In the six years that have passed since he broke out with “Blue Valentine,” Derek Cianfrance has completed only two films: 2012’s “The Place Beyond The Pines” and this weekend’s “The Light Between Oceans” (read our review). He’s not a filmmaker that cranks them out. However, he is looking to get his next project mounted sooner rather than later, and it’s one that has been bouncing around Hollywood for a while.
Way, way back in 2010, screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana were reported to be penning a drama about Comanche leader Quanah Parker, based on a book by S.C. Gwynne, with Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart,” “Black Mass“) said to be possibly directing. The project never came to pass, but now it’s at Warner Bros., and in the hands of Cianfrance, who is aiming to get it in front of cameras.
“I have my next script now called ‘Empire Of The Summer Moon,’ which hopefully I’ll be in production on in the spring,” he told Indiewire. “…[T]hat’ll be like a 100-day production and that’ll be another year editing that. I’ve already spent three years writing that.” Basically, it’s likely not something you’re gonna see for a couple of years, as the filmmaker’s approach has always been thorough and patient. Which is just as well, since it sounds like it’ll be an epic, and the kind of historical material we haven’t really seen from the filmmaker. Here’s the synopsis of the book, which reveals a story that covers a lot of ground:
In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all.
S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.
Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun.
The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.
Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the “White Squaw” who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend.
Meanwhile, a few years back Cianfrance was attached to helm an adaptation of James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales‘s acclaimed book “ESPN: Those Guys Have All The Fun,” and although he’s written a script, the filmmaker says it’s likely another director will take it on.
But before we put the cart before the horse, Cianfrance’s “The Light Between Oceans” screens in Venice and opens this Friday.