The hit prequel to the Emmy®-nominated series “Yellowstone,” “1883” follows the Dutton family as they embark on a journey through the Great Plains. It is a stark retelling of Western expansion and an intense study of one family fleeing poverty to seek a better future in America’s promised land – Montana.
I have always been very cautious of prequels. Sometimes, a filmmaker goes back in time to the beginning of a series, whether on the big screen or TV, and occasionally, it can sink a successful franchise. I was skeptical when George Lucas decided to go back and film Episodes I, II, and III after the original trilogy, and while there were some good moments during the new movies, there was never any real sense of danger for many of the characters. We never had to worry about Obi-Wan or Anakin as we knew nothing would happen to either of them until much later in the series; R2-D2 and C-3PO would survive also, and we knew that Amidala would prevail at least until Episode III, so no matter how dangerous a situation the characters found themselves in, they were always going to survive.
In “1883,” Taylor Sheridan goes the prequel route to show us the origin of his hit TV show, “Yellowstone,” but instead of focusing on Kevin Costner’s John Dutton as a boy or a teen, he takes us further back in time, several generations to be exact, to the year 1883, and introduces us to John’s great grandfather, James Dutton (Tim McGraw), his wife Margaret (Faith Hill), their young son John (Audie Rick), and feisty teenage daughter Elsa (Isabel May). The story focuses on the Dutton family traveling from Tennessee to Fort Worth, Texas, and Oregon. In Fort Worth, James meets Shea Brennan (Sam Elliott), a former captain who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and his friend Thomas (LaMonica Garrett), a veteran U.S. Army sergeant. Both men are leading a European immigrant wagon train to Oregon, and after seeing James in action against a gang of thieves trying to steal from him, they ask him to join them on their trek. He initially refuses but realizes there is safety in numbers, so he and his family head off on a journey that will forever shape everyone, for better or worse.
Taylor Sheridan directed his first feature, a low-budget horror film titled “Vile” in 2011, but it wasn’t until 2015 when the screenplay he wrote for a dark and violent thriller called “Sicario,” which was directed by Denis Villeneuve, took off and his career exploded. Both his movies and TV shows, including the aforementioned “Sicario” and its sequel, “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” “Wind River,” “Hell or High Water,” “Yellowstone,” “Mayor of Kingstown,” the upcoming TV shows “Tulsa King” with Sylvester Stallone, and “1923,” starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren, a continuation of “1883” and a prequel to “Yellowstone,” possess a gritty and straightforward approach that most other shows on TV today lack. Each of his films or shows has a masculine disposition (Sheridan is a real cowboy, after all), but he knows how to write authentic dialogue for his male and female characters, an element most other writer-directors could only dream of.
While the series is headlined by Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, and LaMonica Garrett, it is Isabel May, who plays Elsa Dutton, McGraw and Hill’s onscreen daughter, who steals the show. Every episode is seen through Elsa’s eyes, and she also narrates, giving us an insight into her way of thinking and how she sees and interprets the world. Elsa might only be 18 years old, but she has the maturity and wisdom of an old-timer. Moving from their home in Tennessee to Fort Worth to the Great Plains and beyond, she exemplifies an air of excitement and curious exhilaration at the thought of traveling into the great unknown. She experiences a lifetime of emotions over the course of a few months; happiness, sadness, inspiration, anger, joy, the appreciation of life, and the inevitability of death. She delivers a masterful performance, making an indelible impression on the audience long after the closing credits have rolled. It’s been a long time since an actor made a significant impact on me, and I foresee a fantastic career ahead of her.
As I mentioned earlier, prequels don’t always work as audiences, for the most part, would prefer characters and narratives to move forward in time, not backward, but Taylor Sheridan retreats far enough that “1883” stands on its own. Sam Elliott, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, LaMonica Garrett, and the rest of the cast shine brightly, and the show highlights the dangers people faced during that timeframe as they tried to cross the Great Plains onto their final destinations; extreme weather, scarceness of food and water, disease, illness, bandits, Indians, but first and foremost, each other. The wagon train starts out with hundreds of people, but by the time the journey ends, only a fraction of them remain. Taylor Sheridan has created a show that gives you a glimpse into the brutality and ruthlessness of the Wild West, and very little of it was romantic, contrary to many of the history books written during that time. At one point, Sheridan planned to continue “1883” with a second season, but that idea was scrapped in favor of an entirely new limited series titled “1923” that will follow the Dutton family as they struggle to maintain the ranch in the aftermath of the 1918 flu pandemic and the Great Depression. Before that premiere, be sure to watch “1883,” which shows you the origins of the Dutton family and how their story began.
Now available on Blu-ray™ and DVD
