In Kevin Costner’s first part of his four-part epic Horizon: an American saga, bands of settlers head west in search of the so-called promised land, where they can park their wagons and establish a new city. The only problem is that they are encroaching on Apache land and the indigenous inhabitants are not 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 into the White Mountain Apache community as their chief and his children discuss the invasion – as well as their differing opinions on the violent response of some tribe members.
Given the historically insensitive portrayals of Native Americans in film over the years, indigenous actors who have signed on Horizon wanted to make sure their stories and representations weren’t problematic — as if men weren’t just the bad guys and women were their “overly sexualized” accessories.
“As a Native actor, when Westerns come along, you have to be very, very careful and cautious about what you get involved in,” Tatanka Means, who is Navajo, Oglala Lakota, Yankton Dakota and Omaha, told Yahoo Entertainment.
While he said delving into the script, “doing your investigations and taking it apart,” is always key, Means, who also starred Flower Moon Assassinssaid that whoever is involved in the narrative also makes a big difference.
Among many natives, Costner earned this respect after his Oscar-winning 1990 film Dances with wolves not only did it employ many indigenous actors, but it also offered empathetic portrayals.
“I think with Kevin and the way he handled things Dances with Wolves and other Westerns he did, I think the trust was established there,” explained Means, who plays Apache warrior Taklishim in Horizon.
“For me, as a Native 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 talk about her family’s next move.
“We were matriarchal societies and we didn’t necessarily have to do everything men told us to do,” she told Yahoo. “So it was good that Kevin made a point of portraying Native women as 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 the Blackfoot Confederate Blood Tribe who plays Taklishim’s brother Pionsenay, echoed Means’ perspective.
“Knowing it was a Kevin Costner film and already knowing how passionate he is about the representation of Native Americans [made a difference],” he said, “and how the characters, reading the script, aren’t just the one-dimensional warriors, like, we’re just killing, killing, killing all the time.”
That said, there is violence in the film – not just between the colonists and the Apaches, but also between the colonists themselves. And yes, there is scalping – of natives – which Chief admitted can be “triggering”.
Some critics have raised questions about the film’s representation of Indigenous characters and how much time they spend on screen. In reviews of the film’s Cannes premiere, the Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney argued that it takes an “uncomfortably long time. . . show sensitivity towards its indigenous characters”, while Owen Gleiberman in Variety wrote that “the film has its problems” when it comes to indigenous issues. Steve Pond of TheWrap wondered if the indigenous characters “will get more screen time in subsequent chapters.”
Costner acknowledged in press materials that Horizon is “told mostly from the point of view of the arrival of the settlers, but when we introduced the Native Americans, it was very important for me to give them the dignity, the ferocity that they had, because they were fighting for their way of life, their religion, its existence.”
He added: “You can’t divide the land, so the settlers decided to just take the land. They made sure to act like they were willing to share this, but that was just to get a foothold. They really didn’t want any competition and 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 of Horizon also.”
Exploring the indigenous side of the story also meant including Apache language in 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,” said Chief, who speaks Lakota. “I was impressed because when I saw the amount of lines he had, I was stressed for him because it’s a very difficult language.”
“I speak Blackfoot myself, so coming into this project I hadn’t really heard of Apache before, so it was all completely new to me,” Crow Shoe said. “I always thought there would be some Apaches watching this and that we need to do the language justice.”
Although there is still more of the Apache story to tell in Horizon saga – Chapter 2 opens in theaters on August 16 – Chief and Crow Shoe shared what they want audiences to get out of the first episode.
“I just want, I hope, that Native people feel proud when they see this and feel proud that we are being portrayed as a strong people, because we have always been and still are a very strong people,” Chief said. “We showed a lot of grace, but also the strength that we have, and we have always maintained it.”
For Crow Shoe, it’s 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 will be in theaters on June 28th.
