Although films about the American West depict coyotes as solitary

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION
My comments are in blue typeface. Or red.

• Choice A is best

• In choice B, depicted to be is unidiomatic.
The correct idiom is depicted as.
In visual mediums, to depict means to portray, to illustrate, or to represent.
In written mediums, to depict means to describe or to portray.
All of those verbs take "as," not "to be."

• The phrase in films about the American West is misplaced in choice C
so that one cannot tell whether it indicates where the distant hills are,
where the animals howl, or where coyotes are depicted as solitary creatures;
the phrase should appear next to the word it is meant to modify.
That word is coyote.

• Choice D is wordy and awkward

• Choice E contains the faulty and unidiomatic construction depict . . . to be
COMMENTS
Welcome to GMAT Club, gmatconqueror2018 , Mahmoudfawzy83 , and Darshi04

The official explanation for option (C) is excellent.
In general, look for splits; in particular, look for different placement of a prepositional phrase such as that in (A) and (C)
(in films about the American West)
GMAC is moving the prepositional phrase around for a reason. That reason almost always
is connected to correct placement of a modifier and its modified word.

If ever someone has the urge to eliminate an answer immediately because it seems "awkward" or "wordy" or both,
I urge that this someone resist that urge.
Find another error, or keep the option until there are only two answers that remain.

(D) creates meaning issues and a lot of confusion
... coyotes as if they were solitary, mournfully howling animals on the tops of distant hills

We put commas between "coordinate adjectives."
Are "solitary" and "[mournfully] howling" coordinate adjectives?

"Mournfully" modifies "howling." Occasionally we are allowed to insert a comma in such a case IF
we can put an "and" between the descriptors without a meaning change.
... depict coyotes as if they were solitary and mournfully howling animals on the tops of distant hills (Not great. Not horrible.)
... coyotes as if they were mournfully howling and solitary animals on the tops of distant hills (Are they the ONLY animals on the tops of the hills?)

(D) is awkward. If we want to call something "awkward," however, we had better be able to explain why.
The string solitary, mournfully howling animals on the tops of distant hills creates
a halting effect.
Nor is that phrase as clear or concise as that in (A) solitary animals howling mournfully on the tops of distant hills.

One more item to notice about (D)
We can use "as if they were" in the present tense.
Using "as if they were" emphasizes the counterfactual or hyperbolic aspect of a film's inaccurate depiction of coyotes.

The use is similar to the idiom:
Not only X but also Y
The "also" adds emphasis to the thrust of the logic.
The phrase "as if they were" is similar.
Takeaway: Do not automatically choose "depict as" over "depict as if they were." Give the two options some thought.
(We do not have to think in this case. The other part of the sentence is stylistically and rhetorically inferior to other options.)

Answers are very good!
Mahmoudfawzy83 has very good analysis but fails to write the meaning of the sentence.
Darshi04 has one error in otherwise very clear analysis but lays out the meaning of the sentence.

It's a tie. Kudos to both.