‘Texas Rising’ Boasts ‘Men Who Are Not Afraid to Be Men’ (Part 1)

Last updated on: May 22, 2015 at 6:42 am by Kate O'Hare

‘Texas Rising’ Boasts ‘Men Who Are Not Afraid to Be Men’ (Part 1) 2015-05-22T06:42:09-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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Come Memorial Day, it looks like the cowboys are back.

Premiering Monday, May 25, History’s 10-hour, five-part miniseries “Texas Rising,” directed by British-born Roland Joffé (“The Killing Fiekds,” “The Mission”) and filmed in Mexico, picks up the story of the Texas Revolution in the wake of the 1836 Mexican siege, led by President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio.

After the deaths of the Alamo’s defenders — who included James Bowie, William Travis and Davy Crockett — and Santa Anna’s cruelty during the battle, the “Texians” (the English-speaking settlers in what was then a part of Mexico) rose up in revolt, leading to the decisive Battle of San Jacinto.

The large cast includes Bill Paxton (Sam Houston), Olivier Martinez (Santa Anna), Kris Kristofferson (President Andrew Jackson), Jeff Fahey (Thomas Rusk) and Johnathon Schaech (Col. Sidney Sherman), along with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Crispin Glover, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Christopher McDonald, Brendan Frasier, Ray Liotta, Thomas Jane, Sarah Jones, Jake Busey, Robert Knepper and Chad Michael Murray.

“It has this great sense of self-discovery,” said Joffé of the production. “It’s a story not only about men discovering themselves but about countries discovering themselves; about people discovering who they want to be, who they might be, who they wish they weren’t. That’s the stuff of cowboys, so all that stuff is wonderful to work on.”

To this day, Texans have retained a strong identity and a fierce pride.

“There’s a uniqueness in Texas,” Joffé said, “that is rather rare. I think it comes out of a blending of cultures. These auspicious stock had somehow fought the land, and gained through that fight, as if the land and they have wrestled together, and in that wrestling has been forged something like Jacob wrestling the angel. I don’t know which one’s the angel and which one’s Jacob.

“It’s as though Texas is the result of a titanic struggle in a way, which is a cultural struggle and a geographical one. That does breed a certain sense of uniqueness, a certain sense of bluntness, a certain sense that Texas is more than it should be. That’s the character of the place. That’s in the landscapes very much, and that’s in the music of the state.”

The Texas Rangers figured in the revolution and have become icons of rugged American manhood — and that wasn’t lost on Joffé. He has a strong response when asked if we may be moving out of the age of the antihero and back to a more traditional view of masculine values.

“We will never go back to the stage of the monochrome hero,” he said, “the man without a complex, who’s just a hero. I do think there is a genuine hunger, and this comes back to the cowboy movie, to make stories about men. Men who are not afraid to be men, without all the fashion models.

“A lot of women need it and would love it and would feel very vindicated to see that. Certainly, as we’ve shown this to some women, the response is immediate. They’re like, ‘Oh, we love this, because these are men. We feel they’re men with everything that means to us.’

“That does come back to the cowboy story, and it comes back to a kind of heroism. That’s certainly something we thought about a lot and wanted to enjoy, and wanted an audience to enjoy.

“The women are very strong, too, but they’re not strong at the cost of weak men. They’re strong because there’s tons of strength around. At that time, people had to be [strong] to survive. That’s rather beautiful. That’s in a way, the most important answer to your questions. Some of the heroes have been whitewashed — assuming we are looking at males as males, and they are allowed to be fully men, as far as they can be.”

Instead of a dominating matriarchy or patriarchy, Joffé’s vision is more about two sexes that are very different and yet stand eye-to-eye, but not necessarily toe-to-toe.

“I can honor other people by being strong in myself,” he said, “because that’s a position from which we can really deal with people. Then, they know who they’re dealing with, and you require the same thing from them. That’s not actually conflict. It doesn’t breed conflict; it breeds a kind of respect and a great sense of fun and enjoyment.

“That’s important between the sexes. Then, the other way around, you get into all kinds of moral dilemmas that are not much enjoyment and some kind of a mess, it seems to me; but that’s just my opinion, and I’m one person.

“The wonderful thing about this is, before any of that became enshrined as an ideology … both sexes shine as they are with the ability to live fully in their own strengths. That’s great, and like I say, when both sides of the equation can do that, it can only be a plus.”

Click here to read part two, where executive producer Leslie Greif joins the conversation …

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Image: Courtesy History

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May 21, 2015 'Texas Rising' -- The Men & Women Who Birthed a Republic

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