Julian Higgins Takes The Western Into New Territory

The American western is one of the most prolific genres in cinema history, and there was a time when cowboys with six shooters ruled over the box office much the same as superheroes do in the modern age. When writer-director Julian Higgins decided to make a western as his feature debut, his approach was to blend the timeless with the timely, and the result was God’s Country, the critically acclaimed Sundance 2022 premiere that stars Thandiwe Newton, and was recently released theatrically and through on demand streaming by IFC Films.

“The Western has always been where America goes to kind of think through its ideologies, and sometimes it’s very misleading, and sometimes it’s more critical …”

“Winter’s Light, by James Lee Burke, was in a short story collection that my Mom handed me when I had just finished my AFI thesis film,” Higgins says of the short story that he first made as a short film and later adapted as God’s Country. The original story is a straightforward tale of an aging college professor, Roger Guidry, who confronts two hunters who trespass on his property, which soon leads to an escalating battle of wills.  “I made the short, and that was sort of all I planned to do with it,” Higgins says. Those plans changed after the 2016 Presidential Election when Higgins found himself feeling disillusioned and needing to process what was happening in America. “The story is about what happens to a person when their belief system runs into the harsh reality of the world, and that was something I was feeling at that time,” Higgins says. It was with this thought in mind that the director approached his writing partner, Shaye Ogbonna, and the two hit upon the idea of changing the main character from an older white male to a Black woman, which added a whole new dynamic and deeper subtext.

While at its core, God’s Country is still in many ways a traditional western, the newfound direction for the story opened things up to delve into heavy themes such as disenfranchisement, loss of faith in people institutions and even our deepest religious beliefs. God’s Country explores issues of racism, misogyny and toxic masculinity as it reflects the division and tension that is so prevalent in modern America. “What we were really interested in is, ’How do those things that are very familiar, those elements of the genre, change when this is the character who is in that situation?’” Higgins says.  “We’re sort of trying to flip the expectations of the audience,” Higgins says. ”Just seeing this woman in this environment making some of the same kinds of choices that John Wayne or Clint Eastwood would make, but the consequences and the implications of that are so different when it’s a Black woman instead of your sort of classic male hero.”

“The story is about what happens to a person when their belief system runs into the harsh reality of the world …”

When it came time to cast the leading role of Sandra Guidry, the newly retooled protagonist, Higgins and Ogbonna kept coming back to Thandiwe Newton. The acclaimed British actress, known for her wide range of performances in high profile Hollywood films including Beloved, Mission: Impossible 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Pursuit of Happyness and Crash, seemed like a perfect fit to the material. “It’s a very difficult role, because you have to buy so many different types of behavior from her,” Higgins says. “You can buy that she’s got the toughness and the grit and the kind of ass kicking that’s required from her in this role, but also that she is someone’s favorite college professor, and that she’s going through a grieving process and is a very sensitive and thoughtful human being. You have to buy all of those elements of her character, and [Newton] pulls that off.”

If there’s one message that drives God’s Country, it’s that we are all subjects to the systems at play in our society, whether it’s the way of the gun in the wild west or the new lawless frontier of the internet and social media. “Yes, they harm certain groups more than others, but they’re bad for everyone,” Higgins says. “The Western has always been where America goes to kind of think through its ideologies, and sometimes it’s very misleading, and sometimes it’s more critical, and, our movie, we’re trying to take a hard look at the systems that are working in this country and have been working for a long time through our history. These are cycles that we’re participating in, and we don’t even know that we’re participating in them.” In his own way, Higgins by making God’s Country, Higgins became the protagonist in his own western, saddling up to fight for what he believes in. “One thing that we can do as storytellers and filmmakers is make people aware of these things,” Higgins says.”Nothing can happen, no change can happen, without awareness of the problems.”

Though the journey of God’s Country may be over, Julian Higgins is far from ready to ride off into the sunset, as the meticulously crafted, thought provoking film establishes him as one of the boldest and most exciting rising talents in the industry today. As he continues to follow his mother’s advice to read, there is little doubt that whatever is currently percolating in the mind of Julian Higgins, is both creative and illuminating, and hopefully, coming soon to a theater near you.

Read more from Patrick Gibbs:
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