Omaha the Movie in the

Context of Hollywood Westerns

by Dan Mirvish

Within the past year, I have been fortunate enough to be able to write, direct and produce my first feature film. Entitled Omaha the Movie, the film could generally be described as an off-beat comedy with elements of action, adventure and romance. Upon first glance, it probably wouldn’t be thought of as a western. I know I didn’t think of it that way until I started taking this class. However, upon deeper reflection, I am now convinced that the film not only resembles a western in characterization, structure and themes, but that as the auteur, I was undoubtedly influenced by westerns in creating the film.

As a graduate student in the production department at USC’s School of Cinema/Television, I decided to do my thesis film as a full-length, independent feature. As you may know, USC usually owns every film that is made by its students. However, there’s a little-used M.A. thesis option (Option II) that let’s people own their own films on the condition that they can’t use any USC facilities, equipment, insurance, SAG waiver, etc. Knowing that I would have to raise the budget myself if I wanted to pursue an Option II feature, I decided to write a script based on my homestate, and then try to get local support for the film.

Nebraska hasn’t had a feature film shoot in the state since Sean Penn’s The Indian Runner in 1990. Prior to that, there have only been a handful of films shot in the state, dating back to Boys Town with Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Rarely in any of these films had the landscape or the unique character of the state played much of a role. To the contrary, I thought a script that was very geographically specific to Omaha, and Nebraska as a whole, would stand the greatest chance of garnering the support that I would need from the community.

I wrote the script last May, partially in conjunction with an Intermediate Writing class at USC. The film is essentially about Simon, a young Omahan driven to distraction by today’s world of technology. His dysfunctional parents and siblings are slowly driving him crazy. So he goes to the farthest place on earth from Omaha: Nepal.

A year later, Simon returns a changed man. State and local officials provide a running commentary as we learn that Simon’s a practicing Buddhist, and seems to have learned to deal with the world around him. Unfortunately, his family has remained exactly the same. All they to do is sit around the living room, glued to a reality-based crime show called "FEDS."

Upon his return, Simon reunites with his high school flame, Gina – an eccentric woman trapped in the cycle of community college classes. He also looks up his old friend Lars, who works the nightshift at a donut shop and recites poetry on streetcorners.

To calm himself, Simon chews on Buddhist prayer stones he got in Nepal. Gina thinks they might be emeralds. A jewelry store owner verifies their authenticity, but says they can only be correctly appraised by jewelers in Denver. Unbeknownst to our heroes, the jeweler instructs his henchmen, Jorge and Gustavo – two down-on-their-luck Colombians – to steal the jewels.

Simon prefers not to sell the emeralds: it would be sacrilegious, he says. He looks for a job. Since it’s Omaha, the only openings are in telemarketing. He tries it, but the pressure is too much for him. It also doesn’t help that there’s a roving gang of Iowa kickboxers on the loose in Omaha.

Gina convinces Simon to at least go to Denver for an appraisal of the jewels. Sick of life back in Nebraska, Simon agrees, and the two of them start driving west – with the Colombians hot on their trail. At a reststop along Interstate 80, Jorge and Gustavo snatch the emeralds from out of Gina’s car.

The chase is on, as Simon and Gina follow the thieves over the entire length of Nebraska. Finally, the Colombians run out of gas and flee on foot – right into Carhenge (an absurd recreation of Stonehenge made out of cars). Gina’s taken a few Tae Kwon Do classes and succeeds in beating up the Colombians. By the end, Simon realizes the spiritual harmony of Carhenge and decides that Nebraska's not so bad after all: it really is the good life.

As I had hoped, the local community in Omaha – and throughout the state – was, and continues to be, very supportive of the project. To date, I’ve raised around $60,000 towards the film, almost all of it from local investors in Omaha. The film received tremendous support from local politicians and the city/county film commission.

I wanted to do the whole project with a local cast and crew. I teamed up with Dana Altman as my co-producer. Dana has lived in Omaha for the last few years and is experienced in all aspects of film production. He also happens to be Robert Altman’s grandson. The elder Altman has given us substantial moral and creative support throughout the project.

We had a very good shoot. We filmed in October and November, and had clear blue skies for virtually every day of exterior shooting (no small amount of luck, given Nebraska’s potential for volatile weather in the fall). Thanks to a donation of camera equipment by Panavision, we were able to shoot in 35mm color in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. We have since been editing the film at Paramount Pictures (which donated an editing suite), and we expect completion of an answer print by early June.

Before comparing elements of Omaha to traditional Hollywood westerns, I feel it is appropriate to discuss the issue of auteurial intent. I am in the rather unique position of knowing better than anyone exactly what elements of the final film are intended by the writer/director, at what stages in production they were intended, and for what reason.

Generally speaking, I did not have the western genre in mind when I wrote the script last year. At no time during the writing did I intentionally employ filmic idioms that are unique to the western. Indeed, I specifically sought to make a film that defied genre classification.

Despite this disclaimer, there can be no denial that I have long been a fan of the western, and that its influences have crept into Omaha at least somewhat more than just coincidentally. My first exposure to westerns came about during my youth in Omaha. Not a big baseball fan, I spent many a Saturday afternoons watching countless hours of TV western reruns (which aired on both commercial and public television), most notably The Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy. While these shows may not be considered in the same league with many of the Hollywood films that we have seen in this class, TV westerns of the fifties clearly reused the themes, plots, characters and locations that were originated in the larger feature westerns. They also shared some of the same literary and historical influences.

By extension, therefore, we can safely say that comparing Omaha the Movie to the sorts of classic westerns to which I will refer later, is both a legitimate, and useful means of comparison. On a more personal level, such comparisons give the film a focus and depth that I can further use as I continue to direct the film in the post-production phase. Specifically, knowing now that the film resonates in certain western contexts, I can play up those elements of the film through the ongoing editorial, sound and music process of post-production.

Perhaps one of the best means of analyzing Omaha in the context of the western genre is through an examination of the characters.

Simon is a young man whom we see in a prologue as disenchanted with his life and his family. After a year of traveling the world, he returns to his home, only to find that life in Omaha is even stranger than when he left.

As the family member who returns from an adventurous journey, Simon is reminiscent of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers after his return from the Civil War. Like Ethan, Simon is the outsider who can not find an equilibrium with the rest of the family. However, in The Searchers it it Ethan who is dysfunctional, whereas the family is – at least superficially – the picture of normality. As the film progresses, though, we come to understand that all was not well in the Edwards household, with his sister-in-law really in love with him, as well as the curious relationship that exists between Marty and his adoptive sister Debbie.

In Omaha, I wanted to examine the concept of "normality" in a nuclear family. I try to raise the question of whether the family is really dysfunctional, or if in fact they are as normal as any family in modern America gets, and that it is Simon who does not fit in. I think one could also make the case that Simon is similar to the Marty character in The Searchers in that he is the one character who maintains his purer motives in his search (for Debbie in The Searchers; for spiritual peace in Omaha.)

Simon’s search for that peace is reminiscent of many characters in westerns who have come west in order to achieve a contentment and resolution that they can’t find elsewhere. Whether it be Civil War veterans like Ethan in The Searchers who must figure out what to do in a post-war America, or the settlers in films like Shane, The Big Trail, or The Covered Wagon.

Like the classical lone Western heroes (Shane, Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West, etc.) who carry with them the pain or guilt of some past occurance, Simon bears the weight of abandoning his family and his hometown. During the roadtrip in Omaha, Simon aska Gina about her family – a reminder that he is having second thoughts about his own.

Simon’s relationship to technology – specifically the automobile – also brings to mind the traditional western hero. Dating back to James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking character, the classic western hero has been more at one with the wilderness that with the settling forces of civilization. Whether it was John Wayne’s Tom Donophin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (or in fact, dozens of other Wayne personae in other films) or Alan Ladd’s Shane, the epitome of western heroes rejects new technologies and the civilizing of the wild west that they bring. In films like Johnny Guitar, Liberty Valance and Once Upon a Time in the West, the railroad represents to some characters the same confining characteristics of technology that Simon ascribes to the automobile in Omaha. But like so many classical western heroes, Simon in the end succombs to the inevitable, winds up embracing the emblematic technology that represents the modern society, and coming to terms with the forces of civilization.

The romantic component to Simon’s character is reminiscent, too, of characters we have seen in Hollywood westerns. Simon is the reluctant romantic in his relationship with Gina. This puts him in the same model as Marty in The Searchers, with respect to Marty’s relationship with Lorie. In both cases, it is only when the deeper searches are resolved can the male character focus his attention on romance.

In the filming of Omaha, I gave a great deal of creative lattitude to my actors, especially the leads Hughston Walkinshaw (as Simon) and Jill Anderson (as Gina). I encouraged improvisation, both in rehearsal and on the set, and I relied heavily on both of them when I needed to re-write certain scenes. This is why I found it interesting when, quite recently, I asked Hughston if he had drawn upon any western characters in thinking about his own character. He replied:

I’ve personally never seen Red River, so I can’t speak to this characterization, although I do intend to view the film in the near future with Clift’s character in mind. On a more superficial level, Hughston, though a working actor in Omaha for the last five years, is originally from Tulsa, and I think his slight Oklahoma accent may contribute subtely to the western flavor of the film.

The character of Gina also reminds me of several characters in Hollywood westerns. Like Doc Holliday’s whore/girlfriend in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine, Gina is a woman who feels trapped by circumstances in a town and a life she does not like. In Gina’s case, it is a life stuck in Omaha as a perpetual student at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In the restaurant scene with Simon, Gina longs to go "somewhere foreign, and exotic and wonderful." This attitude also reminds us of another whore, in Once Upon a Time in the West, who wanted desperately to get out of her life in New Orleans only to find herself in more dire straits on the frontier.

But Gina’s character is complex in the sense that while she wants to leave the city she’s in, she has this desire more out of boredom than out of disdain for the city itself (in contrast to Simon’s attitude towards Omaha). In fact, Gina is very comfortable adjusting to the bizarre new world of Omaha ("There are evil forces in this town. You’ve got to be prepared."). And by the end of the movie, it is Gina who rhapsodizes eloquently about the land of Nebraska.

Her soliloquoy about the "verdant, agrararian aquifer, Nebraska" is a page right out of old Hollywood westerns that would come to a halt to allow a character (whether it be the hero or perhaps the minister or another character) to confer poetic stature onto the land. There’s a perfect example of this in Raoul Walsh’s 1930 epicThe Big Trail. In John Wayne’s first starring role, there’s a scene where he looks wistfully into the sky as the soundtrack swells:

Gina’s character is familiar in the vein of strong female characters like Jane Fonda in Cat Ballou or the real-life Annie Oakley. Annie was a sharpshooter in an era when men dominated the martial art of gunplay. Like her, Gina is an expert at the martial arts of today’s era, literally pulling no punches when battling either the roving gang of Des Moines kickboxers or the Colombian jewel theives. And with a not so subtle (but basically coincidental) nod to western costuming, Gina proves to be a sureshot with her cowboy boot in her fight with Gustavo (see Photo #1). Her costumes in other scenes – specifically the haircutting scene – are also period outfits that would blend in easily in a classic western.

The central villains in Omaha are Jorge and Gustavo, two down-on-their-luck Colombian jewel theives. I remember thinking prior to writing the script, that in today’s age of ethnic sensitivities, it is very hard to have the kind of villains that populated other eras of filmmaking; the kind that are automatically presumed to be evil with no need for exposition or characterization. The classical Hollywood western rarely had to delve into the character motivations of "the Indians" in order to introduce them as a threat to the heroic (white) settlers. During World War II, there was a ready supply of Nazi and Japanese spies to battle in B-movie westerns and other films. And in more contemporary films, we have seen movie villains come in the form of Soviet Spies, South African Afrikaaners, and Colombian drug lords. (It is only a matter of time, I think, before we start seeing Serbian villains in films.)

After considering the possibilities, I decided to pick the two watchwords of contemporary American fear – Colombian drug lords, and urban gangs – and twist them into the film’s villains. I consciously chose to play with the stereotyping of stock villains (be they Indians, Colombians, whatever) by personalizing their characters and making them sympathetic in their own right. Inspired by real stories of Colombian jewel thieves operating in America (as a related financing arm of the drug cartels), I chose Jorge and Gustavo to be two jewel thieves (rather than drug suppliers). Specifically, the Colombians’ plight reflects Simon’s in that they, too, are stuck in Omaha, and are searching for a way home. And instead of a racially charged urban gang terrorizing the inner city, I created a rural gang of Iowa kickboxers wreaking havoc in the midwest.

There are two other problems with villains that historically confronted the makers of Hollywood westerns: casting and language barriers. Both of these were also at issue in the production of Omaha.

Until very recently, Hollywood was content to cast Anglo actors in Native American roles, especially when they became important characters in the film. Even in otherwise progressive films like the 1950 Broken Arrow, 20th Century-Fox cast Jeff Chandler and Debra Paget in pivotal Indian roles. I wanted to cast actors who spoke fluent Spanish in the roles of the Colombians, however there are very few Hispanic actors in Omaha (certainly none of Colombian descent), and despite very active efforts on the part of myself and my casting director, those Hispanic actors we found were either unavailable for the length of the shoot, or too old to play the characters. In the end, I cast two Anglo actors who both spoke Spanish with varying degrees of difficulty.

The issue of translation has been a difficult one for Hollywood to deal with since talkies were introduced at the end of the twenties. One way it has been addressed has been in films like Broken Arrow where a point is made that the characters are speaking in a Native American language, but that the actors will speak in English for the sake of simplicity. The Mexican characters in Fist Full of Dollars also curiously speak English to one another (even stranger knowing that they were Italian actors dubbed into English). Other films like The Big Trail (Indian sign language) and The Wild Bunch (Spanish and German) use authentic language differences to their advantage, often with other characters simultaneously translating into English.

In conjunction with this latter tradition, I opted for the realism of characters sticking strictly to their own languages. But because the Colombians would have several scenes together with no one there to translate for them, subtitles seemed the most realistic method of translation. Unfortunately, for a budget as meager as I knew I would have, the traditional method of printing a B-roll just for translations would be too expensive in terms of opticals, negative cutting and processing. That was when I came up with the idea of hand-held translations (hearkening back to intertitles of the silent era), and I just decided to play out the gag to its fullest potential – even to the point of having the translator get the emeralds at the end.

The local officials in Omaha are all characters who are playing themselves. Omaha Mayor P.J. Morgan, Nebraska Governor Ben Nelson, Douglas County Sheriff Richard Roth and the others were filmed in a pseudo-documentary style, in which their parts were scripted, although each of them had the prerogative to rewrite their particular sections (most made very few changes). In this way, I was able to use their segments to provide a commentary on the fictional narrative – some more directly related to the narrative than others. On one level, these men are as stock western characters as they get: the governor, the mayor, and of course the sheriff. In countless westerns, those characters have variously represented law, order, justice and corruption. Sheriff Roth, in particular, seems to have stepped right out of an old western. His grizzled exterior, the plaques on his wall for sharpshooting, his prior career as a secret service agent (not mentioned in the film), and a toy electric chair barely visible on his desk, make him a classic western symbol of law and order on the Plains.

The film begins with the lone mayor clad in leather, riding towards the camera on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle. One doesn’t need to stretch the imagination much to picture him riding a horse instead. Like the entrance of Sterling Hayden in Johnny Guitar, the image of a man riding alone sets the stage for countless westerns. The ending, even more so, is a twist on the cliched cowboy riding into the sunset, with the mayor having trouble starting the motorcycle upon which he always looks strangely uncomfortable. However, the motorcycle really is his, the leather was his idea, and he really did have trouble getting it started. Perhaps he fancies himself a western-styled mayor in his own right: I didn’t ask.

The overall conceit of having these officials provide a running commentary is reminiscent of Nat King Cole and his singing partner in Eliot Silverstein’s Cat Ballou. I actually had Eliot for an intermediate directing class at USC in the fall of 1992, so this influence would have been fresh in my head at the time of my writing the script (although I do not remember a direct correlation). Eliot spoke at length about using the singing cowboys directly addressing the camera as a modern equivalent of the Greek chorus. I feel the officials in Omaha play much the same function.

The character of Mort, Simon’s father, is one that speaks directly to the themes of many westerns we have addressed in class. More than anyone else, he is the purest symbol of technology in Simon’s life. Mort is a used car salesman who has framed pictures of cars in his living room. During the photography scene in the wheat field, Mort tries to convince Simon that "cars have built this society." His character is very reminiscent of the advocates for the railroad that populate so many westerns – usually as harbingers of corruption and evil. This is especially evident in the post-1950 revisionist westerns like The Man who Shot Liberty Valance and Once Upon a Time in the West.

We can see Mort in similar terms as we see Morton, the railroad man in Once Upon a Time.... Mort views technology – be it automobiles or television – as a civilizing force for the world with the same same sort of manifest destiny that Morton imbued on the expansion of the railroad to the Pacific.

Other characters in Omaha remind us of figures that are common in Hollywood westerns. Lars, Simon’s best friend, could be considered the classic western sidekick, provided for comic relief. Or he could be looked at in much the same way as the stock Scandanavian found in so many John Ford and other westerns (Liberty Valance, The Searchers, etc.). The Ford Swedes seem to live by simple, honest work ethics that are perhaps a little different (or funnier) than the other settlers. Lars, in Omaha, also lives by simple, but different, truths as exemplified by the remark, "people are a lot like donuts." The comparison of Lars to these stock Scandanavian characters admittedly came to mind partially because "Lars" is a Scandanavian name. But the truth of the matter is that I merely used the name of the actor (Lars Madsen – really a non-actor friend of mine) who is far from being a first-generation Scandanavian.

The character of Bob, something of an all-knowing guru in Omaha, could be compared to the many ministers, priests and assorted wise men that populate many westerns (from Zeke in The Big Trail to Jack Palance’s Curly in City Slickers). And the roving gang of Des Moines kickboxers is in some way based on the tradition epitomized by cattle rustlers, and other mindless gangs of bad guys (Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch comes to mind, as do the four mining brothers in Ride the High Country).

In addition to the characters in Omaha the Movie being similar to – if not actually based on – archetypes and characters from Hollywood westerns, there are structural elements, story points and locations in the film that will remind the viewer of Hollywood westerns.

The central through-line of the film involves Simon’s possession of Budhist prayer stones that turn out to be precious emeralds. But aside from Simon and Gina, virtually everyone else in the movie is looking for the jewels as well. The Colombian jewel thieves, the roving gang of Des Moines kickboxers, and federal agents from "FEDS" are all looking for the jewels. And in the end, it is yet another character, the translator, who actually winds up with them. The idea of several different characters and groups of characters all looking for the same precious item is an old one in westerns. There were multiple parties vying for the gold in Ride the High Country, and we’ve seen a similar chase for buried gold in the episode of Maverick that was projected in class.

Two related techniques I’ve used in Omaha are mixing real life with TV, and in exploring the self-referentialism of the filmmaking process – especially as exemplified by the translator character. The first of these, involving the melding of the "FEDS" TV show with the family that is watching it, is somewhat akin to B-western singing cowboys (like Gene Autry) who would film themselves having adventures which involved the production of their own radio shows, thus blurring the lines between real-life and broadcast entertainment. A related technique involves betraying the filmmaking technique, and incorporating it into the action. Though far from exclusive domain of western films, one of the prime examples of this techniques was in Blazing Saddles, in which Mel Brooks concluded the film by taking his cowboys and villains onto the studio backlot, and ultimately into the theater in which the film was playing. Though not taken quite to the same extent, I believe the translator conceit is carried out in a similar cinematic spirit.

One of the most widely used western cliches is undoubtedly the showdown at the OK Corral. From its historical place in history, to films like My Darling Clementine, to an episode of Star Trek, the concept of a showdown in a corral has become an enduring idiom in American westerns. Likewise in Omaha, the final climactic ending takes place in Carhenge – in essence a circular corral that confines the characters into an arena of action and conflict.

The actual filming of Carhenge is perhaps more similar to a different western icon, Monument Valley. Like Ford’s expressive use of Monument Valley as a backdrop for the action, I tried to use Carhenge in a similar way. By strictly shooting the final scenes with wide lenses from low camera angles, I intentionally tried to make Carhenge seem larger than it really is, and thus more imposing over the characters. Similarly, those same camera positions also tended to lower the horizon line, thus emphasizing the wide, western sky (fortunately a clear blue one during most of the shooting), over the characters – another common element in Ford’s cinematography.

In actual fact, though, the cinematic model that I based the Carhenge scene most directly upon, was Alfred Hitchcock’s use of Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest (a thriller that is scarcely a traditional western), as well as several other Hitchcock movies in which he uses monuments and well-known locations for climactic grand finales. Naturally, I’m twisting the Hichcock model a little by using a uniquely American perversion of Stonehenge – a more familiar and stoic monument.

Another intriguing location I use in Omaha should also remind viewers of westerns. When another location fell through, and I decided the film needed another chase scene in the middle, I wrote in the scenes that take place at the Omaha stockyards. Although in its waning years as a functioning stockyard, the Omaha facility was still active enough to allow us to incorporate cattle into the filming of the chase. Though far from being as effective as either the fistfight in Shane or the gunfight in My Darling Clementine where horses are used to magnify the conflict between the humans, I do think we achieved some measure of success, especially given our limited access and control of the livestock.

A similar scene in which this occurs is the cattle drive during the car chase. I took advantage of this cattle drive on the outskirts of Alliance when we heard about it the night before at a local tavern. I felt nothing would be more emblematic of western Nebraska than a cattle drive, and was pleasantly surprised to find real-life cowboys on horseback driving the ninety-one head of cattle. It is ironic that this, perhaps the most direct and obvious element of Hollywood westerns portrayed in the film, is in fact a documentary portrayal of the contemporary American west rather than a Hollywood recreation of events in the nineteenth century (see Photo #2).

There are other elements of the changing west that are subtly revealed in Omaha. For example, in the title sequence, Simon is seen walking through a large deserted space. And although most viewers have interpreted this to be an extension of the airport interior, we in fact filmed it at an enormous (300 yards long, at least) abandoned hangar in which Union Pacific used to build and service its rail cars. There are a few other small references to the rail industry in Nebraska, which like the cattle industry, is a part of the western culture that is in decline in Nebraska. (Union Pacific was in fact one of many businesses in Omaha that turned me down for funding.)

What many of these films (and others, dating up to City Slickers) have in common are the rough and treacherous river crossing scenes. In Omaha, I demystify the modern equivalent by having the characters simply drive over the Platte River, with Simon commenting that he "walked across it once," and even Gustavo the Colombian noting that "it’s not much of a river, really." When asked by my editor and others why I had devoted those scenes that pertained to the Platte River (which have nothing to do with the narrative story), I have replied that the Platte was an important part of Nebraska history and culture (and one of the few unifying elements between the disparate eastern side of the state and the western panhandle), and that I felt I should include it.

In conclusion, the more I have looked at Omaha the Movie, the more I have come to see it in terms common to Hollywood westerns. But because I know that this is a new revelation post-dating the writing and production of the film, I come away wondering how unique many of the aforementioned elements are to the western genre. Perhaps so many of these western elements have been incorporated into the lexicon and traditions of nearly a hundred years of film, radio and TV drama of all genres, that they are no longer immediately recognizable as strictly "western" in origin. In any case, this examination has been a useful tool for me to reevaluate my film while I am still very much in the creative process of post-production.

1. From a telephone interview with Hughston Walkinshaw on April 10, 1994.

2. The Big Trail, Raoul Walsh (director), 20th Century Fox, 1930.

3. Dorothy Weyer Creigh, Nebraska: A Bicentennial History, W.W. Norton & Company (1977), p. 145.

4. Merrill J. Mattes, The Great Platte River Road: The Covered Wagon Mainline Via Fort Kearney to Fort Laramie, University of Nebraska Press (1969), pp. 136-137.

Everson, William K. The Hollywood Western. New York: Citadel Press, 1992.

Olson, James C. History of Nebraska. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966.