Summary
Viggo Mortensen is not only returning to the Western genre, but also to the director’s chair, with the moving dramaThe Dead Don’t Hurt. While best known to some for his turn asAragorn in Peter Jackson’sThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy, Mortensen has a well-regarded history in the Western genre, starring in the likes of 1990’sYoung Guns II, 2004’sHidalgoand 2008’sAppaloosa. He has also been steadily making a name for himself as a writer, director and composer in the past few years following his well-received feature debut with the 2020 dramaFalling.
WithThe Dead Don’t Hurt, Mortensen again wears the hats of director, writer, composer, producer and star, co-leading the story as Holger Olsen, a Danish immigrant living a quiet life in 1860s San Francisco and falling in love with Franco-Canadian woman, Vivienne Le Coudy, played by Vicky Krieps. In a fresh shift for the genre, the story quickly puts the focus on Vivienne, as she grapples with the turmoil between her love for Holger and desire for a life of luxury, particularly as he leaves her to take part in the Civil War, and she struggles to find any allies in a town dominated by scrupulous men.
Viggo Mortensen’s 10 Best Movies, Ranked
Viggo Mortensen is one of the most prolific actors of his generation, and his best movies include Academy Award winners and box office hits.
Alongside Mortensen and Krieps, the ensembleThe Dead Don’t Hurtcast includes Danny Huston, Solly McLeod, Garret Dillahunt, W. Earl Brown and Nadia Litz. Currently holding a “Certified Fresh” approval rating from critics of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes, the Western also continues an impressive decade-long streak for Mortensen, as he has not seen a poorly-rated movie on the review aggregate in the past ten years.
In honor of the movie’s wide release,Screen Rantinterviewed Viggo Mortensen and Vicky Krieps to discussThe Dead Don’t Hurt, his fresh approach to the Western genre, telling a non-chronological story, and how the latter’s role as Vivienne felt more like telling her own life story rather than playing a character.
Despite marking his exciting return to the Western genre, Mortensen saysThe Dead Don’t Hurtwasn’t initially envisioned as being such, instead coming from his desire to tell the story of a woman “who had a strong interior life” and encountered struggles to live as “an independent person”. He ultimately realized that the genre proved rife with opportunities to touch upon these themes, given it was an era “dominated by men”:
Viggo Mortensen: It was 2020 when I wrote this script. It started out just as a story of a woman who had a strong interior life, was an independent person, stubborn. And then, I decided to place her in the West, because I thought you’d have more obstacles, a society dominated by men, often unscrupulous men, who were prone to violence to achieve their goals. I thought that would create a bigger challenge for her, make it more difficult, and I like Westerns. I’ve been in some, I grew up watching them, like most kids of my generation, on TV and in the movie theater.
So, that’s something I looked forward to, and then it was just a question, as always, of finding the money, convincing someone that this story, which the idea was to make a classic Western that would look and feel like those old-fashioned movies I grew up with, but with the big difference in that Vivienne, played by Vicky, is the main character. We focus on her childhood, also on her when her male partner, that I play, goes off to war, we stay with her, which is very unusual.
Vivienne Held A Lot Of Personal Resonance For Krieps
In playing a character as complex as Vivienne, Krieps found herself connecting to many of her character’s traits and life outlooks, particularly the desire to be independent and feel the lack of a need for a relationship, only to realize later that “maybe the truth is somewhere in between”:
Vicky Krieps: It feels very close to a woman nowadays, or like a woman like me, and I know I’m not the only one. But there’s a lot of women now who want to be independent, and, “Oh, I don’t need a relationship, and I don’t need love, it’s fine, I can just have this guy and that guy.” And then you realize that’s maybe not true, but maybe the truth is somewhere in between. To me, playing Vivienne didn’t really feel like playing, it felt more like allowing myself to show to others this inner turmoil that I carry with myself in my own life, and just not hide it.
Usually, we hide so many things about ourselves, to pretend that we’re strong and independent. “I’m this woman, I’m this actress, and I’m very independent, very strong.” And I’m not, but I’m both these people, and Vivienne is both these people. Finally, what wins her over, I think, is a deep sense of humanity. Allowing yourself to say, “I always thought I was going to be alone, but actually, now it feels like I’m not, and even though I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, even though it feels crazy, and maybe wrong, I’ll do it.”
Mortensen Nearly Went Back On The Movie’s Non-Chronological Story (But “Didn’t Like It As Much”)
One of the most intriguing elements ofThe Dead Don’t Hurtis the non-chronological structure Mortensen implements into its story, with some character fates being learned as early as the opening of the movie, only later to follow their stories in the lead-up to this. Despite always envisioning the movie in this format, the multihyphenate reveals he nearly changed his mind in the editing booth and created a version entirely linear, only to realize “I didn’t like it as much”:
Viggo Mortensen: It’s the way it came out when I wrote it, and I shot it thinking of it in that way. And then, in the editing, I moved a couple things around, but not too much, I kept that structure. There was one point during the editing where I thought, just to remove the doubt, any doubt I might have, or anybody might have, “I’m going to take two days and restructure everything so it’s linear, so it’s all a consecutive, straight timeline.” I didn’t like it as much, especially I didn’t like the way I got to know Vivienne. I liked it more the way we had it, so I went back to that, and I think there’s a lot of things I like about the structure.
It’s a structure that you see more often in books and novels, and literature, but I think nowadays, people are a little more accustomed to it, because there’s a lot of series that do that with flashbacks and a nonlinear structure. But I also like it when the audience is ahead of the characters. For example, there’s a scene where Weston, this sociopath, young sociopath, he comes to visit her, and all she knows is she’s seen him a couple of times at the saloon, she keeps him at a polite distance, and he’s behaving well. But she knows that he’s kind of an arrogant guy who’s full of himself, she’s already seen that.
What she doesn’t know is what we know, that he’s a vicious killer, and extremely dangerous. [Chuckles] So, once she says, “Would you like some cold mint tea,” you’re like, “No, no, don’t invite him to have tea.” [Chuckles] And those things are interesting. I also like that in the beginning of the story, a whole bunch of people die, and because of the structure of the story, you get to know those people afterwards, and you get to understand, among other things, why they had to die.
I just found that was interesting, you get to appreciate the characters in a different way, like, “Oh, wow, I wonder when he’s going to die, and why,” and then you start to realize why one character is used as a scapegoat, because he can’t defend himself, he can’t speak for himself, etc. “And the piano player, why does he have to?” Well, just jealousy, because he’s friends with Vivienne, but those are things you get to know in a different way, because of the structure, and I liked that, when the audience is a step ahead of the characters.
The Dead Don’t Hurt is a story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s. Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) is a fiercely independent woman who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, she agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada, where they start a life together. The outbreak of the civil war separates them when Olsen makes a fateful decision to fight for the Union. This leaves Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his unscrupulous business partner, powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt).
Alfred’s violent, wayward son Weston (Solly McLeod) aggressively pursues Vivienne, who is determined to resist his unwanted advances. When Olsen returns from the war, he and Vivienne must confront and make peace with the person each has become. Both a tragic love story and a nuanced depiction of the conflict between revenge and forgiveness, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a portrait of a passionate woman determined to stand up for herself in an unforgiving world dominated by ruthless men.
The Dead Don’t Hurt
Cast
The Dead Don’t Hurt is a story of star-crossed lovers on the western U.S. frontier in the 1860s. Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) is a fiercely independent woman who embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen). After meeting Olsen in San Francisco, she agrees to travel with him to his home near the quiet town of Elk Flats, Nevada, where they start a life together. The outbreak of the civil war separates them when Olsen makes a fateful decision to fight for the Union. This leaves Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt Mayor Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston) and his unscrupulous business partner, powerful rancher Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt). Alfred’s violent, wayward son Weston (Solly McLeod) aggressively pursues Vivienne, who is determined to resist his unwanted advances. When Olsen returns from the war, he and Vivienne must confront and make peace with the person each has become. Both a tragic love story and a nuanced depiction of the conflict between revenge and forgiveness, The Dead Don’t Hurt is a portrait of a passionate woman determined to stand up for herself in an unforgiving world dominated by ruthless men.
