For filmmaker Cole Webley, growing up near the Gorge Amphitheatre in Eastern Washington was a key part of an upbringing that shaped him into the man and filmmaker he is now.
While he currently lives in Utah, he recalls fondly coming of age in rural Washington and going on road trips around the Evergreen state.
“The Gorge Amphitheatre lived in the shadow of Quincy, Washington, as we liked to say,” Webley playfully recalled. “It was great, a small, tiny, tiny town. We always called you guys ‘coasties’ whenever we ran into people from Seattle that would come over and vacation in Crescent Bar, (Grant County).”
Webley’s feature debut, the shattering Utah-shot drama “Omaha,” is a film of both tiny towns and road trips that resembles much of his own life. The film, which premiered back at last year’s Sundance and opens May 8 at the Tasveer Film Center, centers on a family: an unnamed dad, his two children, Charlie (Wyatt Solis) and Ella (Molly Bell Wright), and their scruffy dog.
When we meet them, they must abruptly pack up and leave behind their rural home, setting out for a destination that’s unknown to the audience until the very end. Starring John Magaro (who also appeared in Kelly Reichardt’s locally-shot gems “First Cow” and “Showing Up”), it’s a film that Webley said came from a desire to reflect not just his own upbringing, but the unique people that live in small, often overlooked, American towns.
“I really lived in a tiny, one-stoplight town, and I’ve always been drawn to these communities of four to seven thousand people and the subcultures that exist in them,” Webley said, which he feels is captured in “Omaha.” He called films like it “neo-Westerns” in how they provide more contemporary takes on the classic elements, tropes and themes of the genre.
“That is what excited me about this story,” he explained. “I know this dad. I know this guy. I know that he is like these friends that I had with some (dipping tobacco) in the back pocket, working construction, coming home. Saw the world mostly black-and-white, and then something happens where their world is turned upside down.”
From there, the film, set against the backdrop of the 2008 economic crisis, is about the family patriarch setting out alone with his children after he wasn’t able to turn to anyone else for help.
“This dad, he doesn’t have anybody to go to, or his shame is so heavy he doesn’t. I just felt like I really related to who he was,” Webley said. “I loved him immediately, and I wanted to see his journey end in a way where he could ask for help.”
Magaro said he felt a similar kinship with this character. He carries a heavy weight and is quite reserved, often struggling to vocalize what it is that he is feeling over the course of the journey. Magaro was thus drawn to working with Webley so they could peel back the many layers of him.
“He definitely has struggles,” Magaro said, referring to his character as a “tragic figure” in the same tradition of “Hamlet,” but set in the present. “I like complicated characters. I like people with shades and complexities and nuances. I find that interesting and appealing as an actor.”
The film they made together, while simple, is one that spoke to Webley for precisely that reason. He considers it an experience that’s driven “by emotion rather than plot,” which he finds realistic.
“I’ve been able to be in these situations where the margins of society exist,” Webley said. It was then the film’s central exploration of a loss of innocence, in addition to how it grapples with the social conditions that lead to people falling through the cracks in modern America, that made it that much more impactful to him. “There’s hope of what the world could be. I just loved that.”
On a thematic level, Magaro considers Webley’s film to be similar to Reichardt’s work, namely her 2006 feature “Old Joy” and the aforementioned “First Cow.” While still their own distinct works in tone and narrative scope, larger social problems loom in all their backgrounds.
“It makes you think about the flaws in capitalism and why we’re such a wealthy nation with people still suffering,” Magaro said. “That’s just the American experience. Even Cookie in “First Cow,” going back to the 1800s, it’s the same idea. It’s a very American type of story.”
As for what American films Webley, who previously worked shooting commercials and various short films, will want to make next, he’s currently putting one together.
“I just really care about feeling something when I look on the screen and see someone baring their soul,” Webley said. “So my next film is gonna be a drama. We’re just getting folks attached to it now, and it’s on a much bigger scale in terms of the story itself. What was so great about (‘Omaha’) was getting to start with a simple, get in the car, go on a journey, and land somewhere. That is its strength. But I want to make little movies, I want to make big movies, I just want to make movies that have great performances and people baring a little bit of their soul in it.”
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