From John Wayne’s toe-to-heel walk to Clint Eastwood’s trademark squint, the western has been a cultural touchstone of the US, embodying the spirit, struggle and moral dilemma of the new frontier.
For debut film director Jeymes Samuel, whose new western The Harder They Fall premieres at the BFI London film festival on Wednesday night, that frontier was artistic and societal as much as it was physical.
“I grew up watching westerns on the BBC. But the scope they showed us those stories through was very narrow,” Samuel said ahead of the film’s gala. “They didn’t really leave a way either side for any other interpretation. Women were always subservient. If you were a person of colour, you were less than human.”
London-born Samuel, known for his work as a songwriter and music producer under his stage name the Bullitts, assembled an all-black main cast including Jonathan Majors, Regina King and Idris Elba. Music was written by Jay-Z, who Samuel had previously worked with on The Great Gatsby film and a Jay Electronica album.
The Harder They Fall centres on Nat Love (Majors), an African American cowboy and former slave in the period following the American civil war, who reunites his gang to seek revenge against Rufus Buck (Elba) – the man who murdered his parents.
“There’s a uniqueness to a man from London, from the Harrow Road, making a western,” Elba said. “I grew up watching westerns. To have this moment to redefine the genre is definitely special.”
For some of the cast, who had never previously been fans of westerns, it was Samuel’s vision that convinced them to join the project – including the depiction of women in the film. “The agency of the character is important,” said King, who plays Trudy Smith.
“[The women’s] existence is not based on any man or child or parent, or some story that has to connect them to something, other than being who they are. And to have three women that are so different and so sure and still have those layers, not be one dimensional, was exciting to see. For a man to be the one to write it is so special.”
The coronavirus pandemic played an important role in the cast and crew’s thinking. Majors, who rose to prominence following his role in HBO series Lovecraft Country, said Covid had put everyone “in the same bucket”. “When there is no enemy, we do have a way of separating ourselves. I grew up Methodist, they’re Baptists down the street … That’s Rufus Buck and Nat Love’s game. It’s through storytelling, and figuring out what brings us together, that we overcome it.”
Elba said his performance “would be different had we not gone through Covid, it changed and matured me. We were thinking the world was going to die. But we stood back up. I was healthy and well. It really gave me a life-changing perspective.”
The Luther star was one of the first public figures to declare he had Covid in March 2020, and he has previously spoken about the “traumatic” impact on his mental health.
The Harder They Fall is released in cinemas on 22 October, and hits Netflix two weeks later. Samuels said they opted for the streaming platform because they wanted everyone to experience it at the same time. James Lassiter, who co-produced the film with Jay-Z, said: “If we’re going to tell a story like this with this cast, the goal is to allow as many people around the world to have access to it. When you have a theatrical release there are built-in biases – some people won’t want to see an all-black cast.”
The Harder They Fall is one of 21 premieres at this years London film festival. The festival will screen 159 feature films, deliberately down on the 220-plus of previous years.
They include The Lost Daughter, which is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut and an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel, Joanna Hogg’s The Souvenir: Part II, Eva Husson’s Mothering Sunday, and Jane Campion’s 1920s western The Power of the Dog, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a ruthless Montana cattle rancher.
