I just finished streaming the ten episode miniseries 1883, and I have to say I’m really impressed. It is a truly profound meditation on life and death. Elsa’s monologues are some of the most moving prose ever penned. A sample follows:
Here, there can be no mistakes. Because here doesn’t care. The river doesn’t care if you can swim. The snake doesn’t care how much you love your children, and the wolf has no interest in your dreams. If you fail to beat the current, you will drown. If you get too close, you will be bitten. If you are too weak, you will be eaten.
But the heart and soul of the miniseries are that the words are given life (and death) by the drama that unfolds. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t content himself with mere words to convey the truths of life. Every character’s story demonstrates these insights.
Taylor Sheridan is both creator and writer of 1883 as well as the second prequel to the Yellowstone TV series, 1923 which is now continuing beyond its first season after having been delayed by the writers’ strike. I had never watched Yellowstone, but after seeing these two prequels, I watched the first episode of Yellowstone and was not nearly as impressed, so if you’re not a fan of Yellowstone, don’t let that deter you. Also, since these are prequels, you don’t need any familiarity with Yellowstone.
1883 begins with one of Elsa’s narrations over a flash-forward action scene that demonstrates her fierce determination in the face of almost certain death. That’s followed by a 4 minute scene with no dialog at all as the distraught Sam Elliot’s character sits alone on the porch of his magnificent two-story prairie house, then goes inside, picks up the corpse of his daughter, carries her upstairs to place her in bed next to his wife, both of them dead and disfigured by smallpox. He then goes back downstairs, throws a lit torch through a window and watches the lone majestic house burn and crumple to the dirt. The silence is only interrupted after he squats on the ground, puts a gun to his chin and cocks it, when his friend strolls casually up to him and says,
“We ready. You comin’?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Think on it quick. If I’m diggin’ a hole, rather do it ‘fore the sun is high.”
I’ve seen some wonderful openings of movies, but nothing like this one for power, drama, and visual storytelling.
1883 gets my highest recommendation. A masterpiece.
I can’t recommend 1923 quite as highly, but I truly enjoyed it and look forward to its upcoming second season. My only complaint is that, for the first couple of episodes, I found the story of Spencer, the youngest of Elsa’s brothers who went from the battlefields of the Argonne in France to become a wild game hunter in West Africa, much more compelling than the story unfolding at the Yellowstone ranch in Montana. It should be noted that Spencer doesn’t hunt for sport, but to protect people from the occasional lion or leopard who gets a taste for human flesh.
The story that almost made me want to skip past it though was the one with the Indian school. I’ve read about the horrors of the Indian schools that “tried to civilize” the Indian children by what amounted to legalized kidnapping. It made me hope that the sadism of the nuns and priests portrayed in 1923 was exaggerated, but my discomfort doesn’t mean it isn’t true. My less than thorough research indicated that some Indian schools were indeed that bad, but others were not nearly so harsh, if still miserable. Of course, it would be unfair to view such conditions without also acknowledging the harsh conditions of life on the frontier outside those schools. Still, it’s a portrayal that demands you not look away, and therefore a worthwhile achievement more powerful than a government report.
One last word about Taylor Sheridan’s female characters. I can only conclude that Sheridan has been as lucky as I’ve been to have known such women that he can bring to life characters such as Elsa in 1883 and Alexandra in 1923. The other female characters are not neglected either. Helen Mirren plays a force to be reckoned with, using all her formidable skill. These characters are not the false stereotypes of women who can fight hand-to-hand as well as men. Neither are they stepford wives, but characters who truly embody all a woman’s relative physical weaknesses, but never play the helpless damsel. They also embody all the female strengths of both will and character.
I recommend both, but, for me, it was easier to tolerate the harsh, heartless privations and death of the prairie in 1883 than the wanton cruelty from men and women in 1923.
Musings of a Restless Mind 