Apaches praise accuracy in "The Missing"

[Loonman]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031216/ap_on_en_mo/film_native_speakers_5

"There's a generation gap that's growing," he said, suggesting Apaches aren't the only ones facing it. "We need to enforce the home and not lose our way of life, which is our language."


It was the first film that any of them could remember in which Apache was spoken well enough on screen to be understood. Usually, Westerns were dubbed in Navajo, a related language, said supporting actor Steve Reevis, a Montana Blackfoot who has worked several films but never spoke Apache before "The Missing."


The film is set in southwestern New Mexico in 1885, just as the last of the Apache conflict was ending. The Jones character's granddaughter, Blanchett's daughter, is abducted by a ragged band of American Indians and whites who sell women into slavery in Mexico. Jones and co-star Jay Tavere set out to keep the slavers from reaching Mexico.