Native American Drama "Dark Winds" Premieres on AMC, with Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin and Graham Roland Guiding It

Respect runs deep in Dark Winds Respect for the land is shown through a lens that lovingly captures the desert39s majesty There39s respect for Native Americans who speak Navajo and honor tradition That feeling only deepens during the sixhour series based on Tony Hillerman39s bestselling novelsIf the title sounds familiar that39s because there have been movies based on these characters but Robert Redford and George RR Martin were working for decades to bring it to TV They picked Graham Roland to join them as an executive producer Roland a member of the Chickasaw Nation is also the creator of the series A Marine vet he ensures another layer of respect threaded throughout amp8211 an inherent understanding of how a Native American in a uniform doing his job bridges culturesAs cocreator of Tom Clancyamp8217s Jack Ryan contractual obligations precluded Roland from serving as showrunner on Dark Winds Still he wrote for this and was deeply involved in the series as he explained in an exclusive Zoom interview with MediaVillagecomquotThe thing that really made me want to do this project was growing up my dad39s generation the Native Americans were antagonistsquot Roland said quotThey were the threat to the cowboys or the homesteaders In the 3990s when I was growing up and watching films there were strides forward A film like Dances with Wolves which is in many ways a beautiful film went to great lengths to humanize and dimensionalize the Native characters and there were other things in that vein during that time quotItamp8217s the old Trojan horse of well it39s really about the Natives but we39re just using the white character to bring you into the Native storyquot he continued quotI didn39t want to do that I39d always wanted to tell the story pure with a Native protagonistquotGrowing up in Oklahoma and California Roland loved to read and write He served in Iraq was honorably discharged from the Marines in 2006 and enrolled at the University of California Fullerton A new class TV writing was taught by Robert Engels a writer for the original Twin Peaks Engels recognized Roland39s talent and encouraged himRoland who wrote for Prison Break Lost and Fringe is heartened by TV39s broadening diversity quotWe39re also in an exciting time in television in terms of how much you can accomplish in terms of budget the sophistication of storytelling and the actors that you can getquot he explained quotThere is an appetite now for representation in Hollywood And so people who are making these decisions on what shows get made and what don39t are actively looking to do stories in diverse communities And I have to give credit where credit39s due for a show like Reservation Dogs which preceded us They proved that there is a mass audiencequotYou39re getting to see Native not only Native stories being told but being told by Native voices and Native filmmakersquot he added quotPeople trying to break in are finally getting their 39in39 It39s a wonderful thing and it39s exciting to be a very small part of thatquotIn Dark Winds Zahn McClarnon pictured at top plays Joe Leaphorn lieutenant of the tribal police Leaphorn39s new deputy is Jim Chee Kiowa Gordon pictured above Bernadette Manuelito Jessica Matten pictured below is a tribal officer whose role expands from the original storyOfficers must contend with a sleazy FBI Agent Noah Emmerich Many characters including Leaphorn are scarred from the whitewashing of their youth He was enrolled in an assimilation school where whites tried to strip him of his identity The casual racism of 1971 is as woven into the series as are the Navajo rituals such as a touching scene where a girl39s menarche is celebrated In a ceremony she sprints leading her friends past scrubby trees as the camera pulls back granting viewers stunning vistasThe action mainly unfolds in the Navajo Nation spread over 27413 square miles making it larger than Ireland Dark Winds received the rare permission to shoot on tribal lands and afford viewers a sense of the Four Corners where striated mesas punctuate pristine open space The series affords characters space to be themselves speak in Navajo in unhurried scenes and crucial to Roland do so correctlyquotWe had Dinamp233 in our writers39 roomquot Roland said using the Navajo word for the people quotWe were constantly checking with them on everything to make sure it felt authenticquotBeyond the cultural accuracy Roland strove for a human connection quotAnd what I mean by that is making each of the Native characters fully rounded human beings going through their own dramaquot he notedRoland made Leaphorn39s wife Emma a midwife a diversion from the books This allows her work to entwine with her husband39s complicated case that unfurls over the season There39s murder money laundering kidnapping carjacking and shootouts Leaphorn39s integrity and his harmony with the land are evident throughout Would every officer notice the bend in a branch to alert him that someone had just walked this dry path and scraped against the bush Would others be able to move silently to track culprits Smell chemicals in the waterLeaphorn and Emma Deanna Allison mourn the death of their son killed in a mining explosion Selfcontained and astute these qualities can loom large in novels but are tricky to translate to the screenquotTony had left me a pretty good roadmapquot Roland said quotOne of the things that I encountered right away with this adaptation was taking a little bit of license with the characters he created and their backstories So much of what was happening in the books is based around what he39s investigating And it39s very present In a TV show we39re dealing with characters so hopefully we will be spending hours and hours with them over the years and I really wanted to start them in a place of internal conflict And the place where they39re kind of wrestling with their own demons while they39re investigating the case which wasn39t necessarily the case of the novelsquotConsidering Hillerman wrote 18 books in this series Roland cracks a smile reckoning how long this could run quotI39m saying 17 seasonsquot he concludedDark Winds premieres Sunday June 12 at 9 pm on AMC and AMC An additional episode will be available one week earlier for subscribers to the streamerClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Native American Drama "Dark Winds" Premieres on AMC, with Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin and Graham Roland Guiding It

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Native American Drama "Dark Winds" Premieres on AMC, with Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin and Graham Roland Guiding It

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