The first installment of Kevin Costner’s Western film series Horizon: An American Saga is an homage to America’s ceaseless drive and energy. Before the Civil War, in the opening scene, settlers of men, women and children encamped on an Arizona river, amid an evening hoe down, are brutally attacked by young renegade Apaches. The U.S. calvary arrives afterwards to take the survivors back to their fort.
These attacks don’t matter, the army colonel explains to a subordinate: “There’s no army of this earth that’s going to stop those wagons coming.” These settlers will not be deterred. Their ancestors crossed the ocean and then the mountains. They’ll just keep moving westward inexorably, massacres or not. The resulting chaos can be managed but not deterred.
Later, viewers see a real estate promoter in some eastern city who is stoking this particular western movement. He is printing flyers touting “Horizon,” an idyllic new community promising the “best grazing land in the world,” with pure and abundant water, and “temperate climate and excellent health.” How could any ambitious person not be tempted? The Apache massacre does not inhibit him of course. The printing press keeps rolling. And assuredly, so will the wagon trains. Onward!
There’s plenty of other drama of course, with bounty hunters, prostitutes, drunks and endless scallywags. The story is not morally pristine. The settlers want land for their families, but the young Apaches resent losing their hunting grounds. Their chief laments their attack, knowing it prompts a war they cannot win. The army is doing its job to protect but is exasperated by the rambunctious settlers who ignore obvious dangers. Various miscreants are surviving amid liquor, gambling, idleness and lasciviousness. Kevin Costner, the film’s producer, is a lone aging adventurer who, against his will, is sucked into the vortex of danger and intrigue. More to come!
But the theme is clear and grand. America is, for better or worse, pushing onward. Sensible or not, it can’t be held back. The whole premise of its civilization is expansion, growth, new enterprises, reaching new horizons, and then going farther still. There’s always better land, cleaner water, and better health up ahead. Don’t be satisfied where you are. Just keep going. Opportunity always beckons.
Horizon echoes many American Westerns but its epic ambition most resembles How the West Was Won, a 1962 five-part film featuring half of Hollywood and portraying events from the 1830s to the 1880s as settlers move westward amid tragedy, war and triumph. If I recall correctly, Jimmy Carter showed this film in the White House in the late 1970s to visiting Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. No doubt it fulfilled all of the violent grandiosity that any foreign visitor might have about America.
These Westerns echo a recent popular tweet chain by a European visitor to America who this week shared “15 American oddities I still can’t wrap my head around.” He noted that unlike in Europe Americans love talking about money and financial success, which he found refreshing. American fast food disappointed him. He didn’t like Americans’ propensity to ask strangers “how are you?” Nor did he like the expectation of tipping. Americans talk too loudly, by European standards. He saw lots of fat people and lots of very fit people: “It’s like America is a land of extremes when it comes to physical health and appearance.”
The European visitor liked that the “American dream is still going strong from what I can tell. There’s this huge desire to innovate and create a better future. I heard a lot of conversations about world-changing ideas, startup ventures, and the pursuit of progress. I honestly loved this aspect of America.”
He also noted that “compared to Europeans, Americans are super outgoing and talkative. They’ll strike up conversations with strangers like it’s no big deal, which can be both refreshing and a bit overwhelming. This openness is a defining aspect of American culture that really stood out to me.” He also noted that the “lights are always on in America,” very different from “energy-saving habits” in Europe and Asia. He supposed that “this 24/7 brightness comes from America’s wealth & love for convenience,” creating a “feeling of constant abundance I haven’t experienced elsewhere.”
Finding inexpensive healthy meals was hard, the visitor noted. But “American customer service is super attentive & friendly compared to Europe,” presumably thanks to “the whole tipping culture, as well as the fact the US is a more consumer-oriented society,” with “servers really go the extra mile to make sure customers are happy, which I enjoyed.”
The European also noticed that “flashiness and status symbols are everywhere,” with designer watches, luxury cars, and public displays of wealth” far more evident than in Europe. “American culture places a high value on financial success and all the material stuff that comes with it,” he sagely observed. Visiting a casino, he was perplexed by Americans addictive behavior.
But the visitor was “really inspired by the risk-taking spirit of American culture,” with people not “afraid to change the world, even if it means leaving their comfort zones. It’s a stark contrast to the more risk-averse mindset in Europe, where people tend to play it safe.”
The European visitor concludes that these habits of risk-taking stem from “the history of America,” which was “built by immigrants who took a leap of faith, leaving their families behind to sail across treacherous oceans in search of a better life. That’s a massive risk. These risk-taking genes are still present today imo.”
Risk-taking. Materialism. Ambition. Boldness. Impatience with the status quo. Quick familiarity and loud talk. Bright lights. Extremes of obesity and svelte beauty. Wasteful indulgence. Endless drive. Innovation. Creativity. Progress.
The tweet chain could have come from French visitor Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s who noticed many of these same characteristics among Americans in contrast with Europeans. National character may evolve but it rarely completely changes.
America’s national character was fully captured in Horizon: An American Saga, with a country that is always moving, wastefully, destructively but also ambitiously and creatively. It never stops. Charles de Gaulle, visiting American cities during World War II noticed too. Even in war, bright lights and bustle everywhere, with contagious, overwhelming energy. Get out of the way!
Violent, somewhat unpredictable, unruly, ambitious, visionary, always heading for horizons, America is an unstoppable beast, in the best sense. The wagons will just keep coming. It’s a big mess. And also wonderful.