Film Plagued With Problems On and Off Set : An Ill ‘Wind’

“Now a major motion picture starring Lou Diamond Phillips,” reads the new paperback edition of Tony Hillerman’s novel “The Dark Wind.” But this may be a motion picture very few people get to see.

Originally slated to reach theaters in January, “The Dark Wind” is “currently in limbo,” with no release date in sight, according to producer Patrick Markey. “It’s been sitting on the shelf,” he said, a casualty of the Carolco bankruptcy.

The question mark surrounding its release is only the latest in a succession of headaches to plague “The Dark Wind,” a film whose title has at times seemed all too apt. “The Navajos believe the dark wind is an evil force, and that until the dark wind leaves, it will continue to cause problems,” Markey said. “There were a lot of analogies to . . . the trouble we had making the movie.”

At first, this seemed to be a movie that had a lot going for it. Based on a 1982 murder-mystery by one of the country’s most popular writers and produced by Robert Redford’s company, Wildwood Enterprises, the film was intended to be the first in a series derived from the Hillerman mysteries.

Set on the Navajo and Hopi reservations outside Tuba City, Ariz., it seemed especially timely in the wake of “Dances With Wolves,” which was being released to wide acclaim in the fall of 1990, just when the Redford project was being filmed.

Even before the cameras started rolling, “The Dark Wind” was drawing unwelcome national publicity. The decision to cast Phillips as Sgt. Jim Chee, the Navajo policeman who takes it upon himself to solve three drug-related murders, was attacked by an American Indian watchdog group. Although Phillips is part-Cherokee, critics wanted to see a full-blooded American Indian in the lead role.

In addition, the screenplay had to be revised several times to accommodate the concerns of Hopi Indians, who were furious about the scenes depicting their secret sacred rituals.

Even though generalized Indian-type rites have been substituted for the specific Hopi ceremonies, residents of the Hopi village of Shungopavi remain skeptical and intend to try to block the film’s release, according to attorney Frances Jue of Albuquerque. “By definition, (the drugs and murder scenario) puts the Hopis in a bad light,” she said. But neither she nor the villagers have seen the movie.

Without a marketing budget, Markey lacks the resources to travel to the reservation to allay the Hopis’ fears. “I would love to take it out there to make the point that we did what we said we were going to do,” the producer said.

The relatively low-budget project--said to have cost about $10 million, although neither Carolco nor Markey would disclose a figure--was also saddled with other problems: a director who was new to feature films and who clashed with the film’s original producers; snowy conditions inappropriate to a story that partially revolves around a conflict over water; and a frustrating inability to photograph the breathtaking Hopi mesas because of objections from some tribal members.

In signing documentary filmmaker Errol Morris as director, Redford made what co-screenwriter Neal Jimenez describes as “a quirky choice and a daring one.” A genuine eccentric--his company is called Fourth Floor Productions even though the offices are on the fifth floor of a Cambridge, Mass., building--Morris is best known for “The Thin Blue Line,” a film credited with winning the release from prison of a man who had been framed for the murder of a Texas policeman. His documentary, “A Brief History of Time,” based on the Stephen Hawking book of the same name, is scheduled to be released in June or July.

Redford believed Morris was just the director to enliven Hillerman’s slow-moving detective story, Markey said. But Morris had never before directed a feature film and ran into immediate problems with producers Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury.

“We didn’t get along with the director,” said Pillsbury, declining to elaborate on why Redford removed her and her partner from “The Dark Wind.” Markey, who replaced them as producer, and Morris also refused to comment on the dispute.

Eric Bergren, who succeeded Jimenez as screenwriter, attributed the conflicts with the producers to Morris’ need to have “a wide array” of shooting options available before making a decision. “But producers want a director who knows exactly what he wants and states it very clearly.”

Meanwhile, there were the Hopis to contend with. “I think we went in with our eyes half open about the problems we were going to face,” Jimenez said.

Not only did the Hillerman story and the initial scripts violate the Hopi insistence on secrecy, but the filmmakers, unwilling to film on Hopi land without permission, found themselves caught up in the tribe’s internecine problems. Agreements with the Hopi Tribal Council turned out to be meaningless, for example, because that body’s authority is accepted by only a few of the 12 Hopi villages, attorney Jue said.

As they scouted the area for locations, Morris said he would turn to his cinematographer, Stefan Czapsky, and exclaim: “The good news is, this is the most spectacular landscape you’ve ever seen. The bad news is, you can’t shoot here.” The director said the Hopis even mounted objections to using place names mentioned in Hillerman’s book.

Compounding Morris’ problems was the weather, which could not have been less appropriate for a story that turns in part on a quarrel between Hopis and Navajos over access to water on the parched Indian lands. Filming, which began in September, dragged on until late November, forcing the crew to deal with snow and frigid temperatures.

Although Markey praises Morris’ “marvelous ability to look at the world and see the oddities that present themselves,” he acknowledges that the collaborative process was thorny. “He made his way through it, but it was a difficult struggle,” the producer said.

Defending himself, Morris said: “I think this would have been a difficult movie for a very experienced Hollywood director.” For reasons he cannot explain, he was removed from the editing process after he made his director’s cut.

“I would have preferred to have been involved in all of the elements of post-production,” he said.

Amid all these hassles have come a few happier developments. “The Dark Wind” was shown at the London Film Festival and drew a favorable review from Variety critic Derek Elley. “The finished product . . . shows no signs of its beleaguered history,” Elley wrote.

Bonnie Paradise, executive director of the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts, the watchdog group that had criticized the selection of Phillips as Sgt. Chee, has seen the film and given it her blessing. “There’s nothing Indians should be offended by,” she said.

Whether they and others will get a chance to find out is very much up in the air. Original plans called for New Line Cinema to release “The Dark Wind,” along with other Seven Arts films produced under a joint venture between New Line and Carolco. Under that deal, Carolco was supposed to provide the marketing budget.

But with Carolco bankrupt, the initial deal is off and the two sides have yet to reach a new agreement, said Mitch Goldman, president of distribution for New Line.

“The film has a lot of merit, but it’s a question mark how much business it would do,” Goldman said. “On the right terms we would be happy to (distribute) the film, but so far we haven’t been able to agree on those terms.”