A24 A-to-Z: #22. "Slow West" (2015)

Scene from Slow West

In case you didn't know, A24 is one of the great purveyors of modern cinema. Since 2013, the studio has found a way to innovate independent cinema by turning each release into an event. As a result, A24 A-to-Z will be an ongoing series that looks at every release from the studio by analyzing its production history, release, criticisms, and any awards attention that it might've received. Join me on a quest to explore the modern heroes of cinema by exploring every hit and miss that comes with that magnificent logo. They may not all be great, but they more than make A24 what it is and what it will hopefully continue to be for ears to come.

Slow West
Released: May 15, 2015 
Release Number: 22
Directed By: John Maclean
Written By: John Maclean

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Caren Pistorius, Aorere Paki

Plot: A young Scottish man travels across America in pursuit of the woman he loves, attracting the attention of an outlaw who is willing to serve as a guide.

By the middle of A24, the studio seemed to have a fondness for two different kinds of A's: American and Australian. With limited exceptions, these were the two countries that defined most of their releases, and director John Maclean's Slow West was no exception. Where they had done neo-westerns before with The Rover, Maclean was the first time that they had done something more traditional to the classic westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks. Only, Maclean had no plan to imitate John Wayne. He wanted a European take on the old west, and in the process created a tale of the immigrant story that was shot entirely in Australia. It wasn't just one of the studio's first critically acclaimed direct-to-video titles, it was a sign that westerns weren't dead just yet.

Maclean began his career as a DJ for The Beta Band. It was here that he began to tour and discovered the allure of the American west. He was especially attracted to Colorado, where he discovered that people from various walks of life had congregated. He saw the west as a place of immigrants, whether they be Irish or Scandinavian. It was around the same time that he began to learn how to shoot videos, finding interest in a career decision that became his sole focus following the retirement of The Beta Band. It was here that he met actor Michael Fassbender, who he worked with on two shorts, including Pitch Black Heat for which he won a BAFTA award. Because Fassbender was still relatively new and was working as a supporting player on Inglourious Basterds at the time, he formed a close partnership with Maclean. The director believed that it was important to deliver professional work, which he attributes to Fassbender still working with him years later on Slow West.

His interest in the western was very specific. He didn't want to recreate one of the old John Ford mythologies. He wanted to make something that he believed to be more accurate. As a result, he turned to literature of the time, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and cites Laura Ingalls Wilder's "The Little House on the Prairie" series as the biggest influence, finding inspiration from the way characters interacted. There would be another hurdle to be found in his genuine take. He wanted to shoot in Colorado, but found that the weather between November and December of 2013 proved to be difficult. Instead, he shot in New Zealand, which had clearer weather and even a wider open space that resembled the west he wanted. To add irony, almost every actor came from Australia, and its lead Kodi Smit-McPhee was coached to speak with a Scottish accent. For a film that was about America, it had very little to do with the country.

Maclean enjoyed how the title was off putting. Who would want to see a SLOW western? It was meant to catch the viewer's attention. He also put off picking music until the very end, believing that it was the hardest part. He would eventually work with composer Jed Kurzel, who was brother to director Justin Kurzel. They became friends while Justin was filming Macbeth with Fassbender and found that Jed's style complimented what he was looking for. The final act of the film where a harrowing shootout occurs was inspired not by a western, but by the thriller Assault on Precinct 13.  Maclean claims that shooting a feature length wasn't that different from shooting shorter films, largely because he used his experience with storyboards and other pre-production processes to speed up the progress. He claimed to know how he wanted to shoot each of the scenes while writing the script, which made that stage easier.

By the time that the film premiered at Sundance, Maclean was nervous of what a more western-based audience thought of the film. He knew that the country held the genre as sacred, even if the films had fallen out of favor. Before its premiere, major distributor A24 had seen it. The film premiered with general praise and would lead to a simultaneous theatrical and video on demand release. The film would become one of A24's highest rated films as well on critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, earning a 93%. Ty Burr of the Boston Globe praised it, claiming that "It's all of 84 minutes. But when it's done, you know you've seen something." David Simms of The Atlantic would go on to say "Slow West crescendos into a bravura shootout between all the involved parties, and it's as gorgeous, nihilistic, and brutally sad as the rest of the film." The few who disliked it were like Kyle Smith of New York Post who claimed that it "certainly lives up to its title: It's one poky Western, plodding and perambulating and moseying across the 1870 frontier on a grim march to a pointless ending."

The film was one of the biggest breaks for A24 during its second renaissance. While it wouldn't earn quite as many awards as either Ex Machina or the next film, it was evidence that even the smaller movies that the studio released were getting significantly better. With an all star cast, it managed to suggest that westerns were also far from dead, and that they were worthy of making. Much like Slow West, A24's next movie would be another first for them in a documentary about a fallen singer whose tragic young death made her into an enigmatic pop culture figure. Amy on its surface seemed like a gimmicky documentary on its surface, but it would be another home run for the studio who was starting to bet wisely even as they got more diverse and eclectic in their choices.


Up Next: Amy (2015)