Wild West revisited
The frivolous westerns of old are consigned to the history books, writes Andrew Murfett.
Modern life has caught up with the western. Not so long ago, western television series were mostly unambiguously escapist fare, shot on Hollywood soundstages with wise-cracking good guys rescuing damsels in distress.
Gender and racial politics were deemed off limits, men were often depicted sympathetically, women one-dimensionally. Sexual violence and the other bleak issues prevalent in the real life Wild West era went unspoken.
Godless, now streaming on Netflix, heralds another shift away from the frivolous westerns of old. The brooding, lavishly shot seven-part series depicts the 1880s in an unvarnished manner rarely portrayed on television. For one, it unflinchingly addresses the sacrifices made by women of the time.
It is an unsettling, confounding watch that inadvertently mirrors the increasingly dark and bewildering machinations bubbling away in our own world today. It’s the western 2017 deserves.
Jeff Daniels is Godless‘ surprisingly fearsome headline act.
The 62-year-old plays Frank Griffin, a murderous thief on a collision course with a former prote´ge´ who is hiding out in a New Mexican mining town beset by tragedy.
The set-up, anchored in a place almost bereft of men thanks to a tragic mining accident, allows Godless to present an all-too-rare insight into life in the Wild West from both genders’ perspective.
Strong female characters are not necessarily a traditional tenet of westerns.
‘‘That made it interesting for me,’’ Daniels says. ‘‘Having this town just inhabited by women makes it different and less predictable. You’ve never seen this before in a western. The westerns I grew up with, the Gunsmokes and Bonanzas weren’t real. Today, more realism is demanded making these kind of things.’’
Godless has allowed Daniels to continue along a career arc marked by an ability to move from one wildly divergent job to another.
Consider for a moment two of his most celebrated roles: Will McAvoy in Aaron Sorkin’s highbrow HBO series The Newsroom and Harry Dunne, the guy perhaps best known for licking a frozen ski lift pole in the stoner classic Dumb and Dumber.
‘‘This is the kind of leap I like to make,’’ Daniels says. ‘‘I can go from Dumb and Dumber to Gettysburg, whatever. There is this huge range and you want to try to pull off each end and the inbetween, too. This definitely fits my overall plan.’’
One of Daniels’ cast-mates on Godless, the Texan actor Scoot McNairy, says Daniels embodied his character throughout the
‘ I’ll be doing scenes with a 28-year-old getting US$10 million who can’t hit his mark. And I won’t be paid. Then HBO call and Netflix call. It’s a no-brainer. I think I’m done with movies for now.’ JEFF DANIELS
shoot, which took place on location in New Mexico, some 900 feet above sea level.
‘‘He kept quiet and to himself,’’ McNairy says. ‘‘The character is intimidating and Jeff was intimidating on set. You see his body of work and then for him to do this is amazing. He’s an incredible actor.’’
Daniels said he first encountered Godless‘ writer and director Scott Frank working on a little-seen 2007 film The Lookout.
Frank, whose writing credits include the underrated George Clooney caper film Out of Sight and Get Shorty, wrote Godless more than 10 years ago as a twohour film.
With producing partner Steven Soderbergh, he eventually expanded his script to miniseries length.
The cast came together slowly, eventually drawing Downton Abbey‘ s Michelle Dockery, Nurse Jackie Emmy winner Merritt Wever and Daniels’ former Newsroom sparring partner Sam Waterston.
Like many veteran film actors, Daniels is a recent convert to the virtues of television.
‘‘In movies now, I might get asked to play ‘that guy on Squid and the Whale,’’ he says.
‘‘I’ll be told it’s only five scenes and I’ll be an a..hole in all five. I’ll be doing scenes with a 28-year-old getting US$10 million who can’t hit his mark. And I won’t be paid. Then HBO call and Netflix call. It’s a no-brainer. I think I’m done with movies for now.’’
Godless, he says, unfurls like a seven-hour film.
‘‘They spent a major motion picture budget making it,’’ he says. ‘‘With TV, the adjustment is you have less time, so therefore [fewer] takes. As a supporting actor for decades working with A-listers, I learned to be great on two takes, because when they are great, that’s the one they use. You learn how to get good fast. You direct yourself, you make the right choices, because you are not going to get the direction.’’
Unlike many of his peers, Daniels lives in the American Midwest, in Michigan, a state that narrowly voted for Donald Trump last November.
Daniels remains a news junkie and says he thinks a lot about the discomfiting nature of Donald Trump’s presidency.
‘‘Being a political junkie kicked in for me when Bush ran against Gore,’’ he says.
‘‘For Trump now, everything depends on Bob Mueller’s report. We’re not even close to understanding what exactly was going on. And then, when we find out, what do we do next? Republicans are hanging on because they finally have power. It’s embarrassing. My hope is there is sanity in that town. Right now, people are sitting on their hands.’’ – The Age ● Godless is now streaming on Netflix.