By Gill Pringle
“Hopefully, when you see the whole movie, you’ll feel that it’s a good Western,” says Antoine Fuqua of The Magnificent Seven, his remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 masterpiece, Seven Samurai, which also served as inspiration for John Sturges’ classic 1960 western on the same name. “It’s the same thing that it takes to tell any story,” the director replies to FilmInk about what it takes to make a good western. “You have to tell a good story. To make a good western, in my opinion, is to make it a western. You don’t try to make it something that it is not. Be true to the time as much as you can. You can’t get held down on trying to make a cowboy movie, you just have to make a movie that takes place at that time, and you just tell the best story that you can tell, with characters that you care about. As far as filming it, the old saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for?’ comes into play. As a kid you’re like, ‘I want to make a western!’ You’ve got the guns, and you’re just playing and it’s fun, and you can go home and eat and mum is there, your friends are there…it’s great! You can quit whenever you want to and get mad at your friend and walk away because you wanted to be the Indian today. Horses do what they want – I’ve had that experience before – but this is a reminder. Having a big cast of actors is challenging, every day. Filming it in a place where it rains constantly, where your set washes away, is challenging. Most of the time it was over 110 degrees. Every day. That’s another challenge.”
It might have been a tough slog, but Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven is nearly ready to ride into town. This new version is set in the frontier town of Rose Creek, which is under the deadly control of industrialist, Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard). Living in fear, the desperate townspeople employ protection from seven outlaws, bounty hunters, gamblers, and hired guns. As they prepare the town for the violent showdown that they know is coming, these seven mercenaries find themselves fighting for more than money. Boasting a diverse and big name crew of actors – Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Martin Sensmeier – could The Magnificent Seven prompt a revival of the big screen western? Saddle up!
