Yes. we seem to be running into lots of remakes of Paper Moon at the moment! (The last one was Gloria.)
Right at the start of the film we see Hanks' back is quite injured - he's had a tough war. Is this why he felt he couldn't go home to his wife after? I like the subtlety of that. It's based on a 2016 novel by Paulette Jiles, a language scholar who later helped set up indigenous FM radio stations for native American Indians in Canada, whilst learning Ojibwe. After travelling through Mexico she eventually ended up settling on a ranch in Texas and it was there that the novel was written. The other screenwriter is Luke Davies (Lion, Catch-22).
Hanks and Helena Zengel make a great combo. (She didn't know who he was!)
Dariusz Wolski (House of Gucci, Sicario 2, The Martian, All the Money in the World, The Rum Diary) ran a two camera digital shoot, mainly handheld or Steadicam, with unobtrusive use of zoom lenses. There's a definite John Ford / Searchers shot in there, I guess as a reference. Greengrass is more of a documentary-approach filmmaker. This much better than his Bourne Identity and Captain Phillips.
The last embrace is wonderfully simple and not melodramatic.
More from Wolski, c/o Cinematography World:
Wolski says a great starting point was Pasolini’s classic Italian neorealist film, The Gospel According To St. Matthew (1964, DP Tonino Delli Colli AIC). “That’s a very interesting movie with its stylish handheld and very beautifully composed camerawork – cinema verité, documentary filmmaking with zoom lenses.”
Along with classic Westerns such as The Searchers (1956, dir. John ford, Winton C. Hoch ASC), Wolski also looked at more contemporary cowboy movies, including The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007, dir. Andrew Dominik, DP Roger Deakins) and The Sisters Brothers (2018, dir. Jacques Audiard, DP Benoît Debie).
“I like the way the more recent Westerns have been shot by modern cinematographers,” he remarks. “It was interesting to see how naturalistic Roger and Benoît went with things like lighting with candles, hurricane lamps and campfires, but to not take anything directly. Whilst you can load yourself up with images before you shoot, it is best then to do your own thing.”
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