A new film directed by Kevin Costner offers a fictional portrayal of westward expansion in the 19th century. “Horizon: An American Saga” features real places as settings and peoples as characters, like the San Pedro Valley and White Mountain Apache Tribe.
Aurelia Bullis is from the town of Bylas on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. She’s an Apache language teacher at the Fort Thomas Unified School District in Graham County.
Bullis also taught the “Horizon” cast how to recite Apache for this two-part film. Tatanka Means was among them. He’s from Chinle, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation. Means most recently starred in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
“It was a lot harder teaching the actors their lines, because they are also Native, but they have different languages,” Bullis said. “They have to make these certain sounds. It was a lot harder for them to get the sounds right.”
Bullis explained the way Apaches speak in Bylas has a distinct dialect — the same as the White Mountain Apache — but one that differs from the rest of San Carlos. That’s why she spent two weeks teaching it on set, but that wasn’t enough time.
“I had to do Zoom calls with them,” said Bullis, who trained the actors remotely for another two months. The Western epic touches on tensions between settler-raiding Apaches and the profiteers whose wanton slaughtering decimated Apache villages.
Despite that painful past, Bullis is still happy to see Apaches on the big screen.
“When I was on set, just to see, like, so many different tribes that had to play the Apache,” she added. “Usually you would see the different tribes, like Navajo, Cherokee, but it was exciting to see Apache."
