After making a name for himself in Hollywood thanks to such films as Get Shorty (1995) and Minority Report (2002), screenwriter Scott Frank has also created a couple of projects for the small screens of television. Such projects as The Queen's Gambit (2020) and Monsieur Spade (2024) feature his name attached to the credits, making Scott Frank a master of multiple mediums.
None of that even accounted for Out of Sight (1998), a film that Frank adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel. The movie was directed by Steven Soderbergh, who’s also credited as a producer on the western miniseries Godless (2017). It's a masterful western that actually started as a movie when Frank began its development nearly two decades prior to seeing it into fruition.
With the help of researcher Mimi Munson, screenwriter Scott Frank crafted a historically accurate story replete with engaging characters, witty lines of dialogue, and unforgettable plot points that still manage to resonate nearly a decade down the line. It revolves around Alice Fletcher, a widow who runs a ranch on the outskirts of a town called La Belle.
A mining accident killed most of the men in La Belle prior to the events of Godless, making this a show replete with powerful, headstrong women. The plot truly kicks off when Alice discovers an outlaw named Roy Goode stashed away on her ranch, and he reveals his former gang is currently out to get him.
Thrilling plot points unfold in each of the show's seven episodes, and on top of its all-time great story, Godless also shines in more technical aspects of filmmaking. This includes cinematography and sound design and even production design. In fact, the production designing on Godless has become legendary in itself, with the crew going above and beyond to see the show come to life.
Building the Town of La Belle
Production built the town of La Belle from the ground up, taking a ranch in New Mexico and turning it into a film set that took twelve total weeks to construct. The result was a massive city that consisted of twenty-eight buildings—some of the frequent joints including a hotel, a saloon, and a jail—this set later becoming a hot spot for Netflix westerns.
It’s located on San Cristobal Ranch, which was previously home to such masterful motion pictures as The Cowboys (1972) and Appaloosa (2008). Other sites for the Godless production include Chama River and Diablo Canyon, the latter being home to a rip-roaring action scene that opens episode three.
Vast majority of this Netflix exclusive was filmed within New Mexico, save for the final sequence when one of the primary characters goes to California and stares for a solemn beat across the Pacific Ocean. This was filmed in the state’s Big Sur region, another gorgeous location that was home to the conclusion of an all-time great TV show.
Regarding the town of La Belle, it’s also worth noting the career of the woman who spearheaded the process: Carla Curry, who debuted as a set designer in the 1980s. She's a practiced veteran of westerns, and her finest work came with the miniseries at hand.
There was also a pair of co-set designers in Carlos Barbosa and David J. Bomba attached to the Godless miniseries, but as for Carla Curry: She’s spoken about her efforts on a couple of public occasions, one of those being with reporter Ann Farmer as she wrote for the Television Academy.
Other crew members interviewed by Ann Farmer of the Television Academy website include casting director Ellen Lewis, art director Mark Garner, composer Carlos Rafael Rivera, and editor Michelle Tesoro. Detailing the sets as they were designed for certain characters, Carla Curry shed meaningful light on the realistic sets and how the show adhered to historicity around every corner of production.
On top of its stellar cast and expert showcases of storytelling, Godless proved valuable for the Netflix streaming service thanks to intensive production design.
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