This story contains spoilers for “Dark Winds” season 3 episode 6, “Ábidoo'niidęę (what he had been told)”.
While turning a central scene for the last episode of “Dark Winds”, “ábidoo'niidęę (what he had been told),” asked Star Zahn McClarnon Erica Tremblay To hold out.
In the mist of a hallucinatory dream induced by drugs, Joe Leaphorn of McClarnon is confronted with painful memories of his youth. Trapped behind bars, the lieutenant of the tribal police is helpless as he looks at his young cousin being removed by a violent priest. While the camera is tightening on Leaphorn's reaction, the actor holds Tremblay Arm just out of the frame.
“As an actor, I obviously get out of my own life experiences and we have all had our traumatic past and our events that happened to us,” explains McClarnon during a recent call. “I had a really sure space to act, to access this kind of thing.
“It was sometimes difficult for me,” said Zahn McClarnon about his childhood. “I am both white and native and sometimes I had trouble integrating into both places.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Now in his third season, “Dark winds“Follows Leaphorn and some of his current and ancient officers as they solve crimes and keep order in the Navajo nation. Each season implies the investigation into a new mystery that offers overviews of Navajo's tribal life as well as more important systemic problems that affect the community. Created by Graham Roland, the AMC and the systemic thriller is based on” Graham Roland, AMC and criminal thrilleur based on “Leaphorn & Chee»Romanesque series by Tony Hillerman.
In season 3, Leaphorn examines the disappearance of two young boys while sailing on the moral and legal consequences of his decision to leave the man – finally responsible for the death of his son – to die. Although his actions were motivated by the knowledge that the obtaining of justice for his son would be otherwise elusive, Leaphorn had trouble with the guilt arising from this decision.
“He is a man in principle,” says McClarnon of his character. “He has trouble respecting the law and trying to remain a traditional Navajo person. This struggle between Indian justice and white justice and the law and the colonized.… There are so many different difficulties in Joe's psyche. ”
In “ábidoo'niidęę (what he had been told)”, Leaphorn is shot down with a quiet dart and falls into a sort of fever dream. During this dream, says McClarnon, Leaphorn revisits “this traumatic event that happened to him and (he realizes) that he lied through his adult life and reorganized this event in a way that was not true … The events of his past were not the way he had it in his head.”
Leaphorn's abolished memory involved a Catholic priest of the local church sexually abusing his young cousin, as well as other members of the community, a problem that affected many tribal communities, said Tremblay.
“We all, native writers of the room, have had our own experiences where the members of our family had experiences around this type of trauma,” explains Tremblay, who is also a supervisor producer.
For this reason, guaranteeing the security of the actors and the crew was among the main concerns of the director as the episode approaches – in particular during the shooting of the scene when Leaphorn observes the abuse. She explained that it was important for her that the scene was shot on a closed set with a intimacy coordinator. Traditional medicine and safe spaces have also been made available for anyone who needed it.
“Zahn and I had a lot of conversations around this scene in advance,” said Tremblay. “We have made a lot of catch. He wanted his blanket to be the last, so we pulled everyone, then turned the camera on him so that he can perform his part of this scene last. He gave incredible sockets … but they all came from anger, which is an emotional reaction totally understandable to what he saw. ”
But after Tremblay slowly pushed McClarnon on the possibility that he kept a different answer in him, he tried once again. The latter taken, where he asked for additional support from Tremblay, was the one used for the episode final cup.
“As a director, there is nothing more significant than feeling confidence by your actors,” explains Tremblay. “Because it was me, because we were protected and safe … And because it was Zahn, he could rely on me and I could rely on him. Our collective experience as offices allowed us to go to a very painful place, but in a way that was safe and beautiful. ”
Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon), on the left, and his father Henry (Joseph Runningfox) in “Dark Winds”.
(Michael Morriatis / AMC)
The episode, written by Max Hurwitz and Billy Luther, shoots in the dream of Leaphorn's memory, the real skirmish Leaphorn is taken and tells the traditional story of Navajo on the heroes who fight against a monster known as Ye'iitso.
“The translation (from Ye'iitsoh) is” something big that creates fear, “explains McClarnon. The Ye'iitsoh took advantage of the events of this season, both in the mystery around the missing children as well as the guilt of Leaphorn. In Leaphorn's dream, Ye'iitsoh is represented by the abusive priest.
“I am Seneca-Cayuga, so the Haudenosaunee stories with which I grew up are so deeply rooted in the way I live my life,” explains Tremblay. “The story of Ye'iitoh … has survived because it is a very good story. … We would not do our work as writers in the room if we do not look at these stories, not only to express very important traditional values of the Navajo people, but to obtain very good (entertaining) ideas of these stories that have survived for thousands of years.”
For McClarnon, learning more on Diné – or Navajo – culture was one of the gratifying aspects because of “dark winds”.
“We do not represent the Navajo people,” said the actor, who is Lakota, of Irish and German origin. “We are a television program. … But if” Dark Winds “leads people to visit the Navajo nation, spend a little time with the people of Navajo and discover the culture, it is a positive thing.
“If it leads to more people to get involved politically, economically, environmental, and it becomes an education, it is a victory for the show,” he adds.
McClarnon shares that it was only when he was in Junior High that he began to think more about his own identity. His mother of Lakota is of the standing reserve and grew up in Fort Yates, and until his family moved to Browning, at Mont., On the booking of Blackseet. Although he spent time in the reserve to visit his family, he grew up at around 20 miles in the Glaciers National Park.
“It was sometimes difficult for me,” says McClarnon. “I am both white and native and sometimes I had trouble integrating into both places.
“I did not really start to enter my culture before I was 13 or 14 years old,” he continued. “I started to attend ceremonies – in the Lodge sweatshirt ceremony.
An industry veteran whose curriculum vitae includes roles on emissions “Booking dogs“”Echo“”Westworld” And “Long warning“, McClarnon was encouraged by the growth of the representation and narration of the Amerindians. But he hopes to see more inclusion in management positions in networks and in ranks.
“We are ecling these stereotypes, the tropes with which we have all been dealing for a long time,” explains McClarnon. “We have more voices and we tell our own stories. We tell them an authentic way. Native children, let's hope, are seen in cinema and television in a positive and non-stereotypical way now.
“We have a long way to go,” he says. But “we will continue this trip and that's important.”
