When he read Taylor Sheridan’s script for Hell or High Water, director David Mackenzie was floored. “It’s not a very interesting backstory about how I got involved. To put it simply, the script was amazing. I didn’t want to change a word. What Taylor wrote was straight from the heart and to my understanding didn’t go through any development process. My reaction was simply, ‘Fantastic, let’s make it.’”
Hell or High Water is actually Sheridan’s first major feature screenplay, although his second—the lauded Sicario (2015) directed by Denis Villeneuve—came to fruition first. Mackenzie said of Sheridan, “The story he wrote for Hell or High Water jumped off the paper and came alive. Now he’s in the process of going from writer to being a director with Wind River.” (Sheridan also wrote Wind River which has a cast headlined by Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner.)
What Mackenzie did with Sheridan’s script for Hell or High Water has gone on to gain critical acclaim, including being nominated for the Un Certain Regard Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. A heist drama set in West Texas, the movie is centered on a pair of bank-robbing brothers (Toby portrayed by Chris Pine and Tanner by Ben Foster) and the two Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges as Marcus and Gil Birmingham as Alberto) pursuing them. Toby, a divorced father and pretty much a straight arrow of a guy, and Tanner, an ex-con with a short fuse and a loose trigger finger, team to rob branch after branch of the bank that is foreclosing on their family land. Their robberies are a means to combat a systematically rigged financial game stacked against them. Meanwhile Marcus is looking for one last triumph on the eve of his retirement; he and Birmingham are constantly trading barbs, which do little to conceal what is a deep-rooted friendship. The character-driven story generates empathy as well as sympathy for the couples on both sides of the law—though in no way making excuses for the brothers’ crimes.
The film and its protagonists have resonated with critics and audiences alike, making Hell or High Water a sleeper hit and an Oscar contender. Asked why Hell or High Water has struck such a responsive chord, Mackenzie said the story and its characters “feel the pulse of the nation, of middle America, in some kind of way. It’s a western that’s a snapshot of contemporary America, touching upon the nerves of modern America. As the next presidential election unfolds and other developments come into play in society, there’s a confluence of elements touching the nerves of audiences. This film inhabits the space of those nerves—rather than creating those nerves. People can relate to the story and the lives of the people involved. A lot of the credit goes to Taylor’s writing. The material is good and comes alive, engages people thanks to the story and the environment where it’s set, and of course very strong acting performances.”
Mackenzie teamed on Hell or High Water with a couple of familiar collaborators—cinematographer Giles Nuttgens who shot five of the director’s prior films starting with Young Adam in 2003, and editor Jake Roberts who cut four of Mackenzie’s previous movies, including Starred Up (with editor Nick Emerson). “You logically reach out to people you know,” said Mackenzie about his selection of Nuttgens and Roberts for Hell or High Water. “I’m currently working on a TV pilot with Giles. I have a longstanding relationship with Giles and Jake and we have a great shorthand together, building on creative work we’ve done in the past. Jake and Giles are real artists. We share similar sensibilities and common ground.”
Mackenzie also finds irony in that three Brits—the core team consisting of him, Nuttgens and Roberts—were able to capture Americana in Hell or High Water. “As three British people in New Mexico, we were awed by the landscape.” Perhaps their outsider perspective led them to not take for granted what Americans familiar with the Southwest normally would. Thus the visual inspiration they felt for this land new to them was reflected in the final product.
Not all of Mackenzie’s collaborations on Hell or High Water were return engagements. He worked for the first time with production designer Tom Duffield (Lone Survivor, The Ring, Ed Wood). “I liked his sensibilities,” said Mackenzie of Duffield. “We didn’t build any sets. We just went out and found good locations. Tom has a great understanding of how the environment plays in storytelling. I traveled all around Texas with Tom and Giles. We took photographs and tried to put as much of the Texas flavor into our heads as humanly possible.”
Filmography
Mackenzie started making features, after several notable shorts, with the oddball-revenge movie The Last Great Wilderness with made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2002. He followed this with his adaptation of Alexander Trocchi’s existentialist classic Young Adam, starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton which premiered in Cannes 2003, played the Toronto and Telluride fests that year and went on to win four Scottish BAFTAs, a European Film Academy and several BIFA nominations and a London Critics Circle award for Best Newcomer.
Mackenzie’s subsequent films include Asylum starring Natasha Richardson and Ian McKellen; the highly regarded Hallam Foe with Jamie Bell, which won a Silver Bear in Berlin 2007, the Gold Hugo in Chicago, the Golden Swan in Copenhagen, the Golden Hitchcock in Dinard, a Scottish BAFTA and four nominations, eight BIFA nominations; and Spread with Ashton Kutcher and Anne Heche which premiered in Sundance 2009.
Mackenzie then helmed the futuristic fable Perfect Sense starring Eva Green and Ewan McGregor, which premiered in Sundance in 2011 and won several awards including Best Feature in Edinburgh and several Scottish BAFTA nominations, and the comedy romance You Instead (a.k.a. Tonight You’re Mine) in which two rival pop stars, male and female, find themselves involuntarily “united” at a massive music festival.
Next came Starred Up, a prison drama starring Jack O’Connell, Ben Mendolsohn and Rupert Friend. Starred Up, Mackenzie’s last film prior to Hell or High Water, won the BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Feature Film and Best Director in 2014.
