By Dov Kornits
“Kiefer said numerous times that during the making of this movie was the longest time that he has spent with his father,” Forsaken director, Jon Cassar, tells FilmInk. The son of actors, Shirley Douglas and Donald Sutherland, whose marriage only lasted for four years, Kiefer Sutherland initiated the Forsaken project for personal reasons. “His father left his mother very early, when he was just a child, so he never really got to spend a lot of time with him,” continues Cassar. “There were definitely parts of the story that were very close to reality. I think that was part of it for Kiefer: to have all of that play out in a way that these two characters would also play it out. There was a parallel. Making this film was like therapy for them.”
Jon Cassar and Kiefer Sutherland have enjoyed a collaborative relationship for more than thirteen years, born during their time on the wildly popular TV series, 24. “As you do when you are on a television show, and it looks like you are going to be on it for a while, you talk about, ‘When this thing ends, what are we going to do?’, and funnily enough, we always talked about a western,” recalls Cassar. “He really wanted to work with his dad before it got a little too late,” confirms Cassar. Kiefer Sutherland came up with the story of a long-missing enigmatic Civil War soldier who vows to never again pick up a weapon, but upon returning to his hometown and being confronted with his bitter man-of-religion father and a corrupt force in the town, the threat of violence slowly but surely envelops him.
Kiefer Sutherland then got his mate, Brad Mirman, to write the screenplay, and called upon actors such as Brian Cox, Michael Wincott, and Demi Moore to fill out the impressive supporting cast. Forsaken is a real throwback film, leisurely paced and hand-made, which is a surprise considering the inspiration for it came on the set of 24. “That is one of the best things about a western,” asserts Cassar. “You don’t have the noise of communication. There are no phones, and you don’t have television. If you wanted to say something back then, you got on a horse and you rode to the guy’s farm. You looked him in the eyes and you said it. So, there is something very simple in storytelling because of that. Two people have to look each other in the eye. From a director’s point of view, it’s lovely that you get to work with that kind of simplicity. I wanted to hark back to those westerns that I grew up with where it wasn’t about big shoot outs, it was about character.”
Like the Sutherlands who got to go toe to toe in a number of intense scenes together, Forsaken also saw Jon Cassar achieve a dream of his own: to direct a feature film. “Everyone who gets into it wants to be a director, and wants to direct big movies,” says the 58-year-old Cassar. “Then I got into television and, actually, not only did I have a good career in television and I was able to do it, I actually loved doing it. Especially the kind of television that I was doing. I was very lucky to break into TV at a point when it was really changing. Television was really becoming as important a medium as film. I put my feature career on the sidelines because television keeps you busy for a long time. I did 24 for seven straight years, and there was no time in there to do features. So when that finished, I was able to start a feature career again. It’s difficult because people look at you like a television director, and they don’t think that you can do features, so you have to convince them and break into it. So I’ve now done Forsaken, and I have another film coming out in September called When The Bough Breaks, and it’s a sexual thriller. So that will be my second one. I will have two this year, and I’m in talks already to do a couple more. I am going to play around in features for a little bit, but I still love television, and I’m going to be involved in the new 24 that’s coming out next year. So hopefully I’ll be able to go back and forth a little bit.”
Forsaken is available on DVD now.
