Writer/director Viggo Mortensen‘s new Western “The Dead Don’t Hurt” is an exquisitely told period piece with the graceful power and beauty of the genre’s most beloved classics — something that was entirely intentional on Mortensen’s part. “I wanted to be true to the codes or traditions of the classic Western,” Mortensen told IndieWire. “First of all, in terms of the cinematography, not to draw unnecessary attention to how the camera sees landscapes and the characters, but to have the sort of simple photography like you see in Westerns by Howard Hawks or Budd Boetticher. Just a straightforward, elegant way of showing the places and the people in them.” Mortensen’s story of two lovers (played by Mortensen and Vicky Krieps) whose lives are changed by the Civil War and who ultimately have to find reconciliation and forgiveness in a violent world is, like Boetticher’s best films, a movie as idiosyncratic and personal as it is archetypal — a one of a kind genre film that also delivers classical satisfactions.
The simplicity of Mortensen’s visual sensibility works perfectly to showcase the detailed, richly textured world of 1860s Nevada he and his department heads created for “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” a world born of meticulous research. “We wanted to be historically correct in terms of what the weapons were, what the saddles were, the lamps in the saloons, the clothes,” Mortensen said. “We really documented that as well as we could using archival photographs and descriptions of the period. We also wanted to be truthful to what the cultural diversity of the United States was then. Even on the western frontier in a small town, it was a mix of languages and cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and that was as important to get right as anything.”
One of the most impressive aspects of “The Dead Don’t Hurt” is the supreme directorial control Mortensen exerts over his material, as every shot and cut yields precise, carefully calibrated emotional effects. Yet Mortensen’s approach is anything but dictatorial, something he learned from decades of working with great directors like David Cronenberg, Jane Campion, and Brian DePalma, who he said prepared for their shoots in ways that facilitated maximum flexibility on set. “What I’ve learned in my 40 years of film school or more from really good directors, men and women who are very different as people and make different kinds of movies, is to be extremely well prepared,” Mortensen said. “You can never prepare enough for a shoot. There are always going to be unexpected obstacles and challenges. Making movies is about solving small problems and big problems every day, but if you’re really well prepared, you can adapt as a team and deal with those problems and solve them.”
Mortensen said that with that preparation comes the freedom to incorporate the best ideas from everyone on the cast and crew. “Communication is everything,” he said, adding that he always makes clear before shooting that “ideas, suggestions, and questions are welcome from everybody on the crew or in the cast. Even though I came up with the story and have a clear idea of how to tell it, a good idea can come from anywhere and anyone at any time.” Aside from giving the director plenty of raw material with which to enrich the film, Mortensen says that such an approach is good for set morale as well. “It makes everybody feel that it’s not just another job. You’re not there just for your technical abilities. You’re there because you’re a trusted member of the team and and what you think and feel about what we’re telling is important.”
Mortensen admits that he’s worked with a few directors who were less flexible and took a “my way or the highway” approach who nevertheless made good movies, “but I’m convinced that they would have been even better movies if they had been more open and collaborative.” Mortensen adds that adopting a team effort allowed him to finish “The Dead Don’t Hurt” under budget and ahead of schedule, an achievement that’s important to him in his efforts to keep the Western economically viable. He’s pleased about the fact that this summer will see the release not only of his film but the “Horizon” features directed by Kevin Costner and he hopes that the movies will show financiers that the genre still has life in it. “I do like the genre,” he said. “I think it has a lot of possibilities. So I hope people will go see the movie and enjoy it, so that Westerns keep being made. And also so that it won’t take me so long to raise the money for the next story I want to tell.”
Shout! Studios releases “The Dead Don’t Hurt” in theaters May 31.
