Billy Bob's Filmography

SOUTH OF HEAVEN, WEST OF HELL (2000)

Movie Quote
BRIGADIER SMALLS:  Unlike you and I, she retains her sense of smell.

Plot
Frontier lawman Valentine Casey (Dwight Yoakam) must hunt down the vicious family of inbred outlaws who raised him after they decimate the small, Arizona town where he has been peacefully posted. His journey takes him south of heaven, alright, where he encounters a motley assortment of violent and eccentric open range types.

What Billy Bob Gets To Do
The ethereal traveler Brigadier Smalls sports an arresting hairstyle--long, blonde tresses that cascade in the wind.  It's a look destined to give Rapunzel the creeps.  With his friend Babcock (Warren Zevon, pictured above with Billy Bob) in tow, he escorts the lovely Adalyne Dunfries (Bridget Fonda) into town, where she will meet and fall in love with Valentine Casey.

Backstory
Dwight Yoakam's existential western was nominated for a Golden Boot Award (an honor bestowed only upon Western films--ALL THE PRETTY HORSES was also in the running that same year). Directed, produced, co-written, and scored by Dwight, SOUTH OF HEAVEN, WEST OF HELL boasts a cast rich with some of America's finest character actors: Paul Reubens, the late Michael Jeter, Natalie Canerday (from SLING BLADE and ONE FALSE MOVE), Bo Hopkins, Noble Willingham, Peter Fonda, Bud Cort, Luke Askew, Joe Unger, Terry McIlvain, Vincent Gallo, Vince Vaughn, Bridget Fonda, even a couple of musicians: Joe Ely and Warren Zevon (in a role that epitomizes a recurring theme in his songwriting).  

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, film scholar Richard Modiano reports that there were two locations used, both of them movie sets. The scenes at the hotel were shot at Sharp's Ranch, which is about 40 miles from Nogales, close to the Mexican border. Billy Bob was in Mexico making ALL THE PRETTY HORSES when he arrived for his two days of work. The other location is called Mescal and is about 20 miles from Tucson. Mescal is a long-standing western town movie set. Shortly before work on the movie began, the federal government acquired the town and surrounding land to protect the area from development.

Awards (for SOUTH OF HEAVEN, WEST OF HELL)
Golden Boot Award (Best of the West) - 2001 - Nomination

Relevant Links
IMDb Link
Official Site
Film Scouts Page
Yahoo! Movies Upcomingmovies.com preview page
Movie Page from Dwight Yoakam's Official Site

Related Merchandise
Dwight Yoakam's lovely soundtrack was issued on the Warner Brothers label and includes songs cowritten with Mick Jagger and Billy Gibbons.  Snippets of dialogue from the film are interspersed between the songs.  We particularly like the film's theme Words and the closing spiritual It Is Well With My Soul.