‘Rust’ Director and New Cinematographer Explain How and Why the Film Was Completed After Halyna Hutchins’ Death

Three years after an on-set gun accident claimed the life of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, the film premiered Wednesday at the EnergaCamerimage Festival in Poland. But many questions remain, including, why was the movie finished?

“It was not an easy decision,” admitted director Joel Souza in an interview with Variety at Camerimage, where he introduced “Rust” with Bianca Cline, the DP who finished the movie. “I initially said no, numerous times. But it started to become clear to me that this is what the family wanted, that it was going to benefit them. And so that aspect of it was sort of an initial psychological hurdle that I cleared. Maybe, if this is important and they want me to do this, how can I say no?”

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The director, who was also struck by a bullet and injured in the accident, said he then started to consider the notion of “preserving everything that she did.” He added, “just honoring her final work, and the notion of somebody else doing that, I just couldn’t live with that. … At the end of the day, that was the only thing I could do.”

Star and producer Alec Baldwin, who was handling the prop gun at the time of the accident, was charged with manslaughter but the case was dismissed on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to turn over evidence. (“Rust” armorer Hannah Gutierrez Reed is serving an 18-month sentence for Hutchins’ death.)

Terms of the settlement with Hutchins’ family, including her husband and son, remain confidential, though it’s known that the cinematographer’s husband, Matthew Hutchins, received an executive producer credit as part of the agreement. Added Souza, “I don’t think I’ll be too out of line to say that it’s going to benefit [Halyna’s family] and that’s incredibly important. I don’t want people to think it was just some cynical money grab. The producers don’t get a penny from the movie.”

However Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey, who is suing the production and Baldwin, will not be at the Camerimage screening. In a statement issued by her lawyer, Gloria Allred, on Tuesday, Solovey said she regards the premiere as an attempt to profit from her daughter’s death.

In an eerie echo, “Rust” actually tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who, left to fend for himself and his younger brother following their parents’ deaths in 1880s Wyoming, goes on the run with his estranged grandfather (Baldwin) after he’s sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher in a gun accident.

For many, it might be impossible to watch the movie without thinking about the fatal accident, which occurred while filming a scene that led into the final action sequence, at a church at Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico. “The whole scene is gone from the movie,” reported Souza. “That was completely wiped out and then reconceived. So that also meant that I had to reconceive a couple of the scenes that went before it to make the new scene make sense. There’s nothing even reminiscent of it that remains.”

After the October 2021 accident at which point Souza said filming was nearly at its halfway point, production resumed in Montana during the spring of 2023 with Cline hired to finish the movie with Hutchins’ creative intention top of mind. Cline noted that while filming in Montana, “everything that we were doing” was “just in service of copying what she had done in New Mexico.

 “She wanted to tell the story in a slightly abstract way, which is unusual for the Western,” said Cline. “[She would make] photography that doesn’t necessarily impose itself on the characters, like with this film, in particular, the characters live in a gray zone where they’re not good cop, bad cop, the clear villain and hero. The photography reflects that,” she continued. “Everybody’s kind of lit the same as well, in kind of a duality, a lot of side lighting.

“There’s a lot of shadows in this and she was pushing towards a very dark kind of film,” she said. “The atmosphere around the whole thing is very heavy; it’s not a light Western … it’s a heavy subject, and the film is meant to be get into these really complicated characters, and she tried to mimic that with her photography.”

Of course, there were complications, included trying to match sets (sets were built in Montana to match those used in New Mexico), locations, and lighting, particularly day exteriors. Cline related that she also spent more time than she normally does color grading during the digital intermediate (DI) process, working with colorist Natasha Leonnet. Cline noted that the first gunfight in the film, set in front of a saloon, was among the most tricky to get right in terms of color and lighting. “That one was really complicated in the DI because the time of day was just all over the place.”

The production resumed without the same guns, while gunfire was added digitally in postproduction. “When we returned there was never going to be anything that could function in any way, shape or form,” asserted Souza. “There was nothing there that was capable of firing,” he said, adding that new armorer Andy Wert still “treated every single thing like it could fire.

“I don’t know what lessons this industry will have taken away from this, and we may not know for quite some time,” the director added. “[But] I think on movies where they have nothing but fake weapons, the armorer is completely as vital to provide a safe environment, to ensure that nothing slips by. I just hope there’s not a takeaway of that, ‘since we’re all going digital, we don’t need an armorer.’ …  It should be in the safety bulletin that they’re required for it, not just recommended.”

The film runs a lengthy two hours and 22 minutes, and Souza notes every effort was made to preserve Halyna’s work. “It was the number one consideration during the editing process. … the film itself serves the story. And this one didn’t just serve the story. The story had to serve the preservation of Helena’s footage. And so in the cut particularly, [it] very much became about, ‘I’m going to preserve every last frame of hers that I can’ … and how do I craft the story in a way that is going to fit that yet still work as a story.”

Visual effects also contributed to finishing the movie. Souza noted, for instance, that when filming resumed, there were a couple of cast members who didn’t return, including the part of the Marshall, originally played by Jensen Ackles, and later by Josh Hopkins. He said that for certain shots, they did digital head replacement in the footage as a way to keep a shot or scene in the movie.

He cites as another example of mixing scenes: “There’s a scene where the Marshall and his men are walking down the street to get into a gunfight, and the shot following behind them is a different town, three different actors, in a different state, a year and a half earlier than the reverse of that.”

Looking back, Souza admitted “I was very emotional and a bit of a wreck the whole time [when he returned to finish the movie.] The crew that we brought, there were some really stand up people and some amazing people. And to this day, I’m blown away that they came and did this for her.”

At Camerimage, a representative from the film told Variety that a theatrical distributor for the film might be announced as early as this week.

With the public knowing about accident and subsequent legal issues, how might that affect potential audiences? “Gosh, I don’t know,” Souza responded. “There’s this part of you, the filmmaker, that says, I want people to watch this as a movie and to be able to absorb it as a film and that and sort of not have that be colored by what happened. But these are people we’re talking about. People watch movies, and of course, it’s going to color how they see it and how they think about it. For some, maybe they have no interest in it; for others, they’ll think it will make it more poignant.

“Watching this, you can understand a little bit more about her,” he added. “You’re looking at that the way a cinematographer looks at the world. You look through their eyes for a little bit. I think that’s pretty amazing. And you can how she looked at her art, and how she saw it, and how she created it and unfolded in front of her. And I think that’s worthy of people’s time.”