Upamanyu Biswas
In Kevin Costner’s Western drama ‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,‘ a series of events unfolds after the town of Horizon is built on a riverside, incurring the wrath of the local Apache tribe. The settlement, set against the Wild West wilderness, is a small haven of security and comfort for its inhabitants, who are at the mercy of nature. The town’s inception plays a pivotal role within the narrative, linking several plotlines and characters who are on separate journeys. Unlike most frontier towns, Horizon is a burgeoning settlement with challenges besetting its development, making it a one-of-a-kind Western setting!
The Genesis of Horizon
Horizon is a fictional town in ‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,’ conceived by Kevin Costner, co-writer Jon Baird, and co-story writer Mark Kasdan. The town was initially conceptualized as the setting of an original Western movie Costner commissioned in 1988. However, the director felt that most Westerns generally portray Old West towns as wooden constructs that have already been built and have existed for a long time when the narrative picks up. Looking to freshen the perspective, the filmmaker and Baird wanted to take a deeper dive into the building process of a Western town and how such a settlement might have been constructed on the frontier back in the day.
In an interview with Roger Ebert, Costner said, “What happened is that I started thinking, after not being able to make the first one, ‘What if we reverse-engineered that story and showed everything about what it took for a town to even bubble up in some place where it was not intended to be?’ And so that was the genesis of switching our thinking to that idea: ‘Why don’t we discuss the idea of what got this town started and debunk the myth of what everyone else thinks has happened there?'” The purpose of depicting the development of Horizon through the years is to illustrate how, in reality, people migrated to the West, how their lives changed, and how they were affected by their circumstances.
During the frontier era, the notion of expansion and settling in unknown locations drew people to open areas. However, these places were often the grounds of Indigenous tribes who used them as burial sites, foraging grounds, and hunting lands. When towns were erected in the middle of nowhere, they often incurred the anger of local tribes who were slowly driven away from the rapidly expanding West. “The myth of these ‘great, open spaces’ is that, actually, they were already occupied by people. There were people who were doing quite nicely there without us. And this national appetite to move across the country caused all this chaos and heartache,” Costner added.
Therefore, Horizon can be seen as a fictional representative of any town or city that was built in the Old West, replacing the Native Americans. “I began to rethink some things. All our Westerns typically start with a town, right? How did they get there? Who put that first stake in, and what trouble did it cause for the people who’d been there for thousands of years? Because we were putting our towns in the same place that Indigenous people also felt was the best place to cross a river or access water. […] All the famous cities we have—St. Louis, Denver—somebody threw down a stake,” Costner told The New Yorker about the origin of Horizon.
The filming of ‘Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1’ took place in Southern Utah, where rural buildings and architecture resembled the titular town, although it is mostly made up of tents. The settlement ties together the numerous unrelated plotlines, bringing a sense of continuity to the narrative and a central heartbeat to focus on. It depicts the struggles of its inhabitants as they try to survive while also providing a glimpse into the Native Americans who are stunned by the erection of a white settlement in their territory, thereby encroaching on their sacred lands. While it draws upon several historical elements to provide an authentic representation of an Old West town, Horizon is a fictional setting that cannot be found in reality.
Read More: Horizon: Is Pionsenay Based on an Actual Native American Leader?
