3:10 to Yuma

James Mangold’s film comes from Elmore Leonard’s short story, published in Dime Western Magazine in 1953. It is the second screen version; the first was Delmer Daves’s 1957 film. The opening hour largely follows it, then they part company: in the 1957 version both men board the train, while Mangold reverses the ending and adds a gunfight in neither the story nor the older film. Dan’s insistence on making the train is not only about money. He goes because his son William sees him as weak, a line Leonard’s story does not have. The project was announced in 2003, stalled, and moved from Columbia to Relativity Media. Shooting took place in New Mexico, around Santa Fe, Abiquiú and Galisteo, in midwinter. Cinematographer Phedon Papamichael says he had roughly six hours of full daylight a day and worked by removing ambient light rather than adding it. The result is not the high noon sun of the classic western but a sun that sits low throughout. It was nominated for original score, with Marco Beltrami, and for sound mixing, and won neither. A good fit if you know the 1957 version and want to see where the last half hour turns. Not for a viewer after wide vistas and bright midday light: the winter shoot keeps shadows long.