a built-in sophistication about him. I thought it would be a fun counterpoint to my character."

Harris had fun getting back into leather chaps and boots and firing six-shooters. The prop department found a vintage 1873 bone-handled Colt .45, which Cole uses throughout the film. "It's a beauty," says Harris, who kept the firearm after shooting wrapped late last year.

Some critics are comparing "Appaloosa" to Clint Eastwood's 1992 Western "Unforgiven." "Clint's great," says Harris. "To be mentioned in the same sentence with him is fine with me. He's a fine director and actor and has a point of view about things and makes films that are accessible and esthetically pleasing as well."

Harris hasn't thought much past "Appaloosa." He may return to the stage, where he's worked over the past three decades. He is giving serious thought to reprising his role in Neil LaBute's one-character play, "Wrecks," in Los Angeles. He initially performed the role at New York's Joseph Papp Public Theater in 2006 and subsequently at the Everyman Palace Theatre in Ireland.

"I primarily want to get this baby out in the world, and then I'll evaluate what's going to happen next," Harris says with a chuckle.

Review from Joblo.com

PLOT: It is 1882 and the small town of Appaloosa has a few bad elements to contend with. When their city marshal is shot in cold blood, a man by the name of Virgil Cole comes looking for justice. Once he arrives, alongside his partner, he begins to make life better for the townsfolk. That is until trouble comes callin’. A young lady shows up with only a dollar to her name, but she seems to spark a fire in Cole. Guns are a blazin’ and hearts are broken as the wild westkinda sorta lives up to its name.

REVIEW: One genre I am really happy to see coming back is the western. Recent films such as 3:10 TO YUMA and THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD began to restore my faith in the good ole wild west returning. So with this, I became very excited about the Ed Harris directed feature APPALOOSA (which he also co-wrote with Robert Knott). How can you go wrong with Mr. Harris, Viggo Mortensen and Jeremy Irons? Well for the most part you can’t. In fact, the struggle between these three rich and fascinating characters is what great westerns are all about. But then, SHE shows up. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Renee Zellweger, she’s given some fine performances, including her Oscar winning work in COLD MOUNTAIN. But when this prim and proper lady shows up, this western melodrama almost screeches to a halt. And sadly, every time it returned to her and her relationship with the men, the train slowed down again.
Now I’m not sure if it is her performance or just the fact that the character itself seems to be merely a plot point… a way to get from A to B. So I question whether the role would have worked with another actress, maybe someone like Kate Winslet or something. When she comes to town and the city marshal finds himself smitten with her, it feels manufactured and fake. While the chemistry between Mortensen and Harris is natural. Even when Jeremy Irons shows up to cause trouble, he seems right at home with his smooth talking bad guy. But Zellweger pouts and primps along leaving me wondering why anybody would stick with her throughout the film. Her Allison French is not exciting and unconventional as the press release claims, she is just annoying and dull.

It all begins when Virgil Cole (Harris) and his deputy and partner, Everett Hitch (Mortensen) find themselves seeking justice in the small town of “Appaloosa”. When they hear word that the former city marshal, and friend, is killed in cold blood, they seek to bring the guilty to justice. It’s easy enough when they arrive because the townsfolk are tired of Randall Bragg (Irons) allowing his band of thugs to eat, drink and be merry without paying. So Virgil offers his help, as long as he can make up any laws he requires. And when Cole and Hitch find some of Bragg’s men literally pissing on the floor at the local saloon, he makes sure they know he’s deadly serious about his position. While this is a fairly clichéd story found in many a western, it is impeccably acted and directed well enough to make for a good time. And then she shows up…

The love story just didn’t work for me. Yet I did find beauty throughout the film, it's a visual treat if you‘re hankerin‘ for a good western. Harris paints his town of “Appaloosa” with care and authenticity, even if the script sort of felt like a TNT Original Motion Picture. And one of my biggest pet peeves (aside from Allison French), there are a few too many times where these fine folk sit around talking about what might happen or what has happened. It becomes a bit repetitive. I also question why in the world would you make background noise from the saloon as loud as it is while the main characters are having a conversation. When it first happened, I thought it was someone yapping in the theatre. It was terribly distracting and just felt as though someone wasn’t on the ball in the sound department. Still, I do think there is good here and I am happy to see another western on the big screen. APPALOOSA has its faults, but I hope it does well enough that Hollywood continues to let cowboys and the way of the west find a home on the silver screen.

My rating 5.5/10 -- JimmyO

From the star.com

INTERVIEW
Ed Harris goes old school for western flick Appaloosa
MICHEL SPINGLER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Sep 17, 2008 04:30 AM

Director picked a cast of unusual actors. So he wanted to be sure they looked comfortable in cowboy gear

Movie Critic

Actor/director Ed Harris sports a black hat in Appaloosa, his new western, and many would say it suits him to a T.

Even when he's playing the good guy, as he is in this movie, his stony countenance suggests malevolence within.His Appaloosa gunslinger Virgil Cole rides into the title town promising to rid the streets of evil but demanding total control in return.

The black headgear is a symbol not of duality but of authenticity, Harris said in an interview during the recent Toronto International Film Festival.

Cole's attire, as described in the source novel by Robert B. Parker, is all black. A fiend for detail, Harris, 57, wanted to look like he really does wear the hat, and he had similar sartorial intent for co-stars Viggo Mortensen (who plays Cole's sidekick Everett Hitch) and Jeremy Irons (who plays evil rancher Randall Bragg).

"For Jeremy and Viggo and myself, and all the other guys, the hat thing is very crucial. It's critical.
"Because there's nothing worse than seeing a western and you don't buy that the guy belongs there.
"He just doesn't feel comfortable in the gear or the clothes or whatever."

Appaloosa is an old-school oater. Harris wanted it to have the same sense of vastness and timelessness as the westerns of John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sam Peckinpah and other masters of the genre. The dust had to look caked in, not painted on.

Why did he choose a western for his sophomore stint as director? His helming debut Pollock, which he also starred in, was about a mercurial artist of the 1950s.

And most of his movies are set in current times.

Appaloosa has its roots in Riders of the Purple Sage, a 1996 made-for-TV movie that Harris starred in with his wife, the actor Amy Madigan. He enjoyed that experience so much, it convinced him he could do westerns.

He was in no rush, though.

While respecting the traditional look of westerns, Harris wasn't interested in maintaining the status quo for his cast picks.

The laconic Mortensen, who was paired with Harris in very different circumstances for David Cronenberg's 2005 thriller A History of Violence, isn't the type you'd expect as a sort of Sundance Kid to Harris's Butch Cassidy.

Feisty Renée Zellweger, who plays Cole's love interest, Allison, is not the two-dimensional dame found in most westerns. And dapper Irons would be dead last on anybody's list of potential cow town thugs.
"I definitely wanted to work with Viggo, although I don't know him all that well.

"He's a fairly private guy, but also a generous one, and I just had a feeling the two of us could create this history together of two men bonded as friends," Harris said.

"And then Renée, she's a trip, man. She's really unusual, you know? She has a kind of unique energy. She's not a classic beauty, but I think she can be very beautiful. She's also very funny and kind of quirky.
"And with Jeremy, I wanted a Bragg who wasn't just some kind of thug or brute. I wanted a certain sophistication and a good counterpoint to my character, coming from a different place."

Harris also made a unique choice for the actor to play a judge in one amusing scene. He hired his dad Bob Harris, a stage actor by trade.

"He grew a beard for the role and he got a big kick out of it. He was a little nervous about it, because he's getting up there; he's going to be 86 in about a week. But he did a good job, man. I was so proud of him."
Appaloosa is full of small but important particulars like these. None of them are accidental, Harris said: "I wanted to show that these people are living a life and any little thing that you could do to help make it feel real, as opposed to just being in a movie, was important to me."

Harris has been very successful as an actor – he's had four Oscar nominations to prove it – but he loves being a director. He thinks he might start sitting behind the camera more often, as long as he can keep making his own choices.

Acting doesn't always allow for such luxuries.

"With acting, sometimes it's just something you really want to tackle or somebody you want to work with, and other times it's like, `Uh, I guess I'd better get a job,' you know?"