Jake, Emmett, Mal and Paden Ride Again

In the early 1980s, Lawrence Kasdan was hands-down my favorite screenwriter. With “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Body Heat,” “Return of the Jedi” and “The Big Chill,” he’d proven himself to be genre master whose grasp of character and use of sharp, economical dialogue served him equally well with a social comedy of manners. I remember going to hear him deliver the Academy’s lecture on screenwriting one year and wanting to hear tales about the famous excised flashback sequence that featured Kevin Costner.
Thus, it was an easy decision to attend Friday’s night tribute screening of “Silverado” at the James Bridges Theater on the UCLA campus. Kasdan’s third film as a director, he co-wrote it with his brother Mark and the 1985 western holds up wonderfully. The vast vistas of New Mexico captured by John Bailey’s cinematography, Bruce Broughton’s rousing score and a remarkable cast all help to create an entertaining homage to genre stalwarts such as “Red River,” “Winchester ‘73” and others. The audience cheered the first time Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Scott Glenn and Costner first unite on-screen, an iconic image of four horsemen galloping toward the camera. I hadn’t seen the film in its entirety for a very long time so it was surprising how many of the script’s great lines came to mind just before the actor uttered them onscreen.
Elvis Mitchell’s post-screening discussion with the Kasdan brothers – Mark was also an associate producer – and executive producer/first AD Michael Grillo, focused on the “pastiche” quality of the film and the inspirations that helped create it. The trio reminisced about shooting in New Mexico in winter and recruiting wranglers at a time when the western had virtually disappeared.