Taylor Sheridan is an actor by profession, but he hasn't played in his early 20s, taking over all the small roles that don't matter. Probably because he was discouraged by the bad drama, and at the same time, the money was really tight. Sheridan, who was over 40 years old, decided to write the script himself and try it out.
He said: "I don't know what it's like to write a script, but I've read at least 10,000 scripts in my life, and most of them are not good. So if I avoid the script when I am an actor The problem that bothers me, maybe it will be fine.”
Sheridan is not the only one who has this idea. Looking at the country, there are also people who have accumulated a little capital and network resources when acting, and then transferred to the creation and production later. Some people succeeded, such as Xu Zheng, such as Chen Sicheng; some people fluttered, such as...emm, um.
In short, Sheridan's path is not a maverick, but it is rare that all three of his screenwriting works have been successful. As an amateur writer who has never studied writing systematically, nor did he come from a film school, he is definitely lucky and talented.
The "Border Slayer" and "Going Through Fire" that he wrote in succession have been recognized and appreciated by the industry. "Going Through Water and Fire" was bought before "Slayer on the Frontier", but the latter was released one step earlier than the former. In 2015, Sheridan won the 87th National Critics Association Award for Best Picture of the Year for "Sicario", and he himself was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 68th Writers Guild of America Awards.
His second work "Going through fire and water" was shortlisted for a number of screenwriting or screenwriting awards, including the Writers Guild of America Award, the BAFTA Award, and the Golden Globe Award. And these two works were eventually put into shooting are Sheridan's first draft of the script!
The "Wind River Valley" to be discussed in this article is Sheridan's first self-written and directed film. Because it and the previous two films are set in the border area of the United States, they are called "American" by American film critics. The Final Chapter of the Frontier Trilogy".
The Windy Valley Hunt is based on a true teenage murder on an Indian reservation. An 18-year-old girl died of pulmonary hemorrhage after running 10 kilometers barefoot in the snow at minus 20 degrees.
Sheridan himself was born on an Indian reservation, and the reason he adapted this story was to reflect the sad state of the Indian reservation: " Every year, many women go missing on the Indian reservation, but most of the time they are not reported or unwilling to call the police. or report it. ”
"I want the film to express something real, not just to please the audience," he said.
It took him nearly five years to conceive the whole story and three years to communicate with the Aboriginal people. In the process of communicating, he found that their attitude towards such incidents was very calm, but there was a deep sadness behind this calmness. This is also clearly shown in the film: Martin and Corey, who have also lost their daughter, are surprisingly calm except for the wailing of the first meeting after the incident.
Including when Martin finally received a call from the police station, telling him that he had found the murderers and killed them, Martin just sat quietly outside the house alone. He said to Corey, who came to visit him, "Do you have time to sit with me for a while?" Corey said, "I have no other destination anyway."
Sheridan's script is quite solid, and as a director, he is also very good at creating the atmosphere, using the camera and controlling the rhythm. The style of the film is particularly strong, and it feels like a work that was shot in one go, with almost no adjustments and modifications.
How does he portray and present this abandoned "American frontier"?
1. The performance of the harsh natural environment
Indian reservations are ostensibly private territories left by the United States to Native American Indians, but in fact they are enclosed in a place where birds don't shit, and they are left to fend for themselves. See what the hell is this "Wind River Valley" area in Wyoming.
At the beginning of the film, several hungry wolves are looking after the sheep, and Corey's father-in-law calls him to say that he has found several cougar tracks in the snow in the backyard, and asks him to hunt these dangerous predators.
Snowstorm after blizzard, with a trailer or house every few kilometers. The girl ran barefoot in the snow for ten kilometers, not without purpose. She wanted to run to the highway, and as long as she got to the highway, she would be saved. This can be reversed. At that time, the closest place to her was the highway, and she had no better choice.
2. The proliferation of drugs
Most of the young Indians live in groups of three or five, congregating in several trailers to take drugs and sell drugs. If youth is the hope of a nation, there is no hope here. Corey and Jenny go to the victim's brother Chip, first opened by a drug addict. There was no vitality to be seen in his lifeless and hopeful face.
Corey: "You're trying to teach me how to protect my family, and you're giving out drugs to kill them? ... Unlike most people, you've got tons of opportunities to get out of here, to go to the military, to go to college, what do you choose? Look It's your choice. What do you choose?"
Chip: "You think I want this? I'm angry and want to fight the world, you know how it feels?"
Corey: "I know, but I choose to fight my emotions because I know the world will win."
3. Frequent crime
The daughters of Corey and Martin were killed one after another. The sheriff asked the young man in the trailer: Where are your parents? The youth said, in prison. The sheriff said, yes, yes, I was the one who put him in.
The young people here are not afraid of being jailed, and even have some expectations. Three meals a day are provided, and life outside is much worse than this.
4. The proliferation of guns
There are two particularly wonderful gunfights in the film, and Ao Mei, who played the Scarlet Witch, has a great fighting power. The first time she was sprayed with tear gas, she couldn't open her eyes, and she resisted breaking in, killing the thugs, and the sheriff next to her was directly spit out.
The second time, she was shot near the neck by the thugs of the excavation team. The person flew one meter away and fell into the snow and couldn't get up. She was lying, crawling, and blood splattered all over her face, but she persisted in fighting.
The two gun battles have been very good-looking from the beginning of the confrontation. The director attaches so much importance to these two scenes that he hopes to expose the problem of the proliferation of guns in this "three no matter" area from the side. Especially in the second game, the police were almost wiped out.
5. Insufficient police force
There are only six police officers in total in such a chaotic and dangerous area.
The FBI usually only sends people in for the worst murders. If it's just rape or something, like Natalie's case, when it's not sure if it's murder, the FBI only sends an inexperienced rookie female police officer to assist in the investigation, and if it's not sure it's murder , she was unable to ask for support.
" I'm used to not getting help," the sheriff said .
In this case, it is impossible to make people believe that what is unjust will be judged justly. Both Corey and Martin had the idea of using lynching, which is also a common feature of Sheridan's works: the male protagonist eventually used lynching.
The conversation between Martin and Corey when they first met was pretty clear.
Martin: "You're sending this FBI agent around so she doesn't get lost?"
Corey: "That's what they asked me to do, but that's not what I'm going to do."
Martin: "Then what are you doing?"
Corey: "I'm the hunter, Martin, what do you think I'm doing?"
Martin: "If you find the culprit, I don't care who it is, you know?"
Corey: "Even if he's standing here."
After Jenny is injured in the second shootout, she asks Cory to give her the radio and let Cory go after the escaped fish.
Jenny: "Go find him."
Corey: "I'm not bringing him back."
Jenny: "I know, go find him."
Jenny had previously heard what happened to Cory's daughter Emily, and she already knew that Corey's ultimate goal was to avenge her daughter, or that she hoped for such an outcome in her heart. She didn't believe Natalie could run that far in the snow with bare feet, until she found the real murderer and knew what happened that night. She and Corey were chatting about other topics, and suddenly she started talking on the hospital bed. Cries: "She ran six miles in the snow."
Jenny: "How far do you think a person can run with bare feet."
Corey: " I don't know, people's determination to survive is strong, especially in this situation. But I know that girl, she's a fighter. So no matter how far you think she's gone, I can tell you Guarantee, she ran farther than you thought."
Corey's final handling of the fugitive can be said to be very pleasing. He took the fugitive to the highest mountain in the Wind River Valley, took off his shoes and let him run.
Corey: "I'll give you the same chance as she did."
Fugitive: "What chance does she have?"
Corey: "If you can get to the highway, you're free. Do you know how far the trailer is from where Natalie fell? Ten kilometers, that's the fighter. What about you? Maybe 180 meters."
Another common feature in Sheridan's work is that they all share a common core: a failed father . In this regard, "Slayer on the Border" is more similar to "Wind River Valley": the father did not protect the child well, resulting in the loss of the child's life. The fathers in another work, "Going through fire and water", are more like Sheridan himself, and they don't have enough money to pay for the basic expenses of their children.
Sheridan has lived a very hard life during his twenty years as an actor. "I imagined being in my 40s and couldn't go to my son's baseball game because there was a little commercial or something that had to be filmed," he said. He felt like he couldn't for a long time. Playing the role of a father well, this regret has become an obsession, so when creating works, I involuntarily created many failed father roles.
Corey finally told Jenny, " I tell you, if one day you have a baby, you can't blink, never blink."
Finally, I think Sheridan's gesture is very worthy of recognition. Although he exposed various problems in Indian reservations, these problems objectively led to some tragedies. For example, the fugitive said in his final statement: "You know what this frozen hell is like, no entertainment, no women, no fun, just snow and silence, that's all."
But Sheridan did not feel that their crimes were sympathetic or excusable. Although the world will win in the end, the individual oppressed by the world cannot be transformed into a part of this harmful world and pass on his pain to others. No one has this kind of legitimacy.
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