Mountain Man and Oregon Pioneer Joe Meek.
Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter has the green light for a tale of frontier justice in my home territory.
From Cowboys & Indians Magazine:
Nearly a year after the series was first reported to be in development, The Abandons — a new Western drama from Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter — has been officially given the go-ahead for a 10-episode run by Netflix.
What’s it all about? According to Netflix: “As a group of diverse, outlier families pursue their Manifest Destiny in 1850s Oregon, a corrupt force of wealth and power, coveting their land, tries to force them out. These abandoned souls, the kind of lost souls living on the fringe of society, unite their tribes to form a family and fight back. In this bloody process, ‘justice’ is stretched beyond the boundaries of the law. The Abandons will explore that fine line between survival and law, the consequences of violence, and the corrosive power of secrets, as this family fights to keep their land.”
Sutter will serve as executive producer and showrunner for the series, which does not yet have an announced cast or premiere date.
Well, we’ll see. Sutter is wildly uneven, both personally and creatively. I loved Sons of Anarchy, despite and because of Sutter’s excesses. His medieval drama The Bastard Executioner was unwatchable, and was mercifully beheaded after one season.
Oregon in the 1850s gives wide scope for Sutter’s fascination with marginal misfits — and it could go really good or really bad. And, frankly, the way this state is currently headed, “uniting tribes and family to fight back” may become a contemporary reality.
Anyway, I think Sutter should pay me as a creative consultant for one piece of advice: Just put Joe Meek in it, Kurt. Trust me on this: You can’t make up a personality bigger and more colorful than Joe.
John Maddox Roberts says
There’s a project on Vudu called 12 Westerns in 12 Months. One of the episodes is called The Wilderness Road and it involves Samuel Mason and the Harpes, Big and Little. Mason has been portrayed on film before, notably by Walter Brennan in How the West was Won and by somebody in Davy Crockett and the River Pirates but I don’t know of a previous depiction of the horrible Harpes. It might be worth a look.
JimC says
OK, that’s really strange. I am currently working on a piece on the Bloody Harpes for the Natural Born Killers series. Synchronicity…
Matthew says
Oh, I want to read your piece on the Harpes!
Matthew says
There’s an article on Western movies and why there are not as many as them as they used to be.
https://social.gamesradar.com/s/no-more-westerns-for-hollywood?as=6dap23851701139290180&utm_source=fb&utm_medium=z020887&utm_content=23851701121000180&utm_campaign=6dap23851701139290180&bdk=0
Some of the reasons you don’t see more are really stupid. But what do you expect from Hollywood.
Ugly Hombre says
“Westerns are also largely a genre both designed and made for white male Americans, Agresta claimed. And as the world changes, many people want more diversity in their movies. The journalist went on, “If the genre in this era can be said to have a unifying aim, it’s to divest itself and its audiences of a strictly white, male, heterosexual perspective on history – and by extension, on present-day conflicts.”
Yipee Kay Yay!
Yelp.. that’s it interesting article thanks! but if deflects the real reason westerns are dying out. Go woke get broke..woke wreaks everything it touches, check out the army recruiting numbers turns out young people don’t want to hear that the country they are signing up to defend is racist and bad. Who would of thunk it? lol dum chits!
“Some of the reasons you don’t see more are really stupid. But what do you expect from Hollywood.” Ed Zackery!
I met a young guy at the range the other day said he liked westerns I told him to watch “The Wild Bunch” with his pards and a case of beer- be sure to cure the modern GI blues.
I hope he don’t get reported.
I also told him if he joined the NRA I would by him a six pack. lol
Ole’ Ugly is a subversive Buzzard
J.F. Bell says
Paraphrasing the article in question, at least as I read it:
“Westerns are entertainment for old white guys. To remedy this, we started removing the sharp edges and shoving a bunch of modern sensibilities/social commentary/other genres in, and we can now report that westerns are unpopular and don’t make money.”
This is some real Nobel laureate-grade thought at work.
Objectively speaking, great westerns are great for a reason. You make a movie that speaks to people, one way or another, and they clear a space in their head to keep it for later. They adopt it as part of their own private culture. They carry it out of the theater because it satisfies a need otherwise unmet.
A good western is rough-hewn, lived-in, and truthful – and mainstream Hollywood, lacking all these things, cannot comfortably wear the skinsuit long enough to fool us. There are exceptions, but rarely. In fairness, this is also why modern filmmaking is dying of spectacle, by which it is possible to divert viewers to into not noticing this beautiful carnage is veneer to cover a story altogether lacking truth, character, or coherent plot, and which doesn’t know where to turn to find any of them.
It would be worth it, I think, to lock a gaggle of today’s culture journalists in a vault with an endless loop of Ford, Peckinpah, Leone, and Eastwood…maybe Hill and Mann. Worth it double to see if any could explain the experience in the language of the rational adult. Some might break, some never to recover fully, and some might run.
…and for those we can put Crazy Lee and his Winchester at the hatch. He knows what to do.
JimC says
A fine image to start my day…
Matthew says
That might actually drive them insane.
Cultural journalist “Oh no it so masculine! Ahhhh!” They’d scream and loose it.
Of course, they probably should anyway be locked in an asylum anyways.
Stanley Wheeler says
Right, you are, JF. I may have said it here before, but I believe the western is a uniquely American genre, a morality tale played out on the vast and majestic canvas of big sky country of desert, mountain, and plain. When the vivid colors of the tale are bleached and replaced with the feeble hues of vapid relativism that condemn the very things that make the genre great, it cannot be successful.
Ugly Hombre says
“We can put Crazy Lee and his Winchester at the hatch. He knows what to do.” lol!
I’ve been lookin for a Model 12 like that for a long time- I quoted the Wild Bunch to the kid. “Flew like a chicken” “should of went to Hondo”, “liar black liar”! “I lead his bunch or end it right here’!
I told him I wanted a film report- the rules. Case of beer, his pard’s and him, limited access showing, no soft tail pardetts allowed. No barfing on he carpet in he barracks. No duty the next day. “DON’T let me down kid” lol “I wants to know”.
Its sure to pry open their minds like Led Zepplin did in 68′ when my Amigo put the eight track in his Dad’s Barracuda. lol.
Some of them are worth saving.
Lots of them in fact, good kids doing the right thing for the Republic- in confused as hell times.
We shall see… 🙂
J.F. Bell says
I wouldn’t mind having one or two more. I still get more mileage out of my 97s and the Ithaca, and now and again I’ll chance a shoulder with the Model 11 whippet that kicks twice, but there’s something about a 97 and a Model 12 on the gunrack that speaks to me; the former of the Old World, the latter of the New, and not that long a stretch between them.
World was changing fast in those days.
As to westerns, I’m right there with Mister Wheeler. It is Amerca’s great frontier art (North American, probably, since Canada and Mexico have skin in the game) unique to us with a reach and a voice that far exceeds the confines of ‘genre’. It’s a far more open field than pop culture generally admits.
A competent man doing difficult work in a dangerous place, give or take, make the bones of a good story.
…horses, leverguns, and wild country sure don’t hurt, though.
lane batot says
Westerns just entertainment for “old white guys”? Whoever wrote that, certainly hasn’t seen the PLETHORA of Westerns including all manner of diversity! I’ve seen many featuring, of course– Native Americans–and yes, in POSITIVE heroic roles!, Jewish characters, Japanese Samurai, Chinese railroad workers, and other immigrants of every stripe, as well as many utilizing African Americans–I recently got a copy of one of my old favorites “Buck and the Preacher”! All the Western TV series(that I was weaned on) were chock full of episodes featuring racial and religious and diverse cultural issues. Someone sure hasn’t done much in depth(or even shallow!) “research”! But then, well, I AM an old white guy……
lane batot says
….And I should especially mention my(and my family’s) FAVORITE Western TV series growing up, “The High Chaparral”, circa late 1960’s–took place on the Arizona/Mexico border, and was chock full of Apache episodes, and more Hispanic characters at that time, than ever featured on any other TV show. “Just old white guys” my arse!
Ugly Hombre says
Yelp that’s the thing the Buzzards don’t get America has always been diverse the dumchits don’t get it. No one gives a damn about the color of your hide. “The Wild Bunch” as westerns go showed that pretty clear.
Jerry N says
I grew up in Oregon in the 60’s and 70’s when The Oregon Trail and the pioneers were still revered and not reviled. My 2great grandfather Brooks on my mother’s side settled in The Dalles area and used to drive his cattle up to the Lookout Mountain area on Mt. Hood for the summer and back down in the fall to the ranch on 13 Mile Creek or maybe 8 Mile, I can’t remember which. Our family had ranches on both. Brook’s Meadow off Highway 35 on Mt. Hood is named after him. My grandmother used tell stories of the drives and riding in the back of a wagon there and back twice a year (she hated the snow until the day she died). Sadly, today’s society can’t even imagine a life like that.
PS. Speaking of Oregon history and Hollywood, I still have mixed feelings about the Sisters Brothers.
J.F. Bell says
You could probably make the argument that the post-Civil War West was the best chance an immigrant ever had. Not perfect, not PC by any modern standard, but damn sure better than wearing the king’s yoke in the old country or dying of TB in a New England industrial slum.
You could cut your own trail. You might die, and plenty did, but so long as you showed some competence and didn’t make a habit of thieving, it’s doubtful you’d have the same range of opportunity anywhere else in the known world.
JimC says
Yep. Puts me in mind of the Irish miner who wrote to his brothers: “Come directly to Butte. Don’t even stop in America.”
Eccentric Cowboy says
It would serve any producer or writer well to consult you for a frontier story of any kind, Jim! Sadly however, it seems that most ‘writers’, I use the term loosely, of Hollywood today can’t be bothered with a casual Google search, let alone in depth study. It truly staggers me how often they fail to do even the most basic elements of research, and what’s more, don’t seem to care for it or understand it’s importance. They seem appalled at the idea of looking at reality and take it as a threat to their creative writing. Which just betrays their astonishing lack of skill in that area.
Whelp, it’ll drive those who do appreciate quality to where they’ll find it, now won’t it? Heh!
Joe says
Had no idea this was in development. You summed up my thoughts exactly though, especially your critique of The Bastard Executioner. I have to admit, a Netflix production set in this time and place seems REALLY intriguing regardless, and I cross my fingers it’s even half as good as I can imagine it could be. A lot of potential in an intrguing setting I’m not deeply familiar with.