There is no way to have money to make the most ambitious dreams come true. If Francis Ford Coppola has not minded spending 120 million dollars from his own pocket and investing 40 years to finance Megalopolis, the film with which he competes for the Palme d’Or and which critics have criticized, his compatriot Kevin Costner has not fared much better in his efforts to carry out Horizon, the project of his life.
The peculiar odyssey about the conquest of the American West directed and performed by the actor from The Untouchables has cost him dearly. He has had to mortgage his four houses to make the first two parts of this film, of which the first installment was seen out of competition at Cannes. He hopes he has four parts and is trying to do the third. At last night’s screening at the Grand Théâtre Lumière, Costner shed tears of emotion as he received a standing ovation, but the reviews have not been favorable at all. They call it “convoluted”, “flat” and with a “sloppy plot”, although it is noted that it is well shot.
At the press conference, he jokingly noted that he wanted to come to the festival because it is a place to watch films with an open mind but also to seek financing. “Any billionaires in this room or on the yachts outside who want to finance my films?” He asked to the laughter of the journalists, before adding: “I’m alone in this.”
Horizon is a very personal project for the actor, which has made him get behind the camera again twenty years after Open Range, which he also presented at Cannes in 2003. The western is a genre that Costner has been good at. With Dances with Wolves, he won seven Oscars, including best director and film. And he has triumphed with the television series Yellowstone, of which he has filmed five seasons and won the Golden Globe for best drama actor in 2022.
The first part of Horizon tells several stories that take place at the end of the 19th century in various parts of the western United States, which intersect. Almost three hours of footage that seem like the pilot of a television series in which Costner has expressly sought to have the flavor and color of classic westerns. Sienna Miller, Jenna Malone and Sam Worthington appear alongside the actor and director.
Costner, who sports a mustache, has said that he doesn’t know “why it’s so hard for me to get people to believe in the movie I wanted to make. I don’t think mine is better than the others but I don’t think that anyone else’s are better than mine either. And he is fully confident that “when this movie hits theaters, in the dark, when the curtain is raised, the magic will begin.” Let’s hope he doesn’t end up in water up to his neck like in Waterworld, his first big flop.
