By DON GRAHAM
A&E's 10-hour Texas Rising, which debuts on the History Channel Monday night, tells the complicated tale of the founding of Texas.
It begins in the seminal spring of 1836. Since virtually everybody knows something about the fall of the Alamo - and why not, there have been more than 30 film and TV versions - it's a plus that Texas Rising opens on the last day of the Alamo siege.
The drama focuses instead on the lesser-known massacre at Goliad, the victory at San Jacinto (staged very effectively in this production), and the increasing role of the Texas Rangers during the Republic era (1836-1845). Based on the first three rough-cut episodes available to critics, the results are at times interesting - enough so that I intend to watch the whole shooting match.
This is not to say that the production is without some problems almost endemic to filmmakers visiting - or more to the point not visiting - our fair state.
Like more than 120 Westerns before it, Texas Rising was filmed on location in Durango, Mexico, the "land of scorpions." The mountainous terrain and deserts of Durango are nothing like the grasslands south of San Antonio where, eventually, the highest point is a flyover on the interstate highway.
A visit to Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Declaration of Texas Independence was signed, will dishearten anybody seeking grandeur in the legendary countryside. You have to go to Big Bend for that.
The film has a washed-out daguerreotype feel to it, lots of dusty browns in a thin light as though we're looking into a distant past - which we are. The pistols are cap and ball; the dress of men and women is homespun and old-timey.
It's a costume drama then, enlivened by some watchable performances. Sam Houston, played by Fort Worth native Bill Paxton, begins to grow into his role. By the third episode, Paxton captures Houston's stumbles, self-doubts and hard-won confidence as he staves off insurrection among his officers and molds a ragtag array of scapegraces and salty frontiersmen into an army united against an implacable foe.
But it's Houston's adversary, Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna, that compels the viewer's attention. French-born actor Olivier Martinez's portrayal of the Napoleon of the West captures the hauteur and cruel arrogance of a figure who intended to wipe out Anglo incursions into Mexico once and for all. Martinez's portrayal is of a handsome, vain, cocksure, even philosophical figure - the best Santa Anna I've ever seen.
Texas Rising's greatest historical breach, at least in the early episodes, occurs by going all-in on the Yellow Rose of Texas myth. It's a story that many want to believe, but there is no basis that the actual woman in question, a mulatto ("yellow" rose) identified variously as Emily West or Emily Morgan, had anything to do with the Texas Revolution.
Legend places her in Santa Anna's boudoir on the afternoon of April 21, 1836, when the Texans caught the Mexican army off-guard and destroyed it. Texas Rising doubles the fun by making her a consort of both Sam Houston and Santa Anna. Never happened. But this figure compounded of myth and wishful thinking lives on in the famous song.
History nerds can have a field day tracking what's accurate and what's not, but Texas Rising gets points for trying to bring multiple elements into the story line. Besides the war with Mexico, the multilayered narrative includes the plight of Tejanos torn between two cultures and the clash of American Indians (specifically Comanches) with Mexicans, Tejanos and Anglos.
Multiculturalism in early Texas meant that any one of four groups was apt to kill anybody else from another group or combination thereof. Mexicans, Comanches, Tejanos and Anglos all danced a fandango of danger and death. Those were the rules.
The violence in Texas Rising is plentiful and noisy, but not nearly as disturbing as that in novels such as Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or Philipp Meyer's The Son. The writers have read their McCarthy, as we realize when one character promises to kill someone "graveyard dead," a phrase that McCarthy has virtually patented.
Surveys suggest that today's kids aren't interested in history, that they don't care what happened in the past. Texas Rising tests that proposition by putting in a lot of millennials, but I'm not sure that today's hipsters are going to be interested in hoydenish pranks or buckskin bravado. There are plenty of comic interludes in the first three segments, and just about all of them left me waiting for the next massacre.
One of the minor pleasures of a big sweeping canvas like Texas Rising is tagging actors you haven't seen in a while. Surprises include Ray Liotta (as the fictional character Lorca), Crispin Glover (real-life character Mosely Baker) and Kris Kristofferson (President Andrew Jackson).
Baker fought at San Jacinto and later tried to impeach Houston during the days of the Republic. Lorca is not real, and he has only one name because he's crazy and doesn't need another one, I guess.
I'm semi looking forward to Episodes 4 through 10, though not with the breathless expectation of one online enthusiast (an apparent fan of young actor Trevor Donovan): "Can't wait to see Kit Acklin shirtless."
Don Graham is J. Frank Dobie regents professor of American and English literature at the University of Texas and a frequent reviewer of books about Texas for The Dallas Morning News. He is writing a book for St. Martin's Press about the making of the film "Giant."
Texas Rising
8 p.m. May 25, May 26, June 1, 8 and 15, History Channel. 2 hrs. nightly.
