Dances with tumbleweeds Kevin Costner and Lawrence Kasdan shoot for realism in a gritty ‘ Wyatt Earp ’ John Ford never made a three-hour western Neither did Howard Hawks Anthony Mann George Stevens or any other great director of horse operas Even Sergio Leone master of the endless close-up never broke that barrier in his classic spaghetti westerns You need a streak of self-confidence as wide as Monument Valley to think you can grip an audience for more than three hours without an intermission Actor-producer Kevin Costner has tried it twice in “Dances With Wolves" and now in "Wyatt Earp” a 190-minute profile of the west’s most famous lawman-Disney got a head start on Warner Bros Costner and writer-director Lawrence Kasdan “Tombstone” a shorter and slighter version of the same story came out at Christmas and earned close to $70 million (In one last jab at "Wyatt Earp” Disney put “Tombstone" out on video three days ago) Whose version sticks closer to the truth I don’t know Reportage of the times was more suspect than it is today and Earp — who lived until 1 929 and died in Los Angeles at 80 — liked to reinvent himself for the media The CostnerKasdan version tacitly admits that in its last scene a postscript from Earp’s gold-rush days that lets the filmmakers off the hook for poetic license and inaccuracies That’s fine Kasdan who made Costner a star in 1 985 with the western "Silverado" has bigger things on his mind than biography Wyatt Earp Stars: Kevin Costner Denrs Quaid Gene Hackman Writer-director: Lawrence Kasdan Rating: PG-1 3 (bloody violence profanity) Excellent Good Average Poor “No 8tars"Wretched Showing at: Arboretum Clear Springs Delta Movies at Sardis Movies at the Lake South-Park Tower Place Town Cinema Union Square He grapples with all the significant western themes: violence in the service of law the responsibility of a man to his blood kin the value of women in western families the rootlessness of pioneers That he succeeds most of the time is a tribute to his craftsmanship Next to Costner’s Earp every role except Doc Holliday is an extended cameo Dennis Quaid lost 40 pounds to play him and gives the performance of his career drawling insolently and hacking blood into a handkerchief Quaid’sskin burrows down among his bones making him the most tubercular Holliday I've seen he’s like a diseased version of the gambler John Carradine played in “Stagecoach” (Doc Holliday’s a good part: Val Kilmer gives the best performance in "Tombstone” as the dentist-turned-cardsharp) Kasdan has done what Hollywood calls "luxury casting” putting familiar actors in insignificant parts: Gene Hackman as patriarch of the Earp clan Michael Madsen as Wyatt’s brother Virgil Mark Harmon (surprisingly good) as sneaky sheriff Johnny Behan Bill Pullman as Ed Masterson (Bat’s brother) and Isabella Rossellini as Holliday’s paramour a whore inexplicably named Big Nose Kate But the picture wouldn’t work if we didn't believe Costner’s Earp The actor who frosted over to play an escaped murderer in "A Perfect World” thaws only a little here With the help of makeup artists he looks almost young enough to be the 2 1 -year-old who marries Ur-illa a hometown sweetheart (An-nabeth Gish) Later moving from cow town to cow town he ages and hardens perceptibly By the time of the gunfight at OK Corral Earp’s emotional armor has been forged from years of distrust and anger and it’s too thick for any woman but a loyal actress (Joanna Going) to penetrate At first the script by Dan Gor- don and Kasdan seems meant to nominate Earp for sainthood He’s brave obedient thrifty patient respectful to elders willing to settle down and study law with his Missouri grandfather to support Urilla When she dies suddenly the transformation begins He becomes Wino Earp beating a man who lectures him about drunkenness In his semi-stupor he steals a horse a hanging of- More Wyatt Earp movies you can seepage 1 1C fense in the 1870s Saved from a necktie party he takes odd jobs and ends as a deputy in Wichita Kan He moves to Dodge City where the marshal pays a commission: $250 for every arrest Earp discovers he likes cold-cocking criminals and gets about as rich as a lawman can legally He moves to Tombstone Ariz with his brothers to invest in copper mines yet he’s pulled again into bloody “peacekeeping” Some historians say he and his brothers persecuted the Clantons and McLaurys there forcing them into a losing gunfight at the corral Kasdan disagrees though he seldom soft-pedals Earp’s behavior Where "Tombstone” made us think Earp's second wife was addicted to laudanum "Wyatt Earp" reveals the drug addict as a prostitute (Mare Winningham) who had a long unmarried liaison with Earp and called herself his wife with his permission The marshal’s coldblooded treatment of her and almost every woman makes him unsympathetic for long stretches The director thinks of details I haven’t seen in other westerns When a man gets shot at point-blank range the spark from the pistol sets his waistcoat on fire Making morning rounds Wyatt and Virgil stop by a bakery for a freebie even then cops were collecting pastries on their beats! Such touches sustain the leisurely film The movie runs 40 minutes after the corral shoot-out and Kasdan could easily have cut half an hour overall For example he devotes one scene to Earp’s pursuit and execution of a minor outlaw who has no lines But the writer-director needed three-plus hours to make us feel the weight of Earp’s actions Kasdan’s ambitions are as great as Ford’s or Hawks’ — to see the bloody chaotic frontier experience through the eyes of one amoral womanizer who gradually becomes horrified by violence and does what he can to prevent it though he ends in poverty and must leave his home What Kasdan has given us is “Schindler’s West”
