This film, which was co-produced by Chicago director Jeff Spitz and Navajo Austin filmmaker Bennie Klain, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival two months ago. The Austin presentation is co-sponsored by the UT Dept. of Radio-TV-Film, and the Alamo Drafthouse. The movie chronicles an extraordinary chain of events that began when a silent reel of film that had been shot in Monument Valley during the 1950s was brought to Spitz’s attention. Through this artifact called “Navajo Boy,” the modern-day filmmakers were able to track down the original subjects – the Cly family – and create a new work that incorporates their feelings and personal histories. As the setting of so many Westerns and photographs, the imagery and meaning of Monument Valley has been appropriated by outsiders for mass consumption. The Return of Navajo Boy uses these old and familiar images to recover one family’s history. In the process, it also reunited long-separated family members. For more information and some fascinating newspaper reports on the making of this film see http://www.navajoboy.com
This article appears in April 7 • 2000.
