In Kevin Costner’s first part of his four-part epic Horizon: an American sagagroups of settlers move west in search of a so-called promised land, where they can park their cars and found a new city. The only problem is that they’re trespassing on Apache land, and the natives aren’t happy about it.
While Chapter 1 of the Civil War-era saga, which hits theaters June 28, focuses primarily on white settlers and the U.S. military, the film also takes viewers inside the White Mountain Apache community as the chief and his sons discuss the encroachment – as well as their differing views on the violent response of some in the tribe.
Given the historically insensitive portrayals of Native Americans in films over the years, the Native actors who joined the film Horizon wanted to make sure that their storylines and images wouldn’t be problematic – as in, the men wouldn’t just be the bad guys and the women their ‘over-sexualized’ accessories.
“As a Native actor, when Westerns come along, you have to be very, very careful and wary of what you’re dealing with,” Tatanka Means, who is Navajo, Oglala Lakota, Yankton Dakota and Omaha, told Yahoo Entertainment.
While he said it’s always important to delve into the script, “do your research and take it apart,” Means, who also starred in the film, said Killers of the Flower Moonsaid who is involved in the storytelling also makes a big difference.
Among many natives, Costner earned that respect after his 1990 Academy Award-winning film Dancing with wolves not only did they employ many native actors, but they also offered empathetic portrayals.
“I think about Kevin and the way he handled things Dancing with wolves and other westerns he’s done, I think there’s a kind of trust established there,” explains Means, who plays Apache warrior Taklishim in Horizon.
“For me, as an indigenous woman, it was very important that we were portrayed accurately,” said Wasé Chief, who is Oglala Lakota.
Chief plays Liluye, Taklishim’s wife, who doesn’t hesitate to speak up when it comes to her family’s next move.
“We were matriarchal societies and we didn’t necessarily have to do everything men told us,” she told Yahoo. “So it was nice that Kevin made sure that Indigenous women were really strong and independent and free from any kind of restraint from men.”
Owen Crow Shoe, a First Nations actor from the Piikani Nation and Blood Tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy who plays Taklishim’s brother Pionsenay, echoed Means’ perspective.
“Knowing it was a Kevin Costner movie and just knowing how passionate he is about the portrayal of Native Americans [made a difference]” he said, “and how the characters, if you read the script, they’re not just the one-dimensional warriors, like, we kill, kill, kill all the time.”
That said, there is violence in the film – not just between the settlers and the Apaches, but between the settlers themselves. And yes, there is scalping – of natives – which Chief admitted could be a “trigger.”
Some critics have raised questions about the film’s portrayal of the Indigenous characters and how much screen time they have. In reviews of the film’s Cannes premiere, the Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney argued that it is “uncomfortably long . . . to show sensitivity to the indigenous characters,” while Owen Gleiberman of Variety wrote that “the film is not without its problems” when it comes to indigenous issues. TheWrap’s Steve Pond wondered if the Indigenous characters “will get more screen time in the next few chapters.”
Costner acknowledged that in press materials Horizon is ‘told mainly from the point of view of the coming settlers, but when we introduced the Indians, it was very important for me to give them the dignity and the ferocity that they had, because they fought for their way of life. their religion, their existence.”
He added: “You can’t share the land, so the settlers decided to just take the land. They made a big deal of pretending they were willing to share it, but that was just to gain a foothold. They didn’t really want any competition, and they pushed about 500 Native American nations from sea to shining sea. That’s the real story, that’s why we explore the Native American side Horizon also.”
Exploring the Indigenous side of the story also meant weaving the Apache language into the dialogue, with Means, Chief and Crow Shoe taking lessons from Apache language teacher and consultant Aurelia Bullis and translator Elva Case.
“It was a real challenge. [Means and Crow Shoe] had more lines than me, especially Owen. He killed it in the movie,” says Chief, who speaks Lakota. “I was just blown away because when I saw how many lines he had, I was stressed for him because it’s such a harsh language.”
“I speak Blackfoot myself, so when I started this project I had never heard Apache spoken before, so it was all completely new to me,” Crow Shoe said. “It was always in the back of my mind that there would be Apaches who would keep an eye on this and that we have to do the language some justice.”
Although there is more of the Apache story to be told in the Horizon saga – Chapter 2 opens in theaters August 16 – Chief and Crow Shoe shared what they want audiences to take away from the first episode.
“I want, hopefully, Indigenous people to be proud when they see it and to be proud that we’re being portrayed as a strong people because we always have been and we still are such a strong people,” Chief said. “We showed a lot of grace, but also the strength that we have, and that we have always held.”
For Crow Shoe, it’s meant to show that Indigenous communities are “still here.”
“We are still a strong people, we are still a powerful people,” he said, “and we always will be.”
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is in cinemas from June 28.
