Chula Speaks

Naughty, but nice

2006-06-11T12:30:00.000-07:00

Gretchen Mol as "The Notorious Bettie Page," photo courtesy Picturehouse

For her time, Bettie Page was either a libidinous dream come true or the devil incarnate. Part of her allure was that she was able to project a kind of unattainable ideal for some heterosexual men, that of a wholesome beauty who could be unabashedly naughty in bed. For men, home from the war during the 1950s, she was the epitome of what many dreamed about. But, as such, she also was considered a threat to the moral fabric of a nation struggling to achieve a chaste symmetry under Eisenhower, Joe McCarthy, and Lucy and Ricky.

But who was the woman behind those familiar black bangs and, now fashionable, S&M black leather? And why, at the height of her popularity, did she drop out of public view in 1957?

Director Mary Harron doesn’t seem as interested in looking beneath the surface of the real Bettie Page as she does her own aesthetic interpretation of Bettie’s superficial appeal. We don’t get to know who the real Bettie was, but we certainly get to see a lot of her. Harron takes us from Bettie’s strict upbringing in Nashville, Tenn. to the evolution of an independent, free spirit who became increasingly noticed by photographers, amateur and professional, who imagined her in all sorts of provocative poses with that sweet and seemingly innocent smile. For her straight-forward life and photo sessions, we see her in black-and-white; for times when she is happiest and when the potential for greatness is just a breath away, we see her in grainy Kodacolor, a visual choice that Harron seems intent as a symbolic underscore, but which comes off as film-school ham-handedness.

As Bettie, actress Gretchen Mol seems perfectly cast. She easily captures the sense that God-fearing, healthy self-esteemed Bettie was perfectly aware of everything she did, even the “Bettie Page in Bondage” photos that eventually got her into hot water with Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver (David Strathairn), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. It was Kefauver who opened hearings in 1955 to investigate the impact of pornographic material on the nation’s youth. To Harron’s vision of Bettie, though, the photos were simply fun to do, a little silly dress-up with goofy costumes that “special customers,” some very respectible, paid good money to see.

Although we see that her work with Movie Star News, a storefront run by Irving Klaw (Chris Bauer) and his half-sister Paula (Lili Taylor), leads to more and more risqué imagery, Harron shows little of the exploitive marketplace for the kind of material that caught the attention of Kefauver’s smut hunters. Images do not magically go from model to photographer to magazine without the distraction of intent somewhere along the path — and, consequently, it bears noting that Harron falls into the same ilk, despite being tarted up with arty production values.

Bettie led an interesting, mulilayered life, which included Stanislavski-method acting lessons and a personal commitment to Christian values, in vivid contrast to the pin-up images with which her fans were most familiar. But Harron only depicts that life up to a point, preferring to take the commonly held notion that Page left celebrity to pursue a path to Jesus. In reality, Bettie’s world crumbled amid schitzophrenia, violent tendencies, jail, and mental institutions. Maybe that was just too nasty for Harron to show.

“The Notorious Bettie Page” is rated R for nudity, sexual content and some language.

This article was originally published June 8, 2006 in Rick Romancito's Cinemafile column in Tempo, the arts and entertainment magazine of The Taos News

David Carson and the Selling of Native American Spirituality

2006-04-20T09:05:00.004-07:00

This story originally appeared as Rick Romancito's "La Historia" column in The Taos News, April 20, 2006

Most of the world’s orthodox religions have gone out of their ways to gain converts. A long time ago, some resorted to violence and warfare to achieve this goal. Today, the effort is more subtle, but still as insistent. Yet, among many American Indian tribes, it’s not conversion they seek, but a willingness they ask of outsiders to leave them alone to do what they must for the benefit of the world. More intriguing is the fact that, despite a still-prevailing notion, native spirituality is not all the same flavor.

What continues to stir strong emotions among many tribal people who have struggled to maintain their hard-won religious integrity — think Taos Pueblo’s 60-year struggle to regain title to the sacred Blue Lake — is a perceived encroachment upon their domain by those who claim to not only know what exactly tribal people would like to keep special, but are willing to share it with non-Indians for a price.

It must be said at the outset that most Taos Pueblo tribal members observe a native religion that is considered private and off-limits to outsiders.

David Carson is the author of the renowned “Medicine Cards” system of divination and of the recent book, “Crossing into Medicine Country: A Journey in Native American Healing” — which also is the title of a special event at the Fechin Inn in Taos, New Mexico. From Friday through Sunday, April 21-23, 2006, Carson will sign books, lecture on his experiences with spirit animals, show slides, and give Medicine Card readings.

Cost for the main event on Saturday is $100 at the door.

Popular among New Age enthusiasts and seekers of metaphysical knowledge, Carson is highly regarded for what is considered by some to be an insight into how Native spirituality and its principles can benefit anyone’s life. His critics say, how dare he.

Taos Pueblo tourism director Richard Archuleta speaking strictly as an individual, launched into an angry tirade when told of Carson’s lecture. “It just pisses me off when you get (non-tribal people) talking about Indian spirituality and making money like that ... The tribal people have been raped for a long time. And, where’s the respect that is necessary for these things? When you encounter a real (spiritual) person, they’re not going to boast about their knowledge. That’s because that’s the nature of their ways. Beware of those people that say they know the way.”

Carson, reached by phone Saturday (April 15), said he considers himself a writer foremost, along with being “a white person, who is part Indian,” Choctaw from Oklahoma, to be exact. “A lot of people put a lot of different labels on me,” he said. “But my main concern, in this world, is as a writer. I’ve never told anybody anything different.” More about that later.

At first, when asked if he knew that some Native people take issue with his Native spirituality seminars and workshops, he said, “That’s news to me.” Later, though, he said “I’ve had people telling me on the e-mail now and then, ‘Well, we don’t like what you do.’ I say, well fine. And they always say, they’ll pray for me. That’s very nice. And I’ll pray for them.”

As for his charging $100 at the door for one of his evenings, Carson said “Well, they certainly don’t have to spend it. I’m just trying to make a living. I have a big family. I’m not going to apologize to these people. They don’t know me. I don’t know them. Who are they?”

Archuleta said “it goes against the tribal grain,” which, at least among the Taos Indians, upholds the virtues of humility in the face of greater things. In many tribal communities, medicine men and women will sometimes accept gifts of cash or trade for goods or services, but few are willing to risk ostracization by going commercial with their beliefs. “It’s just not right for people to be doing that kind of stuff,” Archuleta said. “It’s a way of life. That’s my personal feeling about it.”

Carson is no stranger to controversy. In the late 1980s there was a very public lawsuit, which he became embroiled with former live-in companion Lynn Andrews, author of “Medicine Woman” and other New Age-style books incorporating Native spirituality.
In a 1989 article titled “Selling Native American Soul” by University of Washington pastor Jon Magnuson (online at religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=905), the suit brought by Carson contended that “as a result of our personal relationship, she and I composed a series of literary works that includes ‘Medicine Woman,’ ‘Flight of the Seventh Moon,’ ‘Jaguar Woman’ and ‘Star Woman.’ ”

A subsequent article titled “Beverly Hills Shaman,” published in the New Age Journal (March-April 1989), reported that “David Hall, a longtime acquaintance of Carson who said he watched the two work together, claims that Andrews supplied rough sketches from her experiences in Beverly Hills, and Carson wove them into a fictional narrative describing her exotic adventures with various shamans based on his own knowledge of Native American culture ... court papers (show) that even before Carson filed his suit he had been offered $15,000 by Andrews’s New York agent.”

The two have gone their separate ways since then. “I never talk about her,” Carson said. “I’m just a ghost in her past. You know how the law goes. You have to sign stuff.”

This weekend’s event is named after Carson’s latest book, “Crossing into Medicine Country,” which is described on the author’s own Web site as his “initiation as a conjure man—a ceremonial healer—with the Choctaw medicine woman Mary Gardener. For three years, he studied the arts of power plants and medicine animals, how to manipulate the layers of energy surrounding human beings, and how to use sacred tobacco in ritual, curing, and divination.”

Apparently, whoever wrote the text never got the memo about his being just a writer. “I’m not a shaman,” Carson said. “A lot of people put that on me, and I’ve worked with a lot of shamans, Siberian shamans, Mongolian shamans, some Azteca guys. I’ve worked with a lot of people that say they’re shamans, but I would never do that.”

And just who is Mary Gardener? Here’s our exchange:

Rick Romancito: In your book, you say that you worked with a Choctaw medicine woman, named Mary Gardener. Is she a real person or a pseudonym?

David Carson: Well, Mary Gardener was certainly a real person in Oklahoma. Are you asking me if that’s her true name?

Romancito: Yes.

Carson: Well, not exactly, but close.

Romancito: So, it’s not her real name?

Carson: It’s not her exact name, no. But, there is a Mary Gardener, who is the person that I’m writing about.

Romancito: May I ask what the reason was for changing the name?

Carson: Well, you’re from Indian Country, so you know how families are. I don’t know if you know the history back in that period in time. A lot of that stuff was not in the open. It just wasn’t. You know, I do have family, extended family, you might say, in Oklahoma, so I don’t want to offend anybody or get in any arguments. You understand?

Crop Circles Remain an Enigma

2006-03-29T04:33:00.000-08:00

Filmmaker Robert L. Nichol. Photo courtesy stardreams-cropcircles.com

They are best seen from the air — which is probably one of the most disconcerting features about the worldwide phenomenon known as “crop circles.” But, since a wave of them began growing in the late 1970s, there have been conflicting and rather intense opinions about who or what may be creating them.

A new 77 minute documentary produced, written and directed by Robert L. Nichol titled, “Star Dreams: Exploring the Mystery of The Crop Circles,” attempts to address the questions surrounding this enigma.

In a Friday (March 24, 2006) telephone interview, Nichol said he believes “We are being communicated to by a higher intelligence and we’re basically ignoring it.”

Crop circles are a phenomenon in which elaborate geometrical designs have mysteriously appeared in fields of various crops (they have also apparently shown up in rice paddies, trees, snow fields and even iced-over ponds, according to the documentary). From the air, many of these designs appear mathematically precise, often cover a large area, and may contain references to religious, historical and cultural symbolism. Inside the pattern, plants typically have been bent reportedly at precise angles so the growth is minimally harmed, and often arranged in swirled patterns that appear shaped for effect.

The majority of crop circles tend to show up in fields near paleolithic-ceremonial sites in England (80 percent of which show up near Stonehenge, according to Nichol), but they also have been reported all over the world. It is not known if any have ever appeared in New Mexico, or Taos County, despite our own tentative connection via “cattle mutilations,” “the Taos Hum,” and many reported and unreported UFO sightings. Go figure.

The 2002 M. Night Shyamalan science fiction film, “Signs” used them as markers for hostile extraterrestrials. “They were for navigation,” Joaquin Phoenix’s character says in the film. “They made a map.”

And, obviously, a great deal of lore has developed around them, attributed to spirits, interdimensional beings, Gaia’s magnetic fields, alien orbs — and, of course, hoaxers.

The documentary’s “exploration” addresses several topics such as “What is going on?,” why there appears to be so much resistance to the idea that we are not alone in the universe, their meaning, the effect they have on humans, the appearance of unexplained lights nearby, and a possible Mars connection.

However, Nichol has taken an approach that is markedly one-sided — despite the token mention of the effect hoaxers Doug Bower and Dave Chorley have had on the true believer’s credibility in “the mainstream media.” Bower and Chorley came forward in 1991 announcing that they were responsible for making all the crop circles in southern England. A published photograph of the pair shown in the documentary is captioned with a quote, “We done ’em all.”

Chad Deetken of Pacific Research, a Canadian crop circle investigation group, was quick to jump on the immediate public reaction, stating in the documentary, “I find it quite incredible that the media picked up on Doug and Dave’s story, and without any evidence of any kind from Doug and Dave, trumpeted their story around the world.”

Obviously, a swirl of speculation surrounds the subject. On one side are the skeptics, many of whom believe the phenomena is completely human-generated. According to several Web sites which provide instructions on how to make them, the process is not difficult. It does take a certain amount of artistry, a knowledge of geometry and some skill at knowing how to easily reproduce the “classic” characteristics of so-called genuine articles, but a crop circle can be made in your own back yard.

On the other are the true believers, upon whom Nichol’s documentary primarily focuses. Croppies or cerealologists (after the type of crop usually used) have spent a great deal of time conducting research, documenting all sorts of designs, and developing theories for their origin and intent. Along the way, they have generally become rather single-minded in their pursuit. Most also tend to discount skeptics as people with closed minds who are unwilling to see magical possibilities. Plus, there is an alarming tendency among them to mistake journalistic balance for negative bias.

Some make a habit of attempting to debunk the debunkers, posting diatribes against National Geographic, the Discovery Channel and the Arts and Entertainment Channel for documentaries that don’t present “the facts” exclusively from their viewpoint. Nichol acknowledges that about “three percent are hoaxes.”

“I just love it,” photographer Peter Sorensen says in one of the documentary’s interviews. “I absolutely love this. I even still love the crazy people that are involved with it.” However, Nichol makes no mention in the documentary of the fact that Sorensen — who shot some of the most classic images and was one of the subject’s most avid proponents — has radically changed his opinions about crop circles, according to comments on his own Web site (cropcircleconnector.com/Sorensen/PeterSorensen99.html).

“At first certain that many formations were too large and complex to be made by people in the middle of the night, he gradually figured out how they could in fact be created by a team of dedicated artists with surprisingly simple tools,” the site states.

Nichol said that when he interviewed him, Sorensen appeared “very nervous when I was talking to him about it, so, I think somebody got to him.”

Sorensen now says crop circles are human-made and is actively engaged in creating them himself. “Standing up for my truth has cost me dear,” he writes. “I lost many friends, and the sale of my annual videos has nose-dived. The circle fundamentalists even accuse me in popular magazines and on the radio of being a CIA agent! It’s really funny in a strange way — and even flattering, in a left handed way!”

Nichol said conventional wisdom would suggest that if 11,000 crop circles have been made since 1980, a lot of “highly trained people” have been extremely busy all over the world. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “Although common sense flies out the window when emotional prejudice comes into play. I think that the whole they’re-all-hoaxes-they’re-all-man-made theory is just something perpetuated by mainstream media to obfuscate and to squelch any enthusiasm about this remarkable event.”

Why? “You might say there are those whose interests might not be served to let the public know we’re not alone in the universe,” he said. Nichol also attributes all the skepticism to a rampant case of denial.

Near the beginning of the documentary, a narrator mentions the one item that glaringly could have made Nichol’s point better than any vigorous debate — then, amazingly, fails to deliver. The female voice says: “Eyewitnesses to circles being made say they happen in a matter of seconds.” However, no eyewitnesses are interviewed and no images are shown depicting a crop circle being created.

“There is footage of one being made, called the ‘Oliver’s Castle Video,’ ” Nichol said. It was made by crop circle enthusiast Colin Andrews, who reportedly shot images depicting two balls of light dancing over a field in which a crop circle suddenly appears. “Now, that has been widely criticized and disputed,” Nichol said. “That’s why I didn’t put it into the film.” He said he believes, though, “it was a real event.”

As for eyewitnesses, Nichol said, “No, unfortunately, I didn’t meet them.”

Nichol said he started out conducting “E.T. research” in high school. “In 1952, there were five discs over the White House, and that hit the papers and I really got interested in that,” he said. Later on, he said he met one of the pilots who were scrambled during that incident. From there he continued looking into other incidents of an unusual nature, but didn’t get into crop circles until about 1995.

“They just spoke to me,” he said. “Here is this remarkable communication all over the world. We’ve had about 11,000 now since 1980, and they figure less than half of them are really reported. So, it’s no small thing.”

Nichol said he isn’t out to convince people who refuse to be convinced. “I put the film out there. I did a good job as a journalist, I think. I dealt with a dozen or so questions. I let the experts speak. I showed the images of crop circles, and people can pick up on it or not.”

Like any good mystery, there’s one little thread that goes unnoticed which may actually turn out to have greater significance farther down the line. Almost offhandedly, the narrator mentions that after all the measurements have been taken, photos shot and tour buses leave from a given crop circle site, the farmer who owns the field will typically go about his or her business and continue with the harvest.
The crop circle then becomes part of our human food chain as ale, cereals, breads and animal feed.

As Mel Gibson’s character in “Signs” asks, “Is it possible that there are no coincidences?”

A Free Spirited Man: Doroteo Samora turns 100

2006-02-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Doroteo "Frank" Samora, 100, sits with his 2 year old great-great-grandson Preston on his knee Saturday, Feb. 4, 2006. Photograph by Rick Romancito

“Age is not a particularly interesting subject,” comic genius Groucho Marx once said. “Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”

Yes, Groucho, but how long is enough?

If it’s 100 years old, that’s certainly enough time to look out upon the vast plain of existence with a better fix on what everything is supposed to mean, but it’s also a time when your body filters that knowledge through aches, pains, bad hearing, failing eyesight and fog rolling through your reason. If you make it that far with humor, wit and intelligence, there must be a key.

At Taos Pueblo last Saturday (Feb. 4), elder Doroteo “Frank” Samora was surrounded by friends, family and leaders to celebrate a life that began in 1906. Still blessed with those attributes, Samora radiantly expressed how a life lived simply and with great purpose has its rewards.

“I feel good,” Samora said in Tiwa (interpreted by his grandson, Pat Lujan). “It is an honor to see all my grandchildren here and I am happy that all my friends came by to see me, as well as people from the community. I am happy to see my grandkids, from the oldest to the youngest. It was a day for everyone to celebrate my life. I’m very happy.”

It is stunning to think about the events that have occurred to this community over that time: The unjust assignment of Blue Lake to the United States Forest Service, two world wars, the first electrical lines to the Pueblo, paved roads, a school, health clinic, and all amid a people who continue an ancient cycle of rituals and ceremonials that help maintain harmony in the universe. “Everyone remembers Blue Lake,” he said. “A lot of people went out of their ways to help the tribe. I am very grateful that we were able to win that legal battle.”

Samora was witness to all that, and along the way became noted as the inspiration for Martiniano, the protagonist of Taos author Frank Waters’ timeless novel of Pueblo Indian life, “The Man Who Killed the Deer.” This recognition, by the way, remains in dispute among the family of fellow tribal member and contemporary, Jim Suazo, who swear it was he who “killed the deer.” The story is about a Pueblo man whose life is changed personally and spiritually after being arrested for killing a deer out of season. It is considered one of Waters’ greatest books, even though its publishing sparked the ire of some tribal members who objected to the amount of detail he included about doings inside the kiva.

It might be surprising to learn that much of that paled in comparison to other momentous events that no one outside the Pueblo realm will ever know. These are events only tribal members, Tiwa speakers, will understand because they were there too. It is strange how the outside world seems to place Indians in their own context, which often has no relation, nor respect to the reality of their existence. But then, if they did, life amid the adobe walls and mountain trails might look entirely different.

Samora has seen many changes in his lifetime, some of which he sees as a threat to the Indian way.

“There have been many changes from the time I was very young,” he said, again through his interpreter. “There was a lot of respect, when I was growing up. Today, this is one of the things I wish the parents of today would teach.”

As one would expect, there is a degree of loneliness for having come this far and finding himself alone, his friends, tribal brothers and sisters, gone. But he feels the greatest loss is “our native language (Tiwa). A lot of our elders are gone. My goal for all the tribal members, as a spiritual leader of the tribe, I wish that we continue on with our traditions. It’s very hard to live nowadays. Not too many believe in the things that we do. A lot of influences from the outside world. This is our land and I hope all tribal members, as well as local people, take care of the land because if we do not take care of it, the land that we used a long time ago, we’re not going to see the same things that we see today.”

He said that when he was a little boy, “everybody lived by grandpa’s and uncle’s rules, religious leader’s rules. Now, we’re all governed by law and there’s not too much of a difference from the time that I was a little boy. I just wish everybody would honor their elders and our traditions.”

Part of the strength the Pueblo people will need to face their future may lie in their ability to act as a unified group, with strong leadership. “Today, we should strengthen our tribal government,” Samora said. “That’s the foremost authority here at the Pueblo. Without the governorship, the tribal council, we cannot survive. There always has to be some kind of leadership, and everyone needs to respect them and the land, and the outside people to recognize our sovereign nation. We do things differently than the outside world.”

Samora has served as lieutenant governor, head councilman and as a spiritual leader for the tribe. His influence has also been felt way beyond Pueblo boundaries as well. There are many non-Indians in the community who continue to regard him as “good friend, a father figure as well as an advisor.” He calls himself a “free spirited man,” who has gotten to the century mark by “enjoying the mountains and nature. What keeps me going are my tribal brothers and sisters, my relatives, the younger generation.”

During this birthday party, Samora was given a proclamation by Taos Mayor Bobby Durán, along with special recognition from the White House. On the wall there was a family tree that relatives put together for the occasion, below was a small humble display with a copy of his birth certificate and important family photos.

“Continue with our native language, our traditions, respect our elders, respect our tribal government and our kiva leaders,” he said might be the advice he’d give to young people. “I would like for our younger people to participate more in our doings, so things won’t die out.”

His eyes took on a far way gaze as he looked out to his friends and family who were putting away all the food and tables and chairs for the celebration. “I pray that everybody also has a long life without sickness, not just for my people but everyone in the community and the world. I pray every day for that.”

Tony Magar: Energized

2006-02-05T08:47:00.000-08:00

Tony Magar in his Taos studio. Photograph by Rick Romancito

No, your kid can’t do better.

Not unless they’ve become immersed in the world and creation of serious art and worked for years understanding its complexities. In short, making art is not an easy process. It is work, just as hard and torturous as digging a ditch, peeling latillas or sitting through legislative budget committees.

And being a serious artist doesn’t necessarily mean making beaucoup bucks through online marketing or corporate sponsorship. The yardstick for success isn’t straight line level in the art biz. It’s more like a tumbleweed, branching out sharp all which-way, only to get stuck under a Lexus zooming like a bat out of Vegas, with the driver wondering aloud “What’s burning?”

Which is one of the reasons an artist like Tony Magar might still be considered slightly eccentric. He is serious about art. And that’s why he lives in Taos.

Magar is back from New York City, where he was feted with an exhibition titled “The Absentee Universe” (Oct. 20-Nov. 26, 2005) at the Mike Weiss Gallery. It was a blast, he said, being back in that tilt-a-whirl madness and high end thrill-a-minute cool.

“It was right in Chelsea,” he said in his studio off Gusdorf Road in Taos, “and it was a good time to show there. It was a very active time to go there. I lucked out. In terms of the time and the kind of reaction from the people. I was happy to see a lot of old art comrades.”

He said all his peers from back in the day came to the opening, “which was nice.” Through the door there were folks like sculptor Mark Di Suvero who came, “and (painter) Ed Moses came and (sculptor) John Chamberlain was around the block having his show at the same time. So, I got to see him. A lot of artists I know came to the show. It was wonderful. I couldn’t have wished for anything better. To get that input, you know, from what they were doing and what I was doing, so there was a wonderful kind of exchange going on there. So, I really liked that a lot and it was worth going just for that.”

Part of the reason for going was to kind of feel out the possibility of moving back, he said, “but a week there was enough to convince me that I didn’t want to be there. Just so much action all the time, constantly, in terms of living, just surviving, getting through the day. There’s so much stuff. I mean, we crammed a lot of stuff in ... All these events are constantly happening every day, it seems like. A lot of interesting theater stuff, and, of course, you’ve got your restaurants. People to meet. It goes on and on. I would imagine that if I lived there it would settle down a bit. You know, one toys with the idea of moving back, but then after a week I was so happy to get back here, so I could reach some level of sanity.”

The show was a success and Magar got some high profile notice in The Village Voice and a possible upcoming piece in Art in America. But it was back in Taos, where you can hear yourself think, that some of that energy was transformed into creativity. “In terms of the work,” he said, “it took a leap forward. So, I was relating to that more than anything else. It got seen, and that was the jackpot. It got seen by people there and they all were very favorable towards it ... So, I came back full of energy and got to work again. The whole thing got energized.”

In an exhibit catalog put together for the Mike Weiss show, critic Michaël Amy wrote: “One drifts effortlessly into Tony Magar’s new abstract paintings, for these works suggest fluid, open spaces — ethers where things are in a state of perpetual flux. The nature of these fictive spaces is not instantly apparent however, for cursive looking discloses surfaces that at first seem opaque. Prolonged contemplation is infinitely more rewarding, for only then do the top glazes of oil reveal themselves to be translucent, disclosing layer after layer of paint — often of a different tone or color — buried underneath them. What results, is immeasurable pictorial depth.”

And there is a tactile sense of the work, that physical evidence of a constant series of decisions, ideas pushing and pulling across the surface that is only glimpsed when seen from afar. Up close, it becomes more dense and layered. You wonder: What was he thinking?

“I think one needs a certain amount of peace to create,” Magar said, “to have one’s own thoughts about your relationship to nature is totally changed immediately. You’re not wandering along looking at the beautiful blue sky and the mountains anymore. You’re trying to avoid people all day long.”

But somebody like Magar needs that fix every once in a while. “It opens you up to where your work could go, could develop and move on a little bit from where I was. But, that’s a process you have to work through.”

In a sense, he also needs that input here in Taos, where the comrades are fast disappearing over the horizon. London-born Magar used to rely on major dudes like the late great Bill Gersh and that whole posse of artists who made the 70s and 80s here a fury of activity to just talk and put the pedal to the metal.

Magar put down his thoughts on the subject to paper, calling it “Search and Destroy”:

“My friend Bill Gersh was having problems with his painting. So, I went to visit him. I could tell he was having conflicting thoughts about the paintings he was working on. We were sitting there in the studio, both eyeing what was left in the jug of wine, then, Bam!, he jumps up and grabs a coffee can of paint and hurls it at the canvas. At that moment, the destruction of the old had broken the stalemate. So, I left him with the rest of the wine. Now, he could move on and work with it.

“On the way back to town, I realized there’s a thin line between the ego and what the painting demands — to become a painting again demands passion to move on. This thought stayed with me a long time. What stops us from getting to the next layer? Fear. Or maybe the ego. The ego craves gratification. The ego demands satisfaction. The ego wants a safety net. The ego usually will settle for less. Like a bubble we’re stuck in. It stops us from moving on. I think it’s important for us as artists to watch and observe for breakthroughs in art and ourselves.

“The most exciting part of making art, for me, now, is the process of making and re-making. By that I mean not settling for the first draft.”

It may be somewhat dangerous to say so, even at this point in time (he’ll be 70 this year), but Magar said he doesn’t possess as much fear anymore. “It takes fearlessness to create — the see the new,” Magar continues in his statement, “for Gersh, for Pollack, for Basquiat. That’s the nature of the beast.”

The universe is constantly in a process of creation and destruction, integrated, he said, toward “becoming.” And, at the end of the day, “ we are all just stardust.”

Magar is still moving on and is not about to settle for anything less.

Abramoff Scandal Highlights Tribal Vulnerability

2006-01-14T11:24:00.000-08:00

The Jack Abramoff scandal in Washington, D.C. is just the tip of a very large iceberg. The lobbyist who stole millions from six Indian tribes by skimming funds from public relations services as kickbacks for himself and former partner Michael Scanlon has essentially been given a slap on the wrist in exchange for ratting on a client list that profited from his influence-peddling schemes. Between 2001 and 2004, he and Scanlon reportedly took more than $82 million of which Abramoff will be required to pay $26 million in restitution and $1.7 million in back taxes.

Already the condemnation is casting a wide circle, making a lot of high profile lawmakers very nervous about being connected in some way with the once popular Abramoff — possibly including already disgraced former House Majority leader Tom De Lay (R-Texas), for whom he once worked as press secretary, and maybe others in the Bush administration. Who knows? In Washington it’s not about who’s connected to whom, but how far you can distance yourself when cornered like a fox in the hen house.

The Indian tribes caught up in this mess are rightfully being cast as unwitting victims in a scam concocted by a racist and unscrupulous crook — who in e-mails called them “monkeys” and “idiots,” according to published reports. But, more than ever they must be more vigilant to such scam artists. There are thieves under every rock who’d love to get their hands on some of that Indian gaming cash.

All that is bad enough, but the scandal also brings up some issues that have been simmering for a long time.

This is an increasingly complicated era in which Indian tribes can no longer expect special treatment from the government or commerce. When Indian gaming became part of the landscape it was hoped that its special status would enable tribes to help create a better life for their members, one free of stereotypical alcoholic, unemployment and poverty stricken obstacles to their advancement and cultural integrity. But Indian gaming itself is not special. It’s still gambling, which is rooted in the ideal of something for nothing. As the old proverb goes: Gambling is the son of avarice and the father of despair.

I’m actually not against gambling and I certainly am in favor of using whatever means are necessary to improve life on the rez. But gaming is an industry that always favors the house, no matter who’s dealing the cards. And, if you’re into the notion of conspiracies, allowing the development of Indian gaming in the first place may have been a quietly deliberate way of further eroding tribal sovereignty, the grand prize jackpot of the government’s plan to finally rid itself of the Indian problem altogether. It already is trying to figure out a way to sweep under the rug millions ripped off in allotment payments, so if sovereignty is eventually traded in for private enterprise on reservations, the whole special trust status might disappear faster than Custer’s hopes for victory.

Sovereignty is the number one issue confronting tribes right now. All else pales in comparison. The environment, crime, health care, poverty, all of it. If tribes cannot do everything in their power to maintain tribal sovereignty, everything, all their land, resources and dignity will be open to exploitation and destruction. Indians, as a people, will cease to exist.

The late New Mexico Indian leaders, Pojoaque Pueblo Gov. Jacob Villareal and Mescalero Apache Tribal Chairman Wendell Chino, worked hard against the state grabbing what it thought was a piece of the gaming pie, thereby exerting their tribe’s sovereign rights to conduct business separate from state or federal interference. It was a laudable precedence, but few tribes in New Mexico were willing to back this notion, even though privately they supported it.

In order to solidify this stance, all tribes, even those in New Mexico, need to develop unassailable democratic governments with elected officials and legislative bodies. They need to educate tribal members in business and sound management policies. They need to fight fire with fire. Abramoff may have gotten away with a lot of gaming cash, but I hope the lesson won’t be lost in the resulting blame game.

Indian Music Defies Stereotype

2006-01-06T05:54:00.000-08:00

Ralph Zotigh and his drum group at the Taos Pueblo Powwow, July 2005.

It is a cool moonlit night. Four men stand silhouetted against a cloudless sky on the middle bridge over the Río Pueblo, right in the middle of the plaza of a nearly 900 year-old adobe village. They wear blankets, traditional style, and their hair is in long ribbon-wrapped braids. Between them they hold a drum. In their hands are wooden drum sticks that are being used in rhythmic accompaniment to a Taos Pueblo round dance song. The notes sung by the men are full and rich and convey complex images without words. It is pure singing.

This could be a scene from many years ago ... or from last night.

Music among the indigenous tribes of North America is not a static art form, culled from the ancients in a closed loop endangered on all sides by the pressures of modern life. It is alive and real and is constantly evolving and adapting.

A common impression, perhaps ingrained from old movies, is that American Indian music is pounded out on a “tom-tom” using an indistinguishable rhythm, accompanied by nothing more than something resembling “hey-ya, hey-ya, hey-ya.” If there was ever a musical version of a racial slur, this is it.

The truth is more complex and infinitely more intriguing. As vast as there are individual Indian tribes with their own customs, traditions, languages and histories, so too are the styles found in Indian music.

Within each tribe there are songs to accompany every significant event in its social and religious life, although it may be argued that native religion and society among these groups is synonymous. At Taos Pueblo, for instance, are many songs which are probably never heard by anyone outside tribal membership, songs which are an integral part of the cyclical rites and ceremonies conducted since time began for these people.

Perhaps one of the most common are songs to honor veterans, warriors of the past and present who selflessly work to protect their people. During the late 19th century, it was the Ghost Dance and its songs — which were Plains Indian prayers to bring back the strength and spiritual commitment of tribal forebears — which led to an attack by the U.S. Cavalry resulting in the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The power of music and dance was considered so immense, that the government sought to exterminate a people. It didn’t work.

Branching out from the reservation borders are ways Indian music has also borrowed from outside influences. Perhaps the most well known symphonic interpretations of Indian life have come from composer Louis Ballard, whose ironic “Incident at Wounded Knee” was given its New York premiere in 1999.

“This composer draws on his Quapaw-Cherokee roots to commemorate the notorious massacre and evoke the traditions and moods of Native American people,” a statement from American Composers Orchestra explains. “The four-movement work is not only inspired by the ‘incident,’ but by the systematic massacre of Native Americans throughout the 19th century. The orchestral work was commissioned by Dennis Russell Davies for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, where it received a premiere in May of 1974.”

Most popular, however, is the music found at powwows throughout the nation. This pan-Indian art form of social music and dance draws primarily from tribes of the Great Plains, whose historically nomadic cultures made contact with a network of many tribal peoples far beyond. Today, the colorful regalia of dancers and drum groups as popular as rock musicians within the genre makes this a breeding ground for new and innovative compositions.

“There are hundreds of powwows and celebrations held throughout the United States and Canada every summer,” according to information from www.taospueblopowwow.com. “Rosebud Fair in South Dakota, Black Hills Expo in Rapid City, South Dakota, Denver March Pow Wow in Colorado, Red Earth Celebration in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Fort Kipp Celebration in Fort Kipp, Montana, the Winnebago Powwow in western Nebraska, and the annual Taos Pueblo Powwow in Taos, New Mexico are a few stops along the powwow trail.”

In the powwow realm, most music is divided into Northern and Southern Plains styles. From there, it is broken down into songs relating to certain dances such as war dance, round dance and gourd dance, to name just a few. In addition, there are flag songs and various honoring songs. Some of the most popular produce recordings that are part of a growing and lucrative industry for some drum groups.

Perhaps as a testiment to how enduring and creative Indian music and musicians have become, the Native American Music Awards were established seven years ago. Previous honorees have included Crystal Gayle, Bill Miller, Joanne Shenandoah, R. Carlos Nakai, Taos Pueblo’s Robert Mirabal, Indigenous, Litefoot, Robbie Robertson, Rita Coolidge, Tom Bee, John Trudell, the Navajo Codetalkers (Living Legend), the late Jimi Hendrix and Hank Williams, and Notah Begaye III (Thorpe Sports Award).

So, the next time you hear a round dance song at Taos Pueblo, listen closely. You won’t hear words exactly, but maybe the voices of generations stretching from the past and far into the future.

The Man Who Would Be King of Taos Radio

2005-12-29T05:33:00.000-08:00

DMC Broadcasting owner Darren Cordova. Photo by Rick Romancito

Technology is an amazing thing. In its unassuming offices along Camino de la Merced, behind Wal-Mart, DMC Broadcasting is in the enviable position of operating four radio stations for Taos listeners.

That’s right — four.

Collectively, they target with spot-on accuracy niches that almost guarantee a loyal listenership for each. Two already have a proven track record — even amid a slight rearrangement of call letters and frequencies.

Its KKIT-FM (“The Mountain”), now at 95.9 on the dial, soaks up listeners who crave adult contemporary rock of the 1970s through to the present. Hitting the wide open Hispano music and language market is the highly popular KXMT-FM 99.1 (“Radio Exitos”), which features regional and international Spanish music along with local news, commentary and information.

Joining them on the airwaves is the new KKTC at 100.7 Taos and 99.9 Angel Fire, which features “the best in true country music,” and the sure-to-be-controversial KVOT-AM 1340 (“The Voice of Taos”), which broadcasts a feed from Air America, liberal talk radio’s answer to the Rush Limbaughs of the airwaves.

The feat of having these four stations operating from one place in Taos was celebrated in an invitation-only ceremony held Nov. 11, 2005, during which members of the Taos County Chamber of Commerce and the Taos Hispano Chamber of Commerce jointly cut a ribbon inaugurating owner Darren Córdova’s ambitious new venture.

Asked if owning Federal Communications Commission licenses for four stations was part of a grand scheme, Córdova said, “I only wanted one radio station. Because I was very passionate about serving the Hispanic community (with KXMT). I felt there was a voice. How I ended up with four is beyond me (laughs). It happened and before you know it I’m like ‘Wait a minute, I own four radio station licenses here.’ ”

Córdova, also a popular local musician, said he “really didn’t have a choice,” because when the FCC put certain frequencies up for auction a lot of big name corporate entities started looking at how they could expand their dominance into this market. “I saw a lot of these outside people coming in,” he said. “I knew they were really going to target my advertisers and, rather than losing it out the backdoor and not getting it, I put a business plan together and convinced our banks to look at it as a kind of stability type of thing, because I really don’t think the FCC will ever grant another license available to Taos, because there’s already five.”

There is another aspect to the choice of demographics Córdova has targeted with each of these stations, which may not be readily apparent. Each happens to focus on a specific area of interest that, very closely in theory at least, favorably blankets a wide segment of voters that any politician might envy if he or she was in the same position to influence.

Córdova, of course, explains this as nothing but business. He says he is only providing what Taos listeners want. KTAO-FM 101.9 is Córdova’s only serious competitor now that he’s dealt a blow to Albuquerque stations by stealing their thunder. Even then, Córdova claims he isn’t competing with “K-Taos,” because he says KTAO owner Brad Hockmeyer “has his niche and he does it well.”

Putting an even more interesting spin to this is Córdova’s political aspirations. Although a previous run for the Taos Town Council ended in defeat, Córdova more than hinted during an interview Wednesday (Nov. 2) that he is planning to take another shot at it. And this time, he may have a better chance. In theory.
Key to this notion is his choice to include Air America in his lineup, something, which is considered both refreshing to liberal listeners fed up with conservatives crowding the talk radio landscape and puzzling given Córdova’s past stance regarding anti-Bush administration protest in Taos.

His KXMT personalities joined the conservative outcry last March over a planned toppling of an effigy of part-time Taos resident United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Many conservatives in the community felt that the protest would dishonor a monument on the plaza dedicated to war veterans. Not surprisingly, this position has helped solidify a listener base of staunchly pro-traditional Taoseño supporters who look to DMC to give their side of the story.

“I want to make it clear to the community that I’m very concerned with local issues, government issues, along with global and national issues,” he said. “I know that we did have some issues with the protesting and the stance that we took, but I really felt that there’s a big voice in the Democratic liberal left, and there’s a lot that I believe in that too. I think the issue at hand (regarding the effigy) got kind of out of hand by the radicals on both sides, and we were like ‘What’s going on?’ But, I know, sometimes people have said ‘Well, Darren doesn’t like the protesters.’ And, I say, ‘I do, I actually respect a lot of the words that they said because it involves the truth.”

For now, Córdova is like the man who would be king of the Taos airwaves, and that’s a good thing if you take into account what an amazing feat it really is. As Córdova likes to say, “I’m a great communicator,” and having accomplished so much is quite a testament.

The Persistence of Exotic Otherness

2005-12-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

Ziyi Zhang in "Memoirs of a Geisha," photo courtesy Columbia Pictures

As a soap opera fashioned for Western audiences, “Memoirs of a Geisha” packages the right amount of exotic otherness readers of romance novels love, while also including that sense of watching a foreign movie without the inconvenience of reading those nasty subtitles.

If this was all that was needed to fill the coffers of movie studios, there might never be another film by Hideo Nakata, Hayao Miyazaki, or Kitano Takeshi gracing our shores. Who cares that some cultures may actually be best represented by people who know something of their own nuances and subtle expression because “Chicago” director Rob Marshall could be cajoled into doing this picture? And that non-Japanese actors like Ziyi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh could be tapped because American audiences kinda recognize their names from “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

It’s rather un-PC to point this out, you see. Because conventional wisdom in the industry says actors are actors and directors are directors, no matter their ethnicity. How else could we have Russell Crowe as an American in “The Insider” or Meryl Streep as a Polish German in “Sophie’s Choice,” or films like “Ben Hur,” “Braveheart,” or “Amadeus.” But, what this doesn’t explain, are John Wayne as Attila the Hun or Chuck Connors as Geronimo.

Just imagine how much richer the experience could have been if a Japanese director had done this film, even if it didn’t have a score by John Williams with cello solos by Yo Yo Ma and violin solos by Yitzak Perlman?

As it stands, “Memoirs of a Geisha” rests much of its weight upon the slim shoulders of Ziyi Zhang as Sayuri a geisha-in-training at an O-chaya, to which she was sold as a child by her impoverished parents. But her life as a young girl (played by the wonderful Suzuka Ohgo) is mapped out as one that will be filled with treachery and deceit, prophetic in a less threatening way because so much of the geisha’s world is geared toward maintaining an elegant fantasy for her clients.

When Sayuri matures into a maiko or apprentice, her world opens up as men of importance begin taking notice and her talents as an entertainer begin to overshadow other adult geishas at her O-chaya. Sayuri, though, only has eyes for a gentleman known only as The Chairman (Ken Watanabe), who she met as a child when he bought her a flavored snow cone (yes, there’s a slight hint of a creepy aspect here).

A geisha has historically been known as a “moving work of art,” and not the westernized misinterpretation of a glorified prostitute. She is trained in the art of catering to the needs of men who pay handsomely to be entertained with dance, music and singing, along with the company of an attentive and intelligent companion for the evening. It is said the geisha can become more involved, but only if she wants.

Sayuri’s rise to fame has its cost, which comes in the form of an intense rivalry with Hatsumomo, played by the spectacularly passionate Gong Li, an older geisha trying to hide a forbidden romance on the side. All of this is only so much smoke on the wind when World War II intervenes and the balances of power are forever shifted.

There are elements in this movie that are somewhat enjoyable, and even captivating, but the line between what it is and what it could have been is difficult to ignore.

Sam Elliot: 'Off the Map' Actor Just Happy to be Working

2005-12-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

Sam Elliot, left, confers with "Off the Map" director Campbell Scott on the set in Taos, NM. Photo by Rick Romancito

“It’s way out in the middle of nowhere, and the view from the land is where we shot the movie,” director Campbell Scott told Film Stew.com regarding the five acres he won as the Taos Land Grant Award recipient at the 2003 Taos Talking Picture Festival. “We were out there looking at this and now we own a piece of it.”

It is as ironic as the title of the film he made in Taos between August and October 2002 — “Off the Map.” Based on a stage play by Joan Ackermann, who also wrote the screenplay, the film opened here March 25, 2004 after a protracted delay in securing a distributor.

The independently-produced film stars Joan Allen, Sam Elliott and newcomer Valentina de Angelis. It was directed by Independent Spirit award nominee Scott.

In addition to winning the Land Grant Award, Scott was also presented the festival’s coveted Maverick Award.

The production of “Off the Map” helped make 2003 a “breakthrough year” for media production in Taos County, according to Jonathan Slator at the time. The Taos County Film Commissioner said “Off the Map” helped top out $2.5 million in revenue to the county during that fiscal year.

Since then, however, film production in the county has been somewhat sparse, partly due to what some have called political posturing on the part of certain town and county leaders who have, despite impressive numbers, reconsidered funding the self-established commission.

Slator, incidentally, is getting set to launch the second Taos Picture Show (March 31-April 3), a film festival that follows in the footsteps of Taos Talking Pictures which folded in late 2003. “Off the Map,” in that respect also described where funding went for TTP and led to its eventual collapse.

Since it was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in what he called a “compromised version,” director Scott said Taos screening in 2003 was “its real world premiere,” made more appropriate because of its local connections.

The film tells the story of a life-changing summer for a 12 year old girl named Bo Groden (played by newcomer Valentina de Angelis), who lives with her mom and dad in an off-the-grid homestead north of Taos in the early 1970s.

Sacramento, California-born Elliott, who obviously had many female admirers here, said his role as a man consumed by clinical depression was rather different from his usual western characters. “I think anybody can be depressed,” he said, “whether they’re a strong human being and they’ve got things together or whether they’re somebody you might expect to be depressed for one reason or another. It was a well-crafted piece of material (by Ackermann).”

Elliott said he read that as many as 20 million Americans have suffered from depression. “I was happy to have an opportunity to play a part like that,” he said in his characteristic Texas drawl. “It’s an acting part ... you gotta dredge up a lot of old painful stuff to get there.”

Known for his down-to-earth style, Elliott eschewed many of the traditional movie star trappings during his stay here, even opting to shield his eyes from the spotlight during a Q&A in order to see clearly the people who were asking questions. “I’m an actor,” he said. “I say other people’s words.”

With “Off the Map” set to hit the nation’s theaters, we had a chance to talk to one of America’s favorite leading men from his home in Malibu, Calif. where he still enjoys fishing in the ocean from a kayak. Did we say the man is 60?

Q: So, what’ve you been up to?

Sam Elliott: Just got back from Australia last week. I was down there working on a film called ‘Ghost Rider,’ another one of those Marvel Comics. Nicolas Cage is starring. I was only there a few weeks, putting in a nice little part and had a good time, and got in and got out. Did the first part of an 80 day schedule. It’s a big one and it’s going to take ‘em a long time to get it done, the antithesis of our little picture back there three years ago.

Q: When you were in Taos I asked you what drew you to the role of Charlie Groden and you said something about having a personal experience with someone who was deeply into depression.

A: I remember that conversation. In fact, I’ve talked about that with a lot of people since. Yeah, I’ve got a close friend that’s bipolar, y’know, which puts him right there. I’m not sure that’s where Charlie was, but he was truly or obviously clinically depressed I would say. That was one thing that drew me to it, that was more of a personal thing, but there were a lot of other things that drew me to want to work on that picture.

Q: Such as?

A: Well, an opportunity to work with (director) Campbell Scott, and another opportunity work with (co-star) Joan Allen, y’know, that’s really the primary reason I was there. She was the one who suggested me to play the part. I’d worked with her years before in a picture that we shot that was supposed to be in Washington, D.C., but we actually shot it in Richmond, Va., called “The Contender.” We got along really well and I think had a kind of a mutual admiration society in terms of our work. I was happy to have an opportunity to work with her again.

Q: This marks the second film in recent years that you appeared in a movie set in New Mexico (the other was “The Hi-Lo Country,” which was adapted from a novel by former Taoseño Max Evans). Was that a coincidence?

A: That’s purely coincidence. One of the first films I did back in the early 60s was shot in Santa Fe and I’ve shot in Santa Fe a number of times over the years, back in the days when I was lucky enough to do a western here and there when nobody else seemed to be doing them. I first went to Santa Fe as a real young kid in the 50s with an aunt that came from El Paso and she took me up there to see that church. She was one of those gals that was captivated by that area and she introduced me to it at a real early age. In fact, I’ve continued to be intrigued with that whole Northern New Mexico area. I tell you, bein’ in Taos for the first time when “Off the Map” went there, I just boggled my mind on a lot of levels.

Q: Well, y’know (the original novel) “Hi-Lo Country” was written by Max Evans, who used to live in Taos. I thought it was interesting that you played Jim Ed Love, a character who was first played by Chill Wills in “The Rounders” (1965).

A: That’s amazing, huh? Time goes by.

Q: How did you like working in the Taos area?

A: I loved it because, number one, I felt like we had to be there, since the story was set there. It’s like, we talk about westerns, and a good portion of my career has revolved around westerns, not that this is a western, but the point being is that the setting, the country, in a western genre is every bit as important a character to the piece as the actors. I think that kind of bears out in “Off the Map” as well. I mean, that location was an integral part to understanding what that story was about and how living there affected the people.

Q: This wasn’t among the same kinds of characters you’ve played, although this is set in the west it’s ...

A: It’s a, I don’t know what they call it, it’s a “departure,” I think. It’s very interesting to have an opportunity to play some guy that, although at his core I think that Charlie is a real strong guy. I gotta believe that he was. I think that Campbell (Scott) was looking for that, somebody that had a strength inside. But the fact that he’s got a wounded psyche made him a real intriguing character. It also humanized him a little more, I think. Rather than playing him as a typical macho guy living alone and can do everything.

Q: Did being a father yourself help in any way?

A: No question. Yep. I mean, that’s a painful experience. It’s also the greatest reward I’ve ever had in my life, being a father. And whether it was a daughter or a son, maybe wouldn’t matter, but I think on some levels fathers and daughters, it’s kind of an age-old tale.

Q: You have a daughter too, don’t you?

A: I do have a daughter, and I vividly recollect those days when she was Valentina’s age. Yeah, I drew a lot of what I was doing from that relationship with my daughter. I think there was a certain amount of that that was responsible for Charlie’s problem. He knew that his kid was frustrated. He knew that she wanted something that he couldn’t give her. She was lookin’ to get into the big world, a place where he had no interest in dwelling at all. I think that was one of the reasons that Charlie was depressed.
Q: One thing that struck me about the story, and this is something that has to do with how a number of critics have reacted to the film, is that a lot of them have characterized this as a “hippie family.” To me, it seemed as though they could be up in the mountains above Taos at any time.

A: Yep, today as well as tomorrow. Or yesterday.

Q: Although it’s set in 1974, things have not changed all that much around here.

A: Not up there. I don’t necessarily know that that I would even, I mean you know because you’re there and you’re certainly aware of people like that, but I think there are people like the Grodens all over this country. They’re not hanging out in the key cities. But that’s kind of what Hollywood has always chosen to ignore, that vast majority in between, at least in terms of where they put their advertising and where they put their money and the kind of films that they deliver to the marketplace, I think.

Q: Among all the films to been in, do you have a favorite?

A: I don’t think so. I think that I’d name a handful of them, and they’re favorites for different reasons. I think, Rick, maybe early on in my career, I worked to work. But, over the last 20 years, I think I’ve just tried to be careful what kind of stuff I did, because that stuff has a way of hanging around to haunt you.

Q: Like “Lifeguard”? (a 1976 film that helped cement his sex symbol status)

A: Well, yeah, but that doesn’t haunt me. I’m proud of “Lifeguard.” We worked our asses off on that movie. It wasn’t what Paramount sold it to be. It wasn’t “Beach Blanket Bingo.” It was a coming-of-age story. Some guy doing what he wanted to do, as opposed to answering to the group of people around him that told him he had to grow up and do something real, like sell cars for a living, y’know. I’ve had some very interesting run-ins with different people having to do with “Lifeguard” that have made me think that, yeah, it was worth doing.

Q: In a documentary on the making of “We Were Soldiers” (2002), the focus was on “getting it right.” How important is that to you as an actor?

A: (Elliott starred as the real life Sgt. Major Basil Plumley in the film about the first major engagement in the Vietnam War) I think getting it right when you’re dealing with a historical perspective or truths, particularly the Vietnam War, those guys that went over there and laid down their lives for us in that war, I think it’s absolutely imperative to get it as accurate as possible. I met a lot of those guys that survived that particular battle and met a lot of families of guys that died in that battle. And I know that Hal Moore (played in the film by Mel Gibson) had a real personal commitment to getting that story right. I think that every one of threw in with him on that. I certainly know that Randall Wallace, who wrote and directed, that was his goal.

Q: How was working with Mel Gibson?

A: It was great. When you get an opportunity to work with guys of Gibson’s stature, y’know, it’s kind of the same way with Nic Cage, in Mel more so because of his other pursuits, the fact that he produces and directs and does it very successfully. That’s a lot for any human to carry on his back. I found Mel to be real accessible and real human. I think Mel’s got a lot of demons chasing him, like a lot of us, but he does it in great style. He’s a very smart guy.

Q: Back to “Off the Map,” how would you characterize the way Campbell Scott works with actors?

A: I think it’s Campbell’s intelligence that serves him so well. He’s got that creative thing in terms of the filmmaking business in his blood. When Colleeen Dewhurst is your mom and George C. Scott is your dad, those are daunting shadows to grow up under. And whatever brought Campbell along, he came fully loaded. He was well prepared.

Q: Thank you so much for your time.

A: My pleasure. Enjoy that snow.

Q: I will.

Altered Steaks: Strange Phenomena Still Rattles New Mexicans

2005-12-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

It’s been awhile, but the strangeness still haunts many Northern New Mexicans. Were they space aliens, government “men in black,” time travelers, secret corporate scientists, cultists, natural predators or plain old pranksters that caused the spate of “cattle mutilations” here and other parts of the world?

During a spree that that lasted from the 1970s through the mid-1990s, occurring not only to cattle but untold numbers of other animals, a blanket of fear and mystery settled over certain parts of Northern New Mexico.

Bracketing them was the manner in which the majority of these incidents were made public, often by self-appointed investigators. In general, evidence was described as “unexplained,” “unusual” and “bizarre,” not to mention, “linked” by certain characteristics. But more interestingly, at least to skeptics, was how established authorities regularly offered more practical, common sense and completely ordinary explanations that were dismissed as efforts to debunk the investigator’s work or to cover up a deeper mystery.

Gabe Valdez, a former New Mexico State Police trooper, who looked into many reported cattle mutilation incidents in the Southwest, appeared in a KOAT-TV Channel 7 report last May saying he knows who did it. But, because he considers his findings too delicate, he isn’t about to reveal them ... yet. Which, of course, only adds fuel to the fire surrounding these acts.

According to the well documented lore, classic cases involved the discovery of an animal, typically a cow or bull, lying dead in a field bearing inexplicable wounds, little or no blood in evidence, and no solid clues that might lead law enforcement to the culprits. What leads to so much puzzlement is that certain organs are usually removed “with surgical precision.” These are usually listed as the rectum, liver, sexual organs, tongue, eyes, ears and portions of the hide.

Some incidents have included references to fluorescent markings not placed by the animal’s owner and even evidence of radioactivity. Many of these incidents also have been accompanied by reports of UFO activity, mysteriously silent black helicopters and alien visitations.
Because of the number of people calling themselves investigators or experts on the phenomena running around whenever an incident was made public, John Paternoster, who as district attorney in Taos in the 1990s, decided there needed to be an authentic law enforcement approach to finding out who was responsible — not what.

“UFOs became the leading suspects in at least two ‘cattle mutilations’ that displayed evidence of air turbulence and strange mechanical tracks found near the scene,” according to a story published in 2000 by former The Taos News staffer Phaedra Greenwood. “In 1997 in Arroyo Seco, District Attorney John Paternoster and investigating officer Gabe Valdez discovered mysterious tracks in a field where a bull was found dead and ‘mutilated.’ Mechanical V-shaped indentations were seen all over the field, back-hoe size, 18 to 24 inches in diameter, Valdez said. Gouge marks were five to six inches deep in some places and appeared to have uprooted the grass. Valdez said he had seen similar ground markings near a mutilation in Dulce in 1978. Dulce is on the Jicarilla Apache Indian Reservation in Northwest New Mexico and a renowned site of many other such sightings. The rancher who owned the bull and lived nearby stated he had noticed nothing suspicious the night before, but other witnesses testified that they had seen a green light flying in the area on the night of the bull’s death.”

Greenwood, who reported on a number of cases in Taos County during the 1990s, said that despite an enormous body of conflicting and sometimes bizarre evidence, there is still no clear idea as to the cause. “A UFO is just that,” she said, “an unidentified flying object.”

Recently, she began revisiting the reams of documents, reports, studies and Xeroxed copies of articles she has collected over the years in hopes of possibly compiling a book about her experiences with this phenomena. Among them are dozens of photographs taken at incident scenes which reveal in gory detail what someone or something has done to these animals.

“Every time I open the box, something new comes out,” she said wryly. While a lot of this is obviously of interest to fringe devotees and diehard sleuths, Greenwood remains convinced that someone is working rather hard to manage the information flow. “I think it’s an interesting story.”

“The truth is out there,” as Fox Mulder might say, but how the truth might be accepted is yet to be seen. Greenwood claims that incidents like this are still happening in this area, although most go unreported possibly because people don’t like the media attention or potential ridicule that sometimes follows. Some might be pranks meant for shock value, while others really are just predators or small earthly creatures doing their eternal jobs.

Inevitably, there will be a few incidents lying at the bottom of the bin that will never be explained, and it’s for those that true believers live to find answers.

Po'pay Called the "First American Revolutionary"

2005-12-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

Ohkay Owingeh Buffalo Dancers perform in the Capitol Rotunda after the statue of Po'pay is unveiled. Photo by Rick Romancito

Po’pay proved to be a little more humble than anyone expected.

When it came time to unveil the statue of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt leader in the nation’s Capitol Rotunda Thursday afternoon, Sept. 22, 2005, the cloth stubbornly refused to come off. It took the efforts of Rep. Tom Udall and others to finally slide the cloth from the figure’s shoulders to finally reveal the figure it has taken Jemez Pueblo artist Cliff Fragua and Statuary Hall Commission members so long to bring to Washington D.C.

All five members of New Mexico’s delegation were present for the unveiling of the statue of a man, who many called the “leader of the first American Revolution.”

In the decades prior to 1680, New Mexico’s Pueblo Indians became victims of individuals within the Spanish colonial church and military, who sought to eradicate Native language, traditions and religion. This found many Pueblo Indians starved, beaten and sometimes killed for attempting to maintain their traditional cycle of ceremonials vital to their survival. Po’pay, a San Juan Pueblo medicine man, moved to Taos Pueblo in order to formulate plans for the revolt against Spanish oppression. On Aug. 10, the feast of San Lorenzo, the revolt began at Taos and quickly spread throughout the Spanish realm in New Mexico, driving the survivors south into Mexico.

Upon their return 12 years later, the humane treatment originally ordered by superiors in Mexico City was now strengthened and resulted in what Sen. Pete Domenici termed “an enduring lesson of tolerance and diversity.”

The statue is made out of Tennessee marble. It stands seven feet tall. Starting out, it weighed around seven and a half tons when Fragua began carving it in 2002.

The ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda included a traditional blessing by Joe Garcia, governor of San Juan Pueblo — which, he said earlier, will soon be known only as Ohkay Owingeh, its name in the Tewa language. There was also a buffalo dance performed.

“The Po’pay-led insurrection against the Spanish conquerors was, at its core, a basic human and American need to challenge oppressors,” Domenici said. “This statue represents not only the history of a single man, but a legacy that helped ensure the survival of Pueblo and American Indian culture in New Mexico.”

Sen. Jeff Bingaman echoed those sentiments, referring to the fact that the statue of Po’pay was also historic for being the last one added to the Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol. In addition, it is the only one created by an American Indian artist.

Before the march by tribal leaders to the Capitol from the National Museum of the American Indian, a short walk from the Mall, Fragua said he was “excited and a little nervous because of the caliber of the dedication, but at the same time I also feel real proud that this event is finally happening and that Po’pay is being honored today.”

In an interview with Fragua last May, the artist commented on the struggles that continue today for Indian people, saying, “Yes, the struggle still continues. Although we do not have the type of oppression that Po’pay and his contemporaries had faced, we still do have oppression. Sovereignty is still a big issue among native people and we still strive for that. But, in this day and age, we’re (fighting it) in a civilized way, but the struggle still continues. To this day, we’re still working at surviving as a people to keep our traditions and the culture.”

“Because of Cliff Fragua’s stunning achievement,” Rep. Tom Udall said at the unveiling, “we can get a glimpse of who Po’pay was — as will thousands of visitors to Washington, D.C. each year.”

In the audience were dozens of tribal leaders throughout New Mexico, from Taos Pueblo to Isleta Pueblo del Sur near El Paso. So many, in fact, that an official at a reception the night before quipped “So, who’s minding the store back home?”

San Juan Pueblo Gov. Joe Garcia said he was invigorated by the official unveiling of the statue last May in his home village. He said Indian people may have “sat back for too long,” but that in the past decade resurgence has occurred in Native solidarity. Like Po’pay’s ability to develop a coalition from all the Pueblos in New Mexico, Garcia said, today, Indian people need to remember that lesson.

The unveiling of Po’pay’s statue was also an occasion to set aside centuries held animosities and to celebrate the blend of cultures that began when Don Juan de Oñate established the first Spanish colony in 1598, 22 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

The Po’pay statue will join New Mexico’s statue of the late Sen. Dennis Chavez, which was installed in 1966. For at least the next several months, the Po’pay statue will be displayed in the Capitol Rotunda.

Aeon Flux: Uneventful Horizon

2005-12-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

Charlize Theron as "Aeon Flux." Photo courtesy Paramount Pictures

“Aeon Flux,” the MTV series created by Korean designer Peter Chung, was among the wave of science fiction animé that exploded in the 1990s when the west discovered what Asian fans knew for decades — that virtually every fantastical, and even twisted, idea imaginable could find a visual outlet without having to deal with human actors.

One of the main issues with this type of animation is that “Aeon Flux,” and many like it, has attempted to cancel out criticism regarding blatant sexism and misogyny by glorifying a heroine who is stronger, faster and smarter than anyone else — all while wearing next to nothing and acting like, well, a man, when it comes to amoral behavior.

The film version directed by Karyn Kusama, who made waves with “Girlfight” in 2000, smoothes out the sharp edges of Chung’s illustration style (said to resemble a mix of Abstract Expressionist painter Egon Schiele and graphic novel illustrator Jean “Mobius” Giraud) by tossing out the skimpy costumes and opting for a sleek ultra designer look, not only for the still-sexy lead character played by Charlize Theron, but for the whole futuristic universe of the walled-in city-state called Bregna.

“Aeon Flux” is a gorgeous palette of colors and textures, sweeping lines and elegant curvilinear grace notes which suggest that whatever may be wrong in this vision of the future, they still have some really fine architects, technicians and fashion designers working somewhere. But, that’s all it has going for it.

If you buy the whole premise, the only way that such a city could exist is if every nastily human distraction was eliminated, including having renewable resources and factories to create each tool, artifact and disposable item they use, along with scores of workers and a hierarchy of administration that would make Bill Gates’ head spin. I suppose there are arguments that in a future like this, everything has been miniaturized, nanotech engineered and biointegrated to the point that such systems become as outmoded as an 8-track tape player, but why then couldn’t the story have been updated as well?

Here’s the thing: In 2011, a virulent plague has wiped out 99 percent of the human population. The survivors led by a biological researcher named Trevor Goodchild (Marton Czokas) gather together and create the ultimate gated community while Goodchild works on a cure for the virus. Generations later, actually 400 years down the line, the utopian city-state of Bregna has been formed, still led by Goodchild’s direct descendants, who have continued the research. By now, the city is walled off from the rest of the world, which presumably has gone wild.

Things aren’t going well for the people of Bregna, though. Many are experiencing disturbing dreams. Not only that, but dissenters have begun disappearing and even been killed by government agents for belonging to the underground Monican rebellion. Fans of the original series have an idea of what the rebellion is about, but Kusama chalks it up to a plain old revolt against the Goodchild tyranny.

Aeon Flux (Theron), the Monican’s best martial arts-trained secret agent, is motivated by the death of her sister to act with extreme prejudice when the Monican’s leader, The Handler (Frances McDormand), orders her to assassinate Goodchild. But, as Aeon gets closer to Goodchild, she discovers there is a huge lie at the heart of their entire existence.

Gigantic holes in the story and contrivances based wholly on the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief may work for a comic book or deliberately obscure animé, but for a big budget studio movie that relies on a basic plot, even if it is heavily designed to look edgy and futuristic, “Aeon Flux” disintegrates on impact.

There is a virtually limitless universe of literary science fiction to choose from, and yet filmmakers (or the studio suits to whom they answer) continue to be stuck in a shopworn comfort zone of been-there-done-that plots and storylines. And even when they find something new and interesting, they fall back on methods which pare down and hack away at its originality so audiences won’t be challenged by anything more difficult to comprehend than whether its preferable to go into battle with a lightsaber or a blaster.

In a genre that should constantly be in flux, this movies shows that, right now, it’s nothing but a dull, featureless horizon.

National Indian Museum Faces First Year Challenges

2005-12-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Interior National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C. Photo by Rick Romancito, The Taos News

Location, location, location — three words that can mean success for almost any new enterprise.

Sandwiched between the National Air and Space Museum and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., both number one tourist magnets, the architecturally stunning National Museum of the American Indian still remains uncertain whether that axiom will prove true after weathering its first year on the Mall.

The museum celebrated its first anniversary Sept. 21 with several special events, not the least of which were exhibitions of works by Allan Houser and George Morrison.

Education Manager Claire Cuddy, who was sent over to NMAI from its administrator, the Smithsonian Institution, to help get it going in its first year, was happy the long process to get the museum built has come this far.

“We’ve made great progress,” she said, “because our exhibits were installed and the doors opened.” But, she said, one thread remained loose. “We didn’t know who our audience would be.”

One of the staff’s biggest accomplishments this past year, she said, was finding the answer to that question. During its development, the NMAI in Washington, sister to the NMAI’s Heye Museum in New York City, found itself facing many expectations, some rather conflicting.

Many tribes saw it as a place to represent their own specific interests, issues and history, while those in academia saw it as a defining venture, a place to put to rest misconceptions and stereotypes, facts that educators could wrap their minds around. What they found were many versions of the truth, a history and cultural fabric entwined with unconfirmed oral recollection, and differing opinions on who and what to believe. Since the Smithsonian is the type of institution that takes its information very seriously, such gray areas weren’t likely to stay that way if it was going to incorporate the NMAI’s interests into its educational programs.

In 2004, when the museum opened to the sight of 25,000 Indians from more than 500 tribes from all over the Americas, its mission was emotionally set forth by Executive Director W. Richard West Jr. when he welcomed “home” the thousands Indians who filled the Mall. This was to be their museum, and it was considered about time that an unmistakable American Indian presence was felt in the nation’s capitol. On that level, it has been an accomplishment for which to be proud.

Going through the new Changing Exhibitions Gallery with Jemez Pueblo historian and author Joe Sando, Clear Light publisher Marcia Keegan, and others from New Mexico affiliated with the Sept. 21installation of a statue honoring the Pueblo Revolt leader Po’pay in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, it was clear that a piece of their heritage that speaks from the heart is in a place of great importance and dignity.

Among them was Estella Loretto, a Jemez Pueblo sculptor who was Houser’s last apprentice until his death in 1994. Loretto, who also lived for a while at Taos Pueblo, was clearly in awe of seeing her mentor’s work so beautifully displayed. The exhibition includes the Apache artist’s first work, “Comrade in Mourning” (1948), a monumental statue created to honor American Indians who died in World War II, and another of sublime radiance from 1988 titled “As Long as the Winds Shall Blow” (a larger version of which is installed at the Oklahoma State Capitol)

Morrison, of the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa who died in 2000, is best known for his paintings, wood collages and sculptures rooted in Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism which drew inspiration from “his memories of the horizon over Lake Superior,” according to an NMAI fact sheet. But it was Houser’s sculptures and vivid paintings to which visitors seemed to respond the most.

“We know we’re not doing it right, but we don’t know what to do. Can you help us?” That’s what teachers say more times than not when they call the NMAI, according to Cuddy. “We have kids coming in thinking that all Native people live in teepees. And, of course, that there are no Native people today.” To combat such negative views, the NMAI has a policy of hiring Native staff. “That is my main mission,” Cuddy said. Not only that but only Native interpreters can lead groups through the museum.

Driving home this concept is an exhibit titled “Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identities,” which shows at its entrance the viewer surrounded on either side by images of Native people walking along with them. In a sense, it states that Indians are still here, they’re proud, get used to it.

During a Wednesday (Sept. 21)reception at the Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR, Inc) and Bacon House, prior to the Pop’ay installation, San Juan Pueblo Governor Joe Garcia recalled the day last May when artist Cliff Fragua unveiled his sculpture made from a large block of Tennessee limestone. He said on that day he was stuck by the sense of a “fresh energy” flowing through the Indian nations. And when the sunlight fell upon the new sculpture of a man who symbolizes Native solidarity and sovereignty, he felt that Indians have become “a group the United States will have to reckon with.”

In 1680, the Ohkay Owingeh (San Juan Pueblo) medicine man Pop’ay organized a revolt against Spanish colonists that began at Taos Pueblo. Born of decades of oppression and violence rooted in ignorance and intolerance, Pop’ay and the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico enacted what many have called “the first American revolution.” The sentiment in Washington this week, is that such solidarity is just what they need now more than ever.

So, what is the NMAI’s audience?

Cuddy and others at the museum believe that it is the people who walk into its doors — namely tourists and school children. But, even more, it is the international population that knows nothing about Indians, their cultures, diversity, lifeways and continuing presence. To many, Indians no longer exist. They have melted into mainstream America. Those that do exist live on impoverished reservations rife with alcoholism, unemployment and despair — or rich from government or corporate allotments, which have made them into white red men.

Seraphim's Blessing

2005-12-06T15:28:00.001-08:00

The high altitude set for "Serephim Falls" above Taos Ski Valley, New Mexico. Photo courtesy Lorey Sebastian/Icon Entertainment Intl.

I had an opportunity to sit down for a chat with director David Van Ancken on the evening of Nov. 22, 2005 at the Edelweiss Hotel in Taos Ski Valley. He and his crew from Mel Gibson's Icon Entertainment are shooting a new period western in the mountains above Taos, New Mexico. It is called "Seraphim Falls" and it stars Pierce Brosnan, Liam Neeson and Anjelica Huston. It is scheduled for release sometime in 2006.

The story is set in a period shortly after the Civil War. A Confederate colonel is unwilling to forget the wrongs be attributes to a Union soldier and, despite the cessation of hostilities, decides to continue pursuing him across a mythical west.

While Neeson and other crew members bellied up to the bar to unwind after a day's successful shoot, I found a table with Van Ancken and publicist Blaise Noto.

Q: Is the location working for you? (shot the ending of the movie today, Nov. 22, 2005)

David Von Ancken: The location’s fantastic. It’s the only place in the state with snow. We’re here at 12,000 feet. It’s incredibly beautiful watching the sunrise every morning. And everybody’s responding to it as if it were build to the story.

Q: You’ve done a lot of television work and this is your first feature film. Does this mark a change of direction for you?

A: I think I’ll do both. I rather enjoy doing good quality television, but, having written this and having the chance to work with such a talented group affords me a chance to control more than in television. With any luck, hopefully that will yield something, especially for the people involved.

Q: You’ve got two Irish actors as leads in a film set just after the Civil War. What went into the decision to cast Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan?

A: It was just chance. As I was writing this with my writing partner (Abby Everett Jaques) we were talking about certain people, then there’s a certain soulfulness to certain actors that this script needs. Because, what I was going for, in telling the story, was essentially very little dialogue. You know, stripping away the white noise of conversation and getting back to a, not just a period piece in terms of costumes and what type of guns you have to carry, but the fact that people didn’t talk too much in 1868. These guys are certainly not talky individuals, as characters.

Q: They don’t play Irish.

A: No. But, anybody from that period of time most likely came from Europe. Liam (Colonel Morsman Carver) is playing, sort of, a middle southerner. Pierce (Gideon) is playing a Union officer, so, two halfs.

Q: Would it be wrong to call this a “chase” picture?

A: You can call it whatever you like, but it’s really a — the action is visceral, and action is what we’re shooting on top of this mountain. Literally falling down the mountain from the top of the snow, into this desert in Lordsburg, where we were last week. So, it has specific, and I think very authentic action elements to it. And what I was trying to go back to and what we every day try to practice is the world of as limited CG as you can have, perhaps none. Ideally, no computer assisted chase sequences, but rather in-camera and in the bodies of these two great actors. If you throw them at something that’s real, they will throw back a performance at you that is fascinating. And we have been practicing that for the last 28 days or whatever it is. Yeah, it’s a chase movie, but it’s much more of a movie about finding out what’s important and when to let go of things so you don’t destroy yourself.

Q: How long have you been working on the script?

A: I researched the script for about six months, and wrote it in about three or four. Then, tweaked it for a couple of months, so over about a year.

Q: Was there ever a chance someone else might have directed it, instead of you?

A: No, I was offered a lot of money for it, at one point, by some element of a studio, with the proviso that I would not direct it. I decided not to take that route. I didn’t really write it to sell it. I wrote it because it came out of a frustration from reading a lot of scripts that I thought ‘I can do better than that.” And, eventually, someone said “Do that.” And, eventually, someone like Bruce Davey at Icon saw this sort of energy we could put behind this and make this both a very high impact action movie that actually says something. I’m not going to define what it says but if each person who’s involved with this has come to me and said, “This means this to me.” And none of them are wrong. Ultimately, I wrote it for a reason. It says something about anti-war. It says something about two men finding themselves with no more energy left for hatred and they somehow have to survive, and ultimately help each other, even if they’ve spent the last 90 minutes trying to kill each other.

At this point, producer David Flynn joined us.

Q: The visuals in this movie sound as though they were designed to be a character itself. I’m sure your choice of cinematographer had a lot to do with that.

David Flynn: This is really a question for David (Von Ancken), but, yes, the environment is definitely the third main lead in the movie, absolutely.

Q: Tell me about your choice for director of photography.

Von Ancken: John Toll was very high on our list and I was really excited (to get him). Many people came together for this and I feel very lucky and we work hard to make it worth everybody’s collective energy every day, but John Toll specifically read the script and came at us. He is an available-light master, as far as I’m concerned. He’s done a lot of great work where he uses very little, besides a white bounce board. People have showed up on our set and said “Where’s movie set?” There aren’t fifteen 18K lights. There are just four guys holding a white bounce card and four guys holding a four-by-eight piece of black cloth. He’s all about removing light. He sees the world and he takes light away, as far as I’m concerned. I mean I’ve never talked with him about it, but that’s what I watch. And we’ve just come from dailies and they look fantastic every night. What David Flynn just said is kind of the mantra that I was thinking while writing it. The more removed from civilization we were taking these guys, the more the environment and nature were elevated as a character. We bring them through, what I find, several very interesting characters from Tom Noonan to Anjelica Huston (who has relatives living in Taos), but the reality is the third lead in this movie is the world in which they walk, run.

Q: This is a depiction of the mythic west.

A: I think any time you take two men and strip down what drives them to the primal essentials you have a myth on your hands. And what we did very carefully was take them into the wild, away from — there’s no town in this movie, there’s nothing, there’s a railroad camp, but it is basically hell. And, once you go into nothingness, and you’re left with just the person you’re looking at or yourself, there’s a mythic element there.

Q: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in making this movie?

A: Have you looked at the top of this mountain? At 4:30 in the morning it is dark and cold. Last week we were in boiling hot and cracked Lordsburg. It is all about the weather.

Flynn: There’s one small set that’s an interior, but the whole movie’s shot exterior. For anybody scheduling or budgeting a movie for that, it’s a huge challenge.

Von Ancken: We have a 46 day schedule and we’re carrying three days or cover with us, meaning we have a set, that we haven’t shot yet, on purpose, that is our only insurance policy. On a normal movie with 45-58 (days) would have half inside, at the very least. We just went into it and we’ve been very lucky in New Mexico because when we need for it to be sunny, it’s sunny; when we need it to be cold, it’s been cold. The snow situation scared us but, here in Taos, we found snow at above 10,000 feet. With any luck, Monday it’s going to snow here. The vistas we’ve found could play for the eastern Rockies. They could play for Nevada. They could play for the Alps. The stuff behind Taos Ski Valley is just fantastic looking.

Q: What’s it like working with Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson?

A: It’s very simple. They’re very dedicated, talented, immensely watchable individuals and they come to this project — I’ll say I’m lucky again, and I’ll probably say it five more times if you keep interviewing me, but they come to this project with an incredible degree of concentration and an incredible degree of devotion for no other reason than the project itself. And each of those actors feeds off the other because each of those guys realizes the other guy is vested in this and the other guy is there. Their performances are concentrated and very authentic characters. So, what is it like to work with them? It is an absolute fucking dream. That’s what it’s like working with them. And you can quote me on that. I’ve shot 150 days in the last year, on a lot of big TV shows with a lot of name actors, and these guys are unbelievably focused, driven and committed. I think all of us, from every PA up to the producers to Flynn, to myself , we notice this every day with them. It does not go unnoticed for five minutes on the set.

Executive producer Stan Wlodkowski also sat in for a moment.

Q: What went into the decision to shoot in New Mexico? You could have shot in Canada or …

Stan Wlodkowski: We looked at Canada and to be honest with you New Mexico has a great film incentive program, which gave us a big reason to come here, but also you have an incredible variety of locations. This is a western that begins in snowy mountains and ends on the desert floor and there’s not a lot of places where you have those two things within five hours driving distance of each other.

Q: It kind of showcases New Mexico’s features then?

A: We are an absolute advertisement for beauty of New Mexico. A few days ago, we were shooting 80 degrees in Lordsburg and today were shooting 20 degrees at the top of Taos Mountain. You don’t get that kind of variety in many other places. So, it happened to have exactly what we needed for this movie. It also happens to have a very strong film community in Santa Fe with some wonderful technicians, which we were glad to take advantage of.