the American friend
 

POSTED ON 11.10.2025

Director, screenwriter and actor Scott Cooper explores the American soul as a worthy heir to John Ford. He is attending the Lumière film festival accompanied by two iconic films: a western, Hostiles, and the premiere of a biopic, Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere. We'll tell you everything...

© DR
Hostiles (2017)

Trained in acting in New York by Lee Strasberg, and with a PhD in literature, Scott Cooper made a name for himself in 2009 thanks to an intimate American story, Crazy Hart, which won Jeff Bridges a well-deserved Academy Award for his depiction of an ageing country singer. A good friend of the authentic Robert Duvall, Cooper counts Robert Altman, Terrence Malick and John Huston as his influencers -  filmmakers who, like him, are both critical of and enamoured with America. It is no surprise, then, that Cooper's taste in books leans towards Tom Wolfe and William Faulkner, free-spirited writers haunted by their country.

‘The fundamental soul of America is hard, isolated, stoic and murderous. It has never softened.’ This quote from writer D.H. Lawrence opens the western Hostiles, penned and directed by Scott Cooper in 2017, starring Rosamund Pike, Christian Bale and Wes Studi. Filming this tale of an initially hostile cohabitation between a soldier, a woman whose family was massacred by Indians, and an Indian family, Cooper endeavours to see and show everything in detail. His films are characterised by the precision with which he recreates an era and an atmosphere, like exercises in admiration, but devoid of idealism.

Despite his love for America as portrayed in films, Cooper remains aware of the significant challenges that lie ahead, as well as its major paradoxes. The prologue to Hostiles is astounding in this regard, following in the footsteps of The Searchers (John Ford, 1956). Viewing Hostiles today provides insight into the current turmoil churning within a fractured United States. 

Cooper's latest work centres on a period in the life of Bruce Springsteen, another great American and the author of ironic anthem Born in the USA, during the recording of his album Nebraska in the early 1980s. The album was inspired, in part, by the childhood memories of Southern American writer Flannery O'Connor. Again and always, it is an American story! Springsteen is incarnated by Jeremy Allen White, an actor whose physical presence is as genuine as that of the singer on stage and off. Famous for portraying a persistent and touching chef in hit series The Bear, Jeremy Allen White will join us with Scott Cooper in Lyon!

Virginie Apiou

Hostiles by Scott Cooper (2017, 2h14)
UGC Part-Dieu Sun12 5pm

Springsteen : Deliver Me from Nowhere by Scott Cooper (2025, 1h57)
Institut Lumière (Hangar) Sun12 4.15pm