Director Scott Cooper's 2009 film Crazy Heart kicked up the dust on an unexpected romance between a road-worn country troubadour (Jeff Bridges) and an open-hearted reporter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) its way to winning a stack of awards. But perhaps most memorable, it introduced a new grovel-voiced Americana star in singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham.
Bingham and Cooper are back at it for the new film Hostiles directed by Cooper and featuring a haunting new original song Bingham composed for the film, "How Shall A Sparrow Fly."
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Set in 1892, Hostiles traces the journey of a former Union Army captain (Christian Bale) escorting a Cheyenne chief and his family from New Mexico to Montana. It also features an appearance from Bingham as Sergeant Malloy.
In a recent interview with Billboard, Bingham revealed that he created an entire backstory for his character in the film in order to write "How Shall A Sparrow Fly."
"I really had to dig into who this character was and where he came from," said Bingham. "I felt the only way I could write the song was to first try and understand what these characters were going through in that particular time and place. You had all these different people converging on the West looking to establish some sort of identity, while experiencing unbelievable brutality and hardship. I imagined Malloy as one of these people … and I figured this song was something he had brought with him from home when he first came to America as a young child."
The stripped-down, mandolin-driven dirge that resulted paints a lonesome picture of the plight of not only Bingham's character, but the greater story of the era.
"I felt like the song itself needed to represent everyone in the film and what so many were experiencing at that time, not just the character singing it," said Bingham. "I really wanted it to be able to stand on its own as almost a separate character in the movie."
Hostiles has been playing in select theatres since Dec. 22 and will open nationwide on Jan 19.
