http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/entertainment/television/11839016.htm

Posted on Wed, Jun. 08, 2005

Spielberg goes West

By David Hiltbrand

Inquirer Staff Writer

Just a few years ago, the TV mini-series seemed headed the way of the dodo
bird, a victim of restless audiences and shrinking network budgets.

But the format has experienced a comeback on cable. The Cecil B. DeMille of
this surprising revival is Steven Spielberg, who has produced expensive and
expansive mini-series for HBO (Band of Brothers) and the Sci Fi Channel
(Taken).

Now Spielberg's most ambitious TV project yet, Into the West, is coming to
TNT. The 12-hour, $50 million saga will unfold over six Fridays (with
multiple repeats) between 8 p.m. Friday and July 22.

A sprawling, multigenerational drama spanning the years 1825 to 1890, it
recounts the great Western migration through the stories of two families -
one settler, one Native American - and the ways they clash and coalesce
over the decades.

Along the way, the characters participate in a remarkable range of
historical events: gold rushes, the building of the transcontinental
railroad, the founding of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, the
Sand Creek Massacre, Little Big Horn, and Wounded Knee.

The mini employs the proverbial cast of thousands, including Tom Berenger,
Will Patton, Keri Russell, Josh Brolin, Gary Busey, Wes Studi, Matthew
Settle and Irene Bedard. The actors and extras were outnumbered only by
buffalo during six months of shooting in Calgary, Alberta, and New Mexico.

"Stepping onto the set and seeing the scale at which this story is being
told, it took me out of myself," says Tyler Christopher, the General
Hospital actor who is part Choctaw and part Seneca. In Into the West, he
plays the half-white, half-Lakota Jacob Wheeler Jr., who becomes a scout
for Gen. Custer.

"It's not a history lesson; it's how these events affected these people's
lives," says Simon Wincer, one of the series' six directors. He was
responsible for the second episode, "Manifest Destiny."

"We begin to understand why natives attacked wagon trains, stuff we've only
been told about in a Hollywood way before," Wincer added. "It's quite
revisionist but it doesn't take sides."

Into the West goes to enormous lengths to re-create period detail,
especially the culture of the Plains Indians.

Zahn McClarnon, a Hunkapapa Sioux who plays Running Fox, a Lakota, recalls:
"When we went up to rehearsals [in Calgary] in August, I walked into a
gymnasium full of bulletin boards covered with information about Native
American lodging, clothing, ceremonies, history."

Throughout Into the West, the native characters speak in authentic tribal
dialect that is translated in subtitles. Mastering the languages entailed
considerable work for the cast.

McClarnon, for instance, studied with Charlie White Buffalo to learn a
historically correct version of Lakota. "He made sure we were accurate down
to the last syllable. I'm talking about even guttural sounds," McClarnon
says.

"Dances With Wolves did a good job of humanizing the natives, giving us
emotions and feelings," says Joe Marshall, an Ogalala and Rosebud Sioux who
served as a West technical adviser and dialogue coach. "We're usually just
the grunting savage in the background. That movie opened the door. This
movie takes it one step further."

In the final episode, "Ghost Dance," Marshall plays the aging medicine man
Loved by the Buffalo.

Of course, such a painstaking duplication of period detail doesn't come
cheap. TNT shelled out $50 million to make Into the West, and that
investment shows up on the screen.

"For the railroad scenes, they shipped up all these incredible antique
trains from South Dakota," says Rachael Leigh Cook, who plays Clara
Wheeler. "I couldn't wrap my mind around that."

Incredibly, TNT has since spent $50 million more to promote the
mini-series, including movie-house promos, incessant ads during the
channel's NBA playoff games, and a mammoth billboard that has loomed over
Manhattan's Times Square for the last two months. It's also sending cast
members to selected cities to beat the drum for Into the West.

Skeet Ulrich, who plays Jethro Wheeler, one of the central characters, drew
Philadelphia.

On a balmy afternoon as chattering clusters of Hallahan High girls stream
by, he sits on a bench off the Parkway, recounting the five months he
toiled in Calgary to make the first three episodes.

Panning for gold meant a good deal of time in the water. "I was in four
different rivers," he says. His climactic sequence was shot in December.

"It was 25 below. They would break ice off this river for me to get in and
shoot. It was brutal. They had defibrillators waiting on the bank. I have
never been that cold in my life and hope to never be that cold again."

Even the most pedestrian scenes were taxing, according to Russell, who
plays Naomi Wheeler, a settler who later lives with the Cheyenne.

"Sometimes it was really, really hot and sometimes it was snowing," she
said on the phone from Los Angeles. "You'd be walking in the prairie grass
in period skirts, sometimes holding a child. The physical stuff was as much
a part of the acting as the dialogue."

The conditions were worse for the Native American actors.

"The 'settlers' had saddles; we had to ride bareback," McClarnon says. "For
the third episode, it was below freezing in the mornings and we were
half-naked in all our scenes. In between takes, we'd put on jackets."

Even horse-opera veteran Wincer, who directed the TV classic Lonesome Dove,
found Into the West challenging.

"It was the wettest summer in Alberta history. It looks great, but it was a
nightmare," he says by phone from his cattle farm outside Melbourne,
Australia.

"I'd never done a wagon train before, and, logistically, that's
mind-boggling. You have 84 harness horses and mules, 100 or so extras, 30
loose cattle, and 30 loose horses. Just moving that around took 16
semitrailers."

The challenge for Into the West is just as formidable: getting today's
short-attention-span viewers to sit still for 12 hours of history-intensive
drama.

"I hope people are entertained," McClarnon says. "It's not a documentary.
It's more of an adventure. It's a love story. It's a story about families.
There's tragedy and a lot more."

Thanks to Spielberg, a whole lot more.

Contact staff writer David Hiltbrand at 215-854-4552 or
dhiltbrand@....