Sumith Prasad
In Kevin Costner’s Western film series ‘Horizon: An American Saga,’ Hayes Ellison tries to move forward from his past to open a new chapter of his life in an unknown territory. Along with a group, he arrives in the West, only to become the protector of Marigold, a prostitute who gets entangled in a predicament that threatens both of their lives. ‘Chapter 1’ takes place against the backdrop of the impending Civil War and the migration of potential settlers to the lands of Native Americans, two significant developments that rewrote the fate of the country in reality. However, Hayes was not part of these actual events as the film depicts!
Hayes Ellison: A Fictional Representative of Those Who Sought a New World
Hayes Ellison is a fictional character conceived by Kevin Costner, Jon Baird, and Mark Kasdan, who developed the story of ‘Horizon: An American Saga.’ The film series is primarily a chronicle that details how whites and settlers from other communities migrated to Indigenous lands and replaced the Native Americans who had been living in these regions. In reality, the Civil War set the stage for this mass migration. “All of the fights over slavery between northern and southern politicians are about the expansion of slavery into territories,” Civil War historian Megan Kate Nelson told TIME.
A large part of the country’s population approached the expansion as an opportunity to leave their past behind. The gold rushes in Colorado in the late 1850s and Montana in 1863 promised them fortunes and employment. While many were ready to move because of poverty, several others joined caravans simply because they could, as nothing was holding them back. Hayes is a fictional representation of one of these people. In the press notes of ‘Chapter 1,’ he is described as a “man seeking some kind of respite in a dangerous world.” Back in the 19th century, the Native American lands symbolized redemption and a fresh start. The cowboy is looking for the same.
The lack of strings that allow Hayes to look for a new home is the particular element that has attracted Costner to the character. “He [Hayes] is illiterate and works his way across the country,” the writer-director told EW. “I’d say college wasn’t for him. He’s just a man on a landscape, with all the possessions that he owns existing, on a horse. It’s a romantic view of things, but I respond to that notion of having responsibility only to yourself. I don’t have that, but I can look at it and go, ‘Wow, wouldn’t that be nice?’” he added.
Even though Hayes is a fictional character, he wouldn’t have been “born” if men like him had not left their homes to embark on a journey westward, hoping to find the opportunity to live as a different person respectively in better circumstances and conditions.
Hayes Ellison: An Archetypal Western Hero
Kevin Costner originally conceived ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ as a Western “two-hander” that revolves around Hayes and another man. The character’s origin as a hero rooted in the genre still reflects in him irrespective of the structural and narrative changes the filmmaker brought to the project to make it a combination of multiple storylines. His moral integrity can be seen in his hesitation to take advantage of Marigold sexually when she offers him her consent in ‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1.’ Like uncountable Western heroes, he is a lone wolf whose stoicism is unignorable. He barely responds to Marigold even when he is all she has.
Hayes can be paralleled with several of the prominent characters who define the Western genre. He protects the family of Marigold and Lucy/Ellen, similar to how Alan Ladd’s Shane safeguards a homesteader family from a powerful baron in ‘Shane.’ As a man of few words who hides his past from the people around him, he can be compared to Clint Eastwood’s iconic character, the “Man with No Name,” in Sergio Leone’s ‘Dollars Trilogy.’ Costner’s own Charley Waite in ‘Open Range’ is a drifter who wishes to restart his life as a cattle herder, leaving behind his violent past. The prominent characteristics of Hayes can be seen in these and many more legendary characters who made Western a globally renowned genre.
Ultimately, the fearlessness Hayes displays is something inherent in Costner, his creator. The roots of this fundamental trait can be traced back to the filmmaker, who stated, “I think, in a way, that I’m somebody that just had to go west myself, and not know what was out there, and not be afraid of it.”
Read More: Horizon: Is Pionsenay Based on an Actual Native American Leader?
