1883 (TV Mini Series)

Behind Us, a Cliff (2021)

Isabel May: Elsa Dutton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Ennis : Would you take off your hat? Wanna get a better look at you.

  Elsa Dutton : Why get a better look?

  Ennis : Well, there's a fair chance you're too purty for me. If you are, I'd rather know now so I don't waste my time.

  Elsa Dutton : Maybe you're to pretty for me.

  Ennis : [laughs]  Well, shoot, I mean, if me bein' purty is a problem, then we ain't got a problem. Shoot.

  [Elsa takes off her hat] 

  Ennis : Yep. Too purty for me. Dang it.

• Elsa Dutton : Know what today is?

  James Dutton : Huh. I don't know. Thursday, maybe.

  Elsa Dutton : [narrating]  18 years ago, on this day, Lee surrendered to Grant in the home of Wilma McClain, in the village of Appomattox. A year later, I was born. It was Monday, April 9, 1883. And it was my birthday.

  Elsa Dutton : Yea, Thursday, I think you're right.

• Elsa Dutton : Thought I was too pretty for you.

  Ennis : You are, but I'm pretty short on common sense. So...

  Elsa Dutton : I've painted a picture of my husband in my mind... And he don't look like you.

  Ennis : Well, I'm a cowboy, Ma'am. We don't look like nobody's husband. But we're the ones you think about when your husband ain't around.

• cowboy : Makes you wonder what the rich folk are doing, huh?

  Elsa Dutton : They ain't doing this.

  cowboy : No, ma'am, they ain't.

  [both chuckle as cowboy reins and rides off] 

  Elsa Dutton : [internal monologue]  I looked to my right and saw my father, somehow riding vertically toward the earth. Beyond him, cowboys and cattle pushed toward us, dust following them like a cloudy shadow. The light was soft and pale and pink, like God decided to light this day with candles and the whole of Texas spread out before me. It was the most magnificent thing I'd ever seen.

  Elsa Dutton : [...]  Freedom to most, it is an idea... an abstract thought that pertains to control. That's not freedom. That's independence. Freedom is riding wild over untamed land with no notion any moment exists beyond the one you are living. I knew nothing of the horror that hides in freedom's shadow.

  [bandits attack] 

  Elsa Dutton : [...]  And just like that, horror steps from the shadows.

  Elsa Dutton : [...]  What began as a journey had become a retreat... into the unknown. We were backing into the abyss, so worried our sins would follow us, we didn't bother watching where we walked... and behind us was a cliff.