How the West Was Won

Framed as a sweeping epic that chronicles the struggles and realities of the great western expansion, today How the West Was Won just looks like a big, expensive gambit to sell the Cinerama concept to American moviegoers. It's a huge production, loaded with impressive location shots and big-name stars, plus three(!) directors, but the plot is less than daring and the cast fails to connect on a human level. Spreading the story over the course of fifty years and three generations probably has something to do with that. Even at almost three hours, it's insufficient. A few familiar faces manage to persist through one or two decades, but a large number of players are shed each time the film leaps to a new chapter. That makes it tough to grow attached, though I guess strong characters were never really the point. Inspired by a popular historical feature in Life magazine, the goal seems to be a superficial dusting of landmark events and locations throughout the mid-1800s, with the cast there to, mostly, occupy the scenery and gape at all the hardships. I watched in a simulated "smilebox" format, with a curved letterbox to match Cinerama's wraparound screens, and after a bit of getting-used-to, it dutifully serves its purpose as a unique, tailored movie experience. The much wider field of vision brings the whole world to life, flooding the screen with unexpected little touches and details. It also lends the scenery a towering sense of majesty that completely justifies the expense of shooting so much footage on-location. One more benefit to the unique video format: by filming with three carefully-aligned cameras, producers had visual fidelity to spare. Modern transfers are effectively working with a 6K source, so the end product is absolutely gorgeous, an incredibly sharp product given its age. Unfortunately, the physical limitations of the hardware led to some uneasy acting requirements and effectively bound the directors' hands (no close-ups tighter than the waist, for instance). More of an uncertain balancing act than a complete, harmonious saga, it's like an extra-long version of the landscape-dominated films Disney likes to show at Epcot.