News and Culture

What’s in Harney County, Oregon? Usually, not much.

But here’s what’s in Harney County right now: A crop of Hollywood’s most buzzed indie actors.

Michelle Williams, Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan have joined Bruce Greenwood and Shirley Henderson in the high desert outside Burns, Oregon for five weeks of shooting the movie Meek’s Cutoff, director Kelly Reichardt’s follow-up to Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy.

The news leaked a week ago across film blogs that Reichardt had begun production on the picture with Williams, Dano (the young preacher in There Will Be Blood) and Kazan (Elia Kazan’s granddaughter, who gave a gem of a performance in Revolutionary Road and is dating Dano). This morning, WW reached producer Neil Kopp, who confirmed that this cast, as well as the less known Neal Huff, Will Patton and Rod Rondeaux, is filming in desolate Harney County — the least populated county in the lower 48 states.

Kopp had limited cell phone reception. “I’m sitting on the top of a mountain in the middle of the desert,” he said. “We are shooting in the middle of nowhere, mostly south and sometimes east of Burns.”

That isolation will be crucial to the picture, which is based on the true story of an ill-fated wagon train that attempted a shortcut on the Oregon Trail. The full saga can be found here, but suffice it to say that the tale includes starvation, a legendary lost gold mine and a Native American scout who might or might not be inclined to save the day. Kopp confirmed that the screenplay, written by Portland’s Jon Raymond, is “loosely based on Steven Meek…who basically becomes lost.”

It all sounds like that project long awaited by children of the ’80s, Oregon Trail: The Movie. Here’s hoping they don’t die of dysentery.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Culture, Screen, Spotted. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.