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Silent Tongue


Dark Blood

Dark Blood (1993, uncompleted) USA 1993. Directed by George Sluizer.


River with director George Sluizer

Cast


Story

A couple, Harry and Buffy, are travelling across the Arizona desert in an ageing Bentley. Harry is English, a minor but arrogant and chauvinist movie star who regards his American wife as little more than a chattel. The car is misfiring and they pull in at a Navajo settlement for the night to rest and get the car fixed up. Next day, they carry on with their journey and, in the middle of nowhere, the car breaks down and they are stranded. Harry is determined to stick to the principle of staying by the car until someone comes. Night falls, and Buffy is convinced she sees a light in the distance. The stubborn Harry refuses to believe her, so she sets out alone to try to find it. Eventually she comes upon a shack in which live the Boy, a young widower, and his black dog. The Boy spends his time carving wooden dolls. His grandfather is the Navajo chief whose portrait we see hanging behind the performers. He had married a white woman. The "Dark Blood" of the title is the Boy's dark side....

(More details in the report written by Richard Ross - previous maintainer of these pages - on the BFI's reading of the script, in 1996)


Quotes


Boy : He died in a mental institution. Melancholia, so I'm told.
Buffy : Your great, great grandfather? So that makes you...?
Boy : One eighth Hopi and prone to depression. (pause) Dark blood in my veins. Got some dark blood yourself. You're familiar with... the dark side of things.

Boy : Show me a sane man and I'll show you a moron.

Boy : Magic's just a question of focusing the will. You don't get what you want because you're lucky. You get it because you will it.

Harry : You just speak your lines in a loud clear voice and try not to bump into the furniture. The fact of the matter is, to act in most movies all you need is good profile and a driver's license.

Boy : All my life I been hungry.


Trivia

Director George Sluizer finally got back the rushes from the insurance companies. He's thinking about making a documentary on River's acting based on these rushes, but not in the near future.


Pictures

River on the set


Other Resources


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