The filmmaker who produced “Alien” and pioneered the buddy-cop film with “48 Hours” talks to Nick Schager about his new Western and why he’s not ready to hang it up ye
The filmmaker who produced “Alien” and pioneered the buddy-cop film with “48 Hours” talks to Nick Schager about his new Western and why he’s not ready to hang it up yet.
Nick Schager
Updated Sep. 25, 2022 3:02AM ET / Published Sep. 24, 2022 11:40PM ET
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At last month’s Venice Film Festival, Walter Hill received the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award for his illustrious writing and directing career. Nonetheless, 50 years since his screenplay for The Getaway propelled him on his celebrated professional path, the artist remains a maestro of modern genre storytelling, as evidenced by his newest feature, Dead for a Dollar.
A 19th-century Western about a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) who’s hired by a businessman (Hamish Linklater) to track down his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) and the Black army deserter (Brandon Scott) responsible for supposedly kidnapping her—a mission that eventually leads to confrontation with an old bandit nemesis (Willem Dafoe)—Hill’s film is a throwback to the classic oaters of Hollywood’s heyday, except with a particularly contemporary interest in racial and gender dynamics. It’s also, per Hill trademark, a rugged and rousing action affair of no-nonsense performances and robust set pieces, culminating with a shootout that’s as vigorous as anything in the director’s canon.
Though Dead for a Dollar is Hill’s first big-screen desperado saga since 1995’s Wild Bill, much of his cinema is indebted to the Western, from 1975’s Charles Bronson brawler Hard Times and 1987’s cartel drama Extreme Prejudice to 1996’s Akira Kurosawa remake Last Man Standing. Hill crafts moral films full of characters who adhere to (or defy, at their peril) personal codes of conduct, all while delivering a steady stream of breakneck thrills and suspense. Whether pioneering the buddy-cop genre with 1982’s 48 Hours, critiquing Vietnam with 1981’s Southern Comfort, staging a gangland epic with 1979’s The Warriors, or inspiring numerous crimeworks (Drive, Baby Driver, even Grand Theft Auto) with 1978’s The Driver,Hill infuses his varied projects with distinctive muscularity. That once again proves true with his latest, which reunites him with his Streets of Fire star Dafoe, and which is marked by a toughness and economy that’s rarely found in today’s domestic multiplex fare.
Hill is, quite simply, an under-sung American legend, and thus it was our great honor—ahead of Dead for Dollar’s Sept. 30 theatrical premiere—to speak with him about his fondness for Westerns, the moral foundations of his movies, and the secret to shooting great action.
Many of your films are Westerns, even if they’re not literally set in the Old West. Dead for a Dollar, however, is your first feature return to the genre since 1995’s Wild Bill. What brought you back?
Well, I did the Deadwood pilot and then I did Broken Trail [on TV]. I’m always open to making them. One of the biggest thrills I ever had as a filmmaker was, after my third film, which turned out to be something of a success, I got an offer to do a Western. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, Lord, this is heaven. It was The Long Riders. Of course, after I was signed, sealed and delivered, I got the shakes. I said to myself, Lord, this is the fortieth rendition of the Jesse James story and the James-Younger gang, and a lot of them were very good. How the hell am I going to do this in a fresh way? [Laughs] Films have their problems.
But to get to your question, I had been playing around with some ideas for a Western, none of which panned out. Then a couple years back, I was doing some reading on certain aspects of the history of the West, and I ran across a man named Chris Madsen. Chris Madsen was born in Denmark, he fought in the Danish Army against the Prussians in the war of 1864, and when that war ended a couple of years later, he joined the French Foreign Legion and did a tour of duty. Then he got on a boat, went to America, went West, joined the Army, became an Army scout. Then he left the Army and became a lawman and a bounty man. He lived a long life and had an extraordinarily honorable reputation, and I thought, this would be a good starting point for a Western, because we’re so used to the traditional Anglo figure as the bounty man, and the truth about the West is, half the people out there were immigrants.
