What happens to a film once it has its World Premiere? We asked ourselves this question last year, after attending one of the biggest releases at the Toronto International Film Festival 2023: The Dead Don’t Hurt.

Subsequently, we tracked the film from its World Premiere and the Red Carpet last September, to its release on digital and VOD in the U.S. and Canada this summer.

We spoke to Viggo Mortensen, who wrote, directed and starred in the film, and also caught up with the film’s Costume Designer Anne Dixon. Here is what they told us.

The Dead Don’t Hurt: storyline

Set in the 1860s, the film centres around French-Canadian flower seller Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps) and Danish carpenter Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen), as they attempt to forge a new life as immigrants in a corrupt Nevada town. The couple are separated by Holger’s decision to fight for the Union in the burgeoning Civil War, leaving Vivienne to fend for herself in a place controlled by corrupt and violent men.

The film is an exquisite love story that is presented as a powerful and profoundly personal cinematic Western. It blends the action, grit and thrills of the American West with a captivating story of two pioneers embarking on a life journey fraught with obstacles. One of the key highlights is that it offers a unique female-forward perspective, which adds an extra layer of depth and complexity to the film.

An exclusive with Viggo Mortensen

Our recent interview with Mortensen himself takes us further on the journey of exploring the trajectory of the film and discussing why Toronto International Film Festival was a great choice for its World Premiere. 

HANNAH YAKOBI: So the World Premiere of The Dead Don’t Hurt was, of course, in Toronto at TIFF. Was there a reason why you chose to do it here?

VIGGO MORTENSEN: It’s a great festival. I like it because it’s a true audience festival. And when you’re showing a movie for the first time, you want to know how it would work with a real audience. That’s what you get in Toronto: people buy their tickets ahead of time, they line up and you get a cross section of a real movie audience. You get a mixture of different ages and backgrounds. It’s a more accurate gauge if the movie works. Over the years, I’ve been to TIFF many times and I’ve always enjoyed presenting movies there because of the audience’s reaction, because of the audience being passionate and engaged. 

I also love doing Q&As at TIFF. In fact, The Dead Don’t Hurt was sold out. And so I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna stay all week. I’ll do Q&As for each screening. And if you want to add another one, since they’re all sold out, I’ll do a Q&A for that one too.’ And so they added another screening. 

The house was full at the end of credits, which was great. That’s already encouraging. It means something at least works. They’re still here, they haven’t left. (laughs) 

And then [the audience] had a lot of good questions, observations and comments. You learn a lot about your movie right away. It’s a great festival in that way.

Let’s talk about the film. Why was it important to you to write it from a female perspective?

Well, it was a story about a woman and I knew I was writing a Western. She’s an independent woman, very much a grown person, stubborn, very free in her thinking and as much as possible in her actions. I thought it would be more of a challenge for her if we placed her in the 19th century and on the Western frontier of the U.S. That society was relatively lawless and dominated by a few powerful, somewhat corrupt men who were not averse to using violence to achieve their goals. I thought that would make an interesting contrast and make her life tougher. 

I was curious about writing a story about a woman, especially in that time, because there haven’t been many lead roles for women in Westerns. There have been some, but they tend to be extraordinary women: landowners or women who are somehow unusual, special, exotic, what have you. [I wanted] to have a Western that is about a relatively ordinary woman, even if she’s really tough psychologically. She’s probably the strongest person in the story and is mentally tougher than any of the bad guys. 

I thought that would be interesting. I hadn’t seen that really and I certainly had never seen a story where a man goes off on some adventure, goes off to war, and then you stay with [the female lead]. That never happens. So, you know, I was personally curious. I wanted to explore the consequences.

What happens to young girls when their father, their partner, their brother or son, go off? What do they do? How do they get by? I’m sure there were many, many women like Vivienne. The people at the time, journalists or novelists, weren’t interested in that. They were interested in what the men were doing. You know, their wars, their adventures, their discoveries. And so I wanted to tell her story.

I grew up in Europe and thought it was interesting that the two lead characters were not American: Holger is Danish and Vivienne is French Canadian. What was the significance to have this multiculturalism? Typically, when we think of Westerns, we do think of the United States. So what was your thought process behind that?

You’re right about that. Almost all Westerns have Anglo-Saxon white men as the lead characters. Sometimes it’s women, but mostly it’s men, who were born in the U.S. or Canada. Maybe once in a while there’s an Englishman. But, normally, you don’t have two leads who don’t have English as their first language. That’s unusual. 

And there were also some other characters like Claudio, the piano player, and others who were clearly not born in the U.S. and didn’t have English as their first language either. 

I [wanted to] make a classic Western that was historically accurate in all the details, including the ethnic and linguistic diversity of society back then. Even in a small town in the Western frontier, unless you were a First Nations person, you came from many places. So, I thought that, historically, that would be a valid thing to explore.

You mentioned Canada, and part of the film was shot in Canada. In terms of the cinematography, why did you choose to shoot certain scenes here?

Well, we actually shot very little in Canada. We were very organized as a team, so we shot very little, but got a lot of material. We shot for two days in Ontario and two days on Vancouver Island in Western B.C., and all the rest, 26 days I think, were in Mexico. 

I was looking for landscapes. And we didn’t have the budget, so we couldn’t have shot it in the U.S. We were also trying to be very accurate in terms of the flora and the landscapes. I found places in Mexico that looked like the Southwest of the United States. We also found landscapes in Mexico that people hadn’t been filming at before, not even Mexican movies. So that was great for us to be there and also thinking ahead to the audience that they’d get to see something new that looked accurate.

I mean, there’s been so many Westerns made where I can tell where they were shot. I can say, ‘Oh, that’s Southern Arizona, that’s near Santa Fe, or California, or even Southern Spain.’ In our case, we’re showing something new, which is kind of a treat for the audience. And being there, it was a treat for us too.

In terms of the cast, Vicky does such a great job. It’s such an emotional experience. She’s a really great actress. When you were casting and figuring out how you wanted to structure the film, why did you decide to work with her? 

Well, Vivienne was the first character that I had to find. She’s the lead and [it was important] in order to get the financing for the movie. To present the character of Vivienne, I had to find [someone who] worked for the financiers, and that I thought obviously, first and foremost, was perfect for the part. And then after that, it was Olsen and the rest of the cast. 

Vivienne is an ordinary woman, but she has a lot of strength psychologically. And I was hoping to find someone who could transmit a lot of emotion, a lot of thought, even in silence. And Vicky really fit the bill. I mean, the first time I saw her in Paul Thomas Anderson’s the Phantom Thread, I was really struck by how strong her screen presence was. She reminded me about the first couple of times I saw Meryl Streep years before. She has that kind of power, and so I was hoping [this film] would be for her. Of course, I had to, you know, imagine some other actresses too, just in case she wasn’t interested or available but, fortunately, she said yes right away and was very enthusiastic about the role. 

And, then I knew, as a team, that we could now make a really good original Western, with a strong woman at the centre of the story. That Vicky would be able to do that. And she more than met my expectations and my hopes for the character.

When I interviewed Anne Dixon, we talked about the costumes in the film. She was telling me about the evolution of the characters and how she wanted to make sure this was presented well visually. You’ve worked with Anne before The Dead Don’t Hurt, so what was the experience like this time? Was there anything specific or particular that you wanted to communicate visually through the way the characters were dressed? 

Anne and I worked together on Falling, the first movie I directed. We had a great collaboration on that first job and it was the same on this movie. We shared lots of images. I shared a lot of Westerns or scenes from Westerns: for details, and not just costumes, but architecture and the look of things from that period. And Anne did a really immersive research in terms of photography from the period, clothing and hats. It was really fun to have a meticulous study [for the film]. It was really enjoyable, that process of research together with Anne, [production designer] Carol Spier and [art director] Jason Clarke, and sharing all that material together. 

Anne did a fantastic job. It’s beautiful the way she designed Vivienne’s and Olsen’s journeys, and all the characters really. And right down to anybody that you see as extras. I mean, she’s very meticulous, really detail-oriented, which is the way I am too. So I really enjoyed the collaboration and I loved the things that she came up with. And, you know, like everything on this movie, we had a very limited time period to shoot this, to prepare the movie, and a very limited budget. So it wasn’t like she could have two or three of each costume. In many cases, it was just one shirt or one special item she found. Or really old material she found and put together to be faithful to the time historically. 

Wonderful. Is there anything else you would like to add?

Well, I hope that people like the movie. I hope that they will see it, and just as I did, just as my character did, just as the whole movie crew did, I hope that audiences will fall in love with our Vivienne. She’s a special character. 

And it’s a really good story about a woman in the West at that time. I really liked the way her character turned out. I liked the movie a lot and, and all of us who worked on it are very proud of it. 

Each time you see [the film], you’ll discover new details because we constructed it very carefully. So I hope that people will see it at least once. Or maybe more than once! 

Insightful perspective of the Costume Designer

As part of our work on this article, we also had a chance to speak with Anne Dixon, the Costumer Designer of The Dead Don’t Hurt, about her experience working on the film. “It’s my second time collaborating with Viggo,” she said. “And he has such great respect for the craft, the visuals and the details. There was a real seamlessness with the team on this film, and a constant flow of ideas between us.” 

Dixon also added that she did extensive preparation for the film, across borders. This included pulling items from her own collections of vintage fabrics, as well as pulling pieces in Paris, Madrid, Mexico City, Durango, Toronto and Vancouver.

“It was a lot of coordinating and making choices of fabrics and shapes through Zoom,” she recalls. “And we pulled it off, so that was pretty epic!”

 

Full photo credits: Red Carpet photos by FAJO’s Tara West; costume images and sketches courtesy of Anne Dixon; film stills by Marcel Zyskind, Marcela Nava, Daniel Anguiano and courtesy of Shout! Studios.