Major Casting Error


The great tragedy of this series is that Wes Studi was miscast as Joe Leaphorn. I've read Hillerman's whole series and in my mind's eye, Graham Greene should have played Leaphorn. The thing about Leaphorn was, when he wanted information, he would just start a conversation and let someone talk himself out. He wouldn't often pose direct questions like an interrogation. He would let a guy talk for hours if he felt like it and just soak up everything the person had to say and mentally file it away. My point is that if you watch "Dances With Wolves", there were many scenes where Greene wouldn't talk because of the language barrier with Costner, but his expression would show that the wheels were turning inside his brain. That's Joe Leaphorn. When Wes Studi listens, his expression conveys that he's wondering how your scalp would look hanging on his lodgepole. Also, a large part of the series dealt with Leaphorn becoming a recent widower, and eventually meeting new companionship (though not necessarily romance). Not that Leaphorn went around all depressed all the time, but there were times he felt the loss of his wife, and I felt Greene would have conveyed all that much better, in a subtle kind of way.

Sorry Wes, you just look too mean to play Leaphorn.

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Yes, I think the character of Leaphorn in the books knew a great deal about Navajo culture but chose not to live in a traditional way like Chee.

Incidentally Graham Greene did play a Navajo lawman similar to Leaphorn. It was in 1992 on "Murder She Wrote" The episode was called "Night of the Coyote" and followed one of Hillerman's books to a "T" I thought Hillerman should of asked them to pay him royalties. Some of the characters even had the same names. I knew what was coming from reading Hillerman's book.

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[deleted]

Hey folks,

Jrogersdal was absolutely correct when he compares the Joe Leaphorn of this film to the Joe Leaphorn of the Hillerman novels. His point about the Joe Leaphorn firmly established in the many Hillerman novels being quite passive as opposed to Studi's version of Leaphorn is telling. Jrogersdal notes that Hillerman's Leaphorn "...would just start a conversation and let someone talk himself out." Instead of interrogating, he would consistently obtain information from someone by starting with the statement, "I am wondering...," tell what he wanted to know, and then he would listen - many times for a long time. Jrogersdal's "Sorry Wes, you just look too mean to play Leaphorn," is quite funny, but he is correct that Studi really does not capture the Hillerman version of Leaphorn in any way.

Add a bit of grey to Studi's hair and he could have looked like the book version of Leaphorn. Studi is certainly a good enough actor to have captured the book version of Leaphorn, but for some reason either the actor or the director decided to come up with a completely different version of Leaphorn. Perhaps they never read any of the Hillerman novels and had no appreciation for his wonderful characters.

I am somewhat ambivalent about Adam Beach's version of Jim Chee. Hillerman's Chee was always rather quiet, smart, and very much a traditional Navajo who was also educated. For the most part, Beach carries this off except for the couple of tough guy scenes where he loses his temper. The original Chee did not lose his temper. For some reason which I am unable to justify, Beach's character seemed to be missing something. Exactly what I do not know; perhaps Jrogersdal may have seen the same problem and could explain it better than I. He certainly saw the same problems I saw with the Leaphorn character.

In spite of the problems I noted above, I did enjoy the film. There were quite a number of supporting characters who did stellar work, and the film finished with a good ending for a murder mystery.

Best wishes,
Dave Wile


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I'm not sure it was just casting. The writing seems strained to me, and even with the other characters it feels stilted, or forced. I've seen Beach in other stuff, and he's a decent actor, but even he seems to struggle here.

The books had this sort of eerie, other world of "Navajo mystique", but this loses that to me.

I love copper shows, UK, Scandanavian, German, French....but this to me feels like the actors are working really hard to make the dialogue work.

I was disappointed.

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Studi is a good actor, and I don't think he was miscast. I think the writer changed his character from Hillerman's Leaphorn to this movie version of Leaphorn. This Leaphorn has just returned to the res' from the white man's world and knows almost nothing about Navajo culture. He's nothing like Hillerman's version of the legendary Leaphorn of the book, illustrated by the reasons you already pointed out. I'm left with the question of why the writer made this choice.

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