True grit: this town is big enough for the truth of us
Taking inspiration from Yellowstone
I’ve spent the last few weeks immersing myself in the world of the modern TV western.
If you’re looking for rabbit holes to fall down, this one is deep, wide and full of pot-distilled whiskey.
After being offered a year’s free subscription to Paramount + with my new phone contract, I immediately discovered Yellowstone and its origin story spin-offs, 1883 and 1923.
The world of rancher John Dutton (played by Kevin Costner), and his immediate family and ancestors, has been as addictive as chewing tobacco.
I’m not saying that I could be a cowboy but I reckon I could now get myself onto a horse without too much damage. At least, not to the horse.
Midway through my Yellowstone-fest I naturally felt the need to look up the writer, Taylor Sheridan. The words ‘writing machine’ underplays it. His output is insane. Curiosity peaked, I dug a little deeper.
Texas-born Taylor, started out as a jobbing actor - tenth bloke to the left in Sons of Anarchy, that kind of thing - but turned his attention to screenwriting about 15 years ago and never looked back.
In 2015, the now 53-year-old, wrote the movie, Sicario, which starred Benicio Del Toro and Emily Blunt, and the following year Hell or High Water, with Jeff Bridges and Chris Pine, which earned him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nom.
A year later, Wind River, about the murder of a young girl on a reservation in Wyoming, put him on the map as both a writer and director. He also conceived and wrote the TV shows Mayor of Kingstown, Tulsa King, Special Ops: Lioness and Lawman: Bass Reeves.
So now that we all feel completely and utterly inadequate, and as if we’re writing at the pace of a senior snail with one leg, let’s just collectively doff our caps and move swiftly on. Do not compare yourself to this juggernaut of a writer, or any other writer for that matter.
And this is why.
There’s only one Taylor Sheridan, and the universe he created is a world he knows.
Watching it, without knowing his story, you can feel that it’s personal. That the writer has lived - or is living - this world.
Sheridan grew up on a ranch in Texas, about 140 miles north of Austin, and is the nephew of a former sheriff. He’s a proficient horseman and in fact, is a master of reining, which is the most horsiest of cowboy skills designed to show off the athletic ability of the animal. The rider can bring the horse to a dead stop and wrangle other whip-fast manoeuvres on command in a way that will have your rubbing your eyes in disbelief.
Sheridan wrote himself into the show as a horse trainer called Travis Wheatley, who creates a top class team of reining horses to make money for the ailing Dutton ranch. Read more about reining here.
The show has pathos, joy, action, love, bloodshed, explosions, cook-outs, gorgeous scenery and actors who are actual cowboys, who can also play the guitar and sing.
It has a serious message too, pulling focus on the lives of native Americans who live on reservations funded by casinos, and commentary on how big sky country is being ravaged by corporate behemoths who want to turn national parks into luxury spas. And it’s all bound together with a liberal smattering of soap opera sprinkles.
The unhinged yet somehow perfectly sane relationship between Beth (Kelly Reilly) and Rip (Cole Hauser) is probably one of the greatest romances you’ll ever see on a small screen. You are literally rooting for this absolute psycho of a woman and her partner, who’s been groomed from a young age to do his boss’s bidding.
It’s the ultimate guilty pleasure and, as it turns out, the most-watched TV series of last year (according to Variety).
Why? Well, I can only put that down to the show being firstly, top notch, barn-storming entertainment but also having a big heart and strong central characters, who are both heroes and villains. All of which is underpinned by the authenticity of the writing.
Whatever your thoughts - and Sheridan has his critics - this modern reimagining of a rock solid genre is a phenomenon.
Another western, Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese, is currently doing the rounds as a BAFTA/Oscar front-runner. It’s too long by far coming in at 3 hours and 26 minutes. I watched it over two nights. But it’s a true story, and is based on the 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by American journalist David Grann.
The film made me want to read the book and works well not necessarily because it’s a Scorsese movie. It’s very good but nowhere near his best (that’s Goodfellas and I will die on that hill) but because of the truth at the heart of it.
Actor Lily Gladstone, who plays native American Mollie Kyle in the movie, and was herself raised on a reservation in Montana, was absolutely brilliant.
If I may be so bold to callback to this week’s Monday Mote where I mused about younger me trying to write like Isabel Allende - and obviously failing miserably - Yellowstone shows that writing what you know can open the most wonderful worlds in terms of material, output, satisfaction and success.
Sheridan wrote the pants off of what he knows, and he’s mining that vein deeper still. I read that two more series in the Dutton Ranch universe have been commissioned: 1944 and 2024, which is rumoured to be starring Matthew McConaughey.
The lesson is this; if you’re struggling to find your voice, write about what you know.
Just flat out dig into your life, throw it all over the page and then change your name at the end.
I wrote the feature-length screenplay Best Woman about a woman who is single and asked to give three Best Woman speeches because at the time I was single and had been asked to give three Best Woman speeches.
It changed my writing, got shortlisted in a couple of writing comps and (sort of) became my Eva Luna.
Write what you know. Even if a 100 other people are writing the same thing, it’ll be different.
Write what you know. That way your voice will be stronger and stay strong throughout.
Write what you know. The job of writing will become less daunting and dare I say it, fun,
And before I leave you, I know that westerns aren’t for everyone but I grew up watching them, thanks to my dear departed dad.
He was a huge movie buff and would make my brother and I recite the names of the actors who played The Magnificent Seven before our Sunday lunch. Not every week but many times. Once we’d done that, we would eat. I can see mum rolling her eyes at this nonsense even now.
I just want to make it clear that this was a game; we were never actually sent to our rooms, put on the naughty step or forced to sweep the chimney if we forgot to mention Brad Dexter (because everyone forgets Brad Dexter). It was silly fun.
And it’s a true story. So yes, one day you might see it pop up in something I’ve written, as told by a character called Misa Larks.
Happy writing!
Lisa