The Harder They Fall Director Jeymes Samuel on Crafting a New Kind of Western

The Harder They Fall, the new Netflix film that is already making major waves on the streaming service, isn’t like other westerns you might of seen before. For one, the nearly all-Black cast (no matter how historically accurate it is) may not be what longtime western fans have come to expect. The film tells the stories of Black cowboys and outlaws that have long been pushed to the side in the western genre. It also has an extremely modern feel, using modern music and advanced filmmaking techniques to push the boundaries of westerns for a new era.

Make no mistake, The Harder They Fall is western as it gets at its core, but there’s a newness and a swagger to this film that sets it apart. Credit for that goes to writer and director Jeymes Samuel, a longtime music video director who has certainly made a splash with his feature debut. Combining the history of Black people in the Old West with the technology of today was always Samuel’s mission, and that resulted in something brand new that both critics and fans are falling in love with.

“I wanted to tell a story and to have these characters portrayed in a movie where they’re not subservient. They’re not less than human. They’re not less than anything,” Samuel told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview. “And I really wanted to make a film where we see that, we see all of those things that we’ve been missing, like real true power amongst these people. But also, in the same breath, swag out.”

“I love westerns, I don’t get them enough, so I really wanted to tell a story where I can use the camera to do stuff that they couldn’t do when John Ford was making westerns, that they couldn’t do when John Huston was operating and alive,” the director continued. “I really wanted to utilize drones and show a train robbery. I love bank robberies, train robberies, jailbreaks, but I wanted to show a jailbreak and the train robbery in the same scene, and tell that story utilizing split screen. I wanted to do all these things with my debut feature film and that’s what I got to do.”

The desire to bring a western to the screen came from Samuel’s immense love for the genre. When he was growing up, westerns were the films and shows that he connected to most.

“My favorite genre was always westerns. It was always since I was a kid, I suppose,” Samuel explained. “I think because westerns were the most believable period piece for me to understand and digest as a child. Whereas if I look to Star Wars, I love Star Wars. I love sci-fi. But I’ve never met anyone that looked anything like Boba Fett. I love Boba, but cowboys just seemed more real to me. The horses were real creatures that I could related to as opposed to a tauntaun.”

The Harder They Fall is currently streaming on Netflix.