"Far and Away" Production Notes
Photographed in Panavision System 65

The land was ours before we were the land's. She was our country more than a hundred years Before we were her people. . .
Such as we were, we gave ourselves outright.

Robert Frost, "The Gift Outright"

For two young people, Joseph Donelly and Shannon Christie, there was no greater prize imaginable than the chance to possess their own land. It was a dream that ran like fire in their blood.

The Ireland of their birth was a beautiful but divided country: tenant farmers like Joseph began at last to rebel against the cruel rents and evictions imposed by their landlords--men like Shannon's father, who governed from remote estates and never saw the land they owned.

Joseph and Shannon become unlikely travelling companions and escape to America for a new beginning: starting out with nothing but their dreams, discovering the strength of their courage and ingenuity along the way, and heading west to win freedom and opportunity in the great Oklahoma land rush.

It was an adventure that could only happen in America. Directed by Ron Howard, "Far and Away" stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in a romantic adventure from Imagine Films Entertainment and Universal Pictures. Also co-starring are Thomas Gibson, Robert Prosky, Barbara Babcock, Colm Meaney and Eileen Pollock. Written for the screen by Bob Dolman (based on a story by Dolman and Howard), the film is produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard, with Todd Hallowell as executive producer, Dolman as co-producer and Larry DeWaay as co-producer/unit production manager.

Starring as Joseph Donelly is Tom Cruise, an actor who in the course of ten years has risen to become one of the entertainment profession's leading artists (in such films as "Risky Business," "Top Gun," and "Born on the Fourth of July"). Taking the role of Shannon Christie is Nicole Kidman, one of Australia's favorite actresses, best known in the U.S. for her compelling performances in "Days of Thunder," "Dead Calm" and "Billy Bathgate."

"'Far and Away' is romantic, emotional and even whimsical at times," says Howard. "It's about the strange twists of fate that guide us to our destiny. It's the type of story that we all wish had happened in our family."

Although both Shannon and Joseph were born in Ireland, they came from entirely different worlds. "They could never have accomplished the things they did in Ireland," says screenwriter Bob Dolman. "They were both prisoners of the class system. Joseph was a tenant farmer kept in poverty by the landed classes, and Shannon grew up in a world where no woman--however well-born--could ever hope to control her own destiny."

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The voyage to America changed everything. Swelled by the second wave of immigrants in 100 years, Boston in 1892 was just hitting its stride as one of the country's great metropolises. It was also, like many a powerful industrial city, racked by poverty and corruption. Raised in privilege, Shannon was determined to succeed, but ill-prepared to survive in such a world. For Joseph, however, new challenges brought new opportunities.

Growing up on the farm, Joseph learned to use his fists. And there was nothing Boston loved more than an Irish boxer. This was an age when prizefighters like John Sullivan battled it out with their bare fists for more than thirty rounds at a time. Almost overnight, Joseph is raised to a new kind of American aristocracy. For a time, the dream of land nearly fades.
 

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"I was just four years old, on my first transatlantic flight from New York to Vienna, for my first movie role in 'The Journey,'" says Howard. "I fell asleep on the way. When I woke up, I looked out and we were flying over this beautiful green island." When the plane landed in Ireland to refuel, Howard ventured out for a moment. An airport worker tousled his hair and said, "You look like you belong here. Maybe you should stay."

Over the years, Howard developed an avid interest in stories of his family's immigrant past. A product of the American melting pot, Howard can trace his bloodlines back to Dutch, English, German and even Cherokee Indian roots. But it was the romance of his Irish ancestors that continued to sway his imagination over the years.

Three of Howard's great-grandparents took part in the 1893 Cherokee Strip Land Race in Oklahoma. When he was six years old, his great-grandmother showed him a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about this dramatic chapter in American history, which now forms the centerpiece of "Far and Away."

"There's a point in the script where Joseph's father says, 'Land is a man's very soul,"' says Howard. "That's why I was so deeply moved by these family stories: these were people who cherished the land, and they were willing to risk everything they had for the chance--however slim--to claim a small piece of it for themselves."

In 1983, Howard directed a TV pilot written by Bob Dolman. Both of them confessed a dream to make a film about Ireland. One night, Howard was at a concert of the traditional Irish group The Chieftains (whose music can be heard in "Far and Away"). He was touched by a tragic song about a couple in love, torn apart when one of them departed for America.

That same night, Howard resolved to make a film about Irish immigrants to America from the last century. As he and Dolman began their collaboration, it became clear that the Oklahoma land rush would play a pivotal role in their story.

Dolman followed textbooks on American and Irish history for some time; but the turning point in the script's development was reached when he discovered a cache of letters written by a 19th-century woman on her way to meet her husband in Oklahoma.

"The letters breathed fresh life into what easily could have become dry and laborious research," says Dolman. "They were funny, exciting, tender and courageous, and the film is driven by the success and the eccentric adventures of these two beautiful young people, now long gone. We get this very grim perspective on people from a hundred years ago, only because of the photographs we have," Dolman continues. "In those days, you had to hold a pose for over a minute. Who could keep smiling for that long? So of course everyone looks like the faces on Mount Rushmore. But people on the frontier enjoyed life. Their lives were so full of hardships, they couldn't afford not to have a sense of humor."

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"Almost from the beginning, Tom Cruise was the person I visualized in the role of Joseph," says Howard. "We first talked about the project in 1983, after he'd already made a big hit with 'Risky Business.' I thought he'd be perfect, but I harbored little hope that we'd actually get him for the film. In 1986, when 'Top Gun' came out and broke $100 million, little hope became no hope."

As it happened, the script reached Cruise in 1989, at a time when he was already looking for a strong romantic vehicle. Cruise felt an immediate kinship with the brash, enterprising Joseph Donelly, and expressed his enthusiasm to Howard during a visit to the set of "Backdraft."

Meanwhile, Brian Grazer had already been pitching Nicole Kidman for the role of Shannon. "Ever since 'Dead Calm,' I knew we had to find a leading role for her," says Grazer. "She was everything we wanted Shannon to be--poised, assured, focused--and, as we later discovered, she has a wonderful sense of comic timing."

By the time Cruise was approached for the film, Kidman had already been moved to the top of Howard's list. "Tom had mentioned that he enjoyed working with Nicole Kidman on 'Days of Thunder.' I told him that was an interesting coincidence, since we we already wanted her to play Shannon," says Howard. "When I told this to Brian, he said, 'Ron, will you read a newspaper once in a while? Don't you know they're dating?"

"It would be hard to think of a better on-screen pairing than Tom and Nicole in any case," says Grazer. "Individually or together, they shine in these roles."

As in all his feature films, Cruise prepared for the role of Joseph with a singleminded passion for detail: in "Taps," he worked out for months to beef himself up for his role as a hyper-aggressive military cadet; in “Born on the Fourth of July”, he immersed himself in the world of handicapped veteran Ron Kovic, painstakingly learning the hardships of maneuvering in and out of wheelchairs.

Though preparation for the role of Joseph was less physically daunting, it proved no small challenge. Many who see "Far and Away" may be surprised to hear Cruise speaking with an Irish accent--an authentic working-class dialect he carefully studied with the help of dialect coach Tim Monich, which Cruise continued to polish over the weeks of production in Ireland.

Principal photography began on May 28, 1991, three days after the release of “Backdraft”. Billings, Montana doubled for the Oklahoma territory of 1893. The land run sequences were staged on July 8 and 9, a massive operation involving over 800 extras on 400 horses and 200 wagons on a "set" over a quarter of a mile wide. Working on a 12,000-acre ranch, the production company was housed in a city of tents, which functioned as a fully independent community during the shoot. Starting with a cannon shot (as did the real Cherokee Strip land rush), all parties took off at once as the cameras rolled--one of the most memorable scenes of its kind, and certainly one of the largest exterior scenes ever captured on film. To Cruise, the experience of riding in the land rush scenes seemed to carry him away to another time and place.

"My horse, Greenbroke, was very much like Joseph's horse in the film--a free spirit, headstrong and a bit cantankerous," says Cruise. "But once the cannon sounded, he was as steady as a Ferrari's engine.

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"This was the kind of scene that 65mm film was famous for at its height," says director of photography Mikael Salomon. "Big land, big sky, big crowds. That was the way it had to be, because wide-format film just wouldn't work without sufficient light. With the new lenses and film stocks being developed, plus the lightweight cameras we used on 'Far and Away,' we can do anything--interiors, low-light scenes--with a depth and richness that have never been seen before."

Many of these scenes were realized in Ireland, where production moved after the completion of the land rush sequences. The spectacular house and gardens of the Kilruddy Estate, built in 1651, served as the home of Shannon Christie's family (the house was built by the 2nd Earl of Meath--like the Christies, a Protestant landlord).

With a little refurbishing, Irish production designer Allan Cameron was able to transform a quarter-mile section of Dublin's historic Temple Bar district into the streets of old Boston. Part of the Guinness Brewery was used as Joseph and Shannon's port of entry into the U.S. The beauty of "Far and Away's" final location, however, required no human embellishment at all.

South of Limerick is the Dingle Peninsula, one of the westernmost points of Ireland. It is a country frozen in time: as in Joseph Donelly's lifetime, horse-drawn carts make their way across dirt roads, and thatch cottages ring the coastline. The centuries that have passed since Ireland's conversion to Christianity have hardly left their mark--making it the ideal setting for the opening scenes of "Far and Away."

"Looking at this countryside, it is astonishing that the immigrants of the last century actually wanted to leave," says Howard. "But, beautiful as it was, it was land they didn't own. And if there's anything stronger in Irish blood than the love of land, it's their spirit of independence. That's what brought them to America."

In many ways, the conclusion of principal photography in Dingle has brought Ron Howard back to his beginnings: in his first glimpse of Ireland as a child, the inspiration for "Far and Away" was sown. Years later, scouting locations over Ireland by helicopter, Howard was filled with a deep sense of nostalgia.

Yet, though the film finds its beginnings in legends of the past, its story is one that looks not backward, but ahead.

"In some ways, this is a grand, old-fashioned film, the kind of movie you grew up with but don't often get to see nowadays," says Howard. "What we've done is to put a new twist on that classic vision, to create a story for a modern audience. A different kind of movie."

"Audiences are challenging us to make better films," says Grazer. "All of us have to dig a little deeper inside of ourselves, and do better. That's why we're so proud of what we've achieved with 'Far and Away.' Because of our commitment to the highest level of entertainment, to the best in film and sound technology, we can offer moviegoers a theatrical experience they've never seen before."

"'Far and Away' is a new beginning," says Howard.

About the Cast

About the Filmmakers