25 Years Later, the Legacy of 'The Return of Navajo Boy'
Q&A with film director Jeff Spitz
Happy and Willie Cly, Elsie Mae Cly Begay's grandparents, were recognized from the original "Navajo Boy" VHS tape.
Photo courtesy of Ray Manley
Jeff Spitz is the director and co-producer of the documentary “The Return of Navajo Boy” (2000, Epilogue 2011), a film that follows the Cly family of Monument Valley as they give voice to a vintage 1950s film called “Navajo Boy” and solve a real life mystery involving Hollywood, uranium mining, and a long missing baby brother taken away by missionaries.
In the 25 years since its premiere, “The Return of Navajo Boy” has sparked a federal investigation into uranium contamination on Navajo land and continues to serve as a model for Indigenous media collaboration and environmental justice advocacy.
Get a behind-the-scenes peak at how the film came to be in this Q&A with Spitz, and join in for a celebration of the film and the Cly family at the upcoming Native Voices in Film event on Feb. 15, hosted by the Indigenous Resilience Center and the Southwest Center.
How were you first introduced to this story, and how did you find yourself working on this film?
It started in 1997 when a man in Chicago named Bill Kennedy sent me a VHS tape with “Navajo boy” handwritten in pencil on the spine. Bill’s father had made this old film and had passed away, and Bill asked if I had advice about what to do with it. I watched it and I thought, “It’s a part of the country I've never been to, it's people whose culture I don't have any familiarity with, and I'm not sure what advice I could possibly give.”
When I went to meet Bill Kennedy, I asked him, “What do you want to do with it?” And he said, “Maybe give it back.” That's how this started. We called our project The Return of Navajo Boy, just as a working title because we were returning an old film called Navajo Boy, and I went looking for the people who were in it.
How did you ultimately find the family that is featured in the film?
I got very lucky. I walked into a Native American gift shop in my neighborhood in Chicago, Lincoln Square, and on the table, there was a book called “The Vanishing Indian.” The cover of the book looked like a similar environment to what I saw in “Navajo Boy.” I opened it up, and on the inside of the front cover was a photo of the Navajo woman who was in a healing ceremony in our VHS tape. It's the same face. It was the same woman. And I thought, “Oh my God.”
Elsie Mae, who's featured in the film "The Return of Navajo Boy."
Photo courtesy of Jeff Spitz.
The photographer of “The Vanishing Indian” book, his name was Ray Manley. I literally called information and asked for Ray Manley in Tucson. He got on the phone with me, and I told him whose picture I was looking at in this photo book, and he said, “Oh yeah, that's Happy and Willie Cly.” He had dedicated the book to them. Ray told me I could find the children in that old film by going to a trading post called Goulding’s, which was in Monument Valley. Happy and Willie Cly are the grandparents of the main person in our film, Elsie Mae Cly Begay.
I wound up getting a flight and showed up at Goulding's with still photos from this 45-year-old film. I met Elsie’s son, Lorenzo, when he was selling jewelry by the entrance to Monument Valley. He looked at all the still photos and said, “That one's my uncle, this one's my aunt. These are my great-grandparents.” He identified people. And when he said, “This one's my mom, you want to meet her?” That turned out to be Elsie, who's going to be honored in Tucson.
Wow.
Yeah. She was just very welcoming and warm. She had me come into her hogan and sit down next to her and show her pictures. While I was doing that, she was reflecting on her childhood and siblings and speaking in Navajo with Lorenzo. I asked Lorenzo what his mom was saying, and he just explained, “It's our family's history that you have.”
Then, Elsie pointed to a baby in the mother's arms and said, “That was our baby brother who missionaries took away. We never saw him again.” Then she said his name was John Wayne Cly. It was like a family mystery.
The film shows how John learns about the family he lost 40 years ago and then comes back to them for an incredibly emotional reunion.
What was it like for you to be a part of that reunion?
Else Mae Cly Begay and brother John Wayne Cly reunite after 40 years.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Spitz
Next to seeing my own first-born child emerge, this reunion is the most emotional thing I've ever experienced. It was absolutely overwhelming. It was so devastating to think about all the years that were lost and all the pain people have experienced. That just reduced me to tears.
Could you talk a little bit about the process of creating this documentary?
I knew day one that this was not just about an old film coming back, it was about people finally being able to tell their story and bear witness to their own experience. Whatever that experience was, they were going to have the opportunity to direct and guide the telling of their story.
The pictures that I brought unlocked memories and opened up a platform for people to point to the things that are real around them. Not posing for pictures or posing for an interview, but actually going places, showing how they grew up, where they grew up, and the uranium mining – that was the number one economic activity there.
The thing that I like most about documentary is that you meet real people and learn how to create together, and it wasn't hard with Elsie and her son Lorenzo, both of whom are coming to Tucson for the event.
I asked Elsie what she thought about making a new film, using the old pictures, the Navajo Boy tape, and telling what it was like to grow up here in Monument Valley. She said, “Bring the man, bring the film, bring the camera, let's go.”
"The Return of Navajo Boy" Director Jeff Spitz, along with Elsie Mae Cly Begay and Lorenzo Begay.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Spitz
The process involved always asking, “What do you want to talk about, and do you want to talk about these pictures?” We also thought it would be appropriate to show it to the president of the tribe at that time, Albert Hale. He organized a screening with his cultural advisors. They said that they were building a museum and appreciated people returning artifacts and other items to them.
I offered to make a short video about this process for the grand opening of the museum, and they were thrilled. They let us film, they gave us interviews, and we all met up again at the grand opening of the Navajo Nation Museum in 1997, where we introduced this project called The Return of Navajo Boy.
That’s when I met Bennie Klain. I don't speak Navajo. I don't understand the culture. I can't write for a Navajo audience and expect anyone to listen. Bennie was a Navajo Nation radio producer and reporter who took a deep interest in the people in the film. He interviewed Elsie and family members in Navajo, and he got so interested in what we were doing that he decided to come to Chicago and do all the translations. I brought him in as a co-producer. Bennie worked with me on translations of everything, and then on the specific Navajo point of view of the film.
In a collaborative process like filmmaking, you can't cut off the collaboration when you go into post-production and start editing. We were able to fly members of the family, including Elise and Lorenzo, to Chicago into the editing room to review everything and to have input and to help make it better.
Jeff, Elsie, and Benny on stage at the Sundance premiere of "The Return of Navajo Boy."
Photo courtesy of Jeff Spitz
Then we all went together to a premier at Sundance. In fact, our publicist at that time was a young recent UCLA graduate, who's now the most famous African American female filmmaker in the world: Ava DuVernay. Ava's first trip to Sundance was as the publicist for The Return of Navajo Boy.
Bennie was able to travel and presented the film in different countries, and we were able to create an epilogue 11 years later. We followed the story because what we made together really exploded the uranium issue in people's faces, and it was a powerful cliffhanger that we made and premiered at Sundance Film Festival. When we go places with the film, we always make it a priority to have John and Elsie present.
It’s great to hear how collaborative creating the film was and how you continue to work together afterwards.
The film doesn't end with the end credits. The epilogue is about the ongoing advocacy by Elsie and other Navajo people to get attention for the environmental injustices in the film, which affect many, many, many Navajo families. We were able to get a lot of leverage for national media coverage and motivate the EPA to come back and cooperate with Navajo Nation for the first cleanup of an abandoned uranium mine – the one next to Elsie’s house. But there are more than 500 other abandoned uranium mines, and numerous families facing similar contamination issues.
When you talk about how powerful connecting with these families was, and I feel like it's reflected in the quality of the film. Why do you think building those relationships is important?
The relationships matter most to me. I got into film because I love the relationships and the discovery that comes with having an open mind and being curious. If you're inclined to go places and have adventures and meet people and have meaningful relationships over a period of time, there's surely no better form of art than documentary.
Elsie Mae Cly Begay's story brought attention, and eventually action, to uranium contamination in Monument Valley.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Spitz
Documentary is an argument and always has been. The definition that was coined in 1928 is the creative treatment of actuality. Documentary is not the thing, it's the representation of the thing.
The best part of the documentaries I was making was always the people speaking for themselves in their own words and listening carefully to the kind of poetry of the ordinary person finding those eloquent or meaningful moments or pauses or awkward statements that somehow revealed something about the person.
As I got to know Elsie, Lorenzo, and their family members, I learned about people who'd gotten cancer, who died, who lived in a house made out of uranium. They were telling me about what it was like to grow up where they lived, and I thought their first-person voice story is more powerful than anything I could read in a book.
I was thinking about that point you mentioned earlier about asking the question, “What do you want to talk about?” I feel like that is such a rare question to ask subjects and let that shape where the story goes.
Yeah. Bill Kennedy was willing to sponsor this open inquiry, which never happens. To Bill's credit, he remained committed to this production even when it wasn't directly about his father's film. I was free for the first time as a filmmaker to work close to my heart and work close to the people whose stories mattered most, and to stay focused on what mattered most.
When you think about 25 years later, why do you think the messages in this film are still relevant today?
Jeff Spitz and Elsie Mae Cly Begay first met in 1997 after her son recognized her in the still photos from the "Navajo Boy" VHS tape.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Spitz
First of all, family. I think through the pandemic we all realized that family relations are most fundamental. Family attachment is what this film is really about.
In addition, with Indigenous people their land is like family. It's inseparable. Their language is so deeply connected to the land. That's universal.
But then there's another piece of this, and that's justice. People have an acute sense of injustice. With Navajo Boy, we have a family who were treated as stereotypes who were finally getting a chance to speak about family, land, and justice, and not just speak, but call attention to injustice through a story that unfolds in real time and shows that they have hidden history that impacts the present and future. It's not the history that people studied in high school or college. It's not the history that white people know.
Even the most educated people haven't realized the price that Navajos have paid for America's superpower, and they're still paying that price. So, this is a story still unfolding that hits on many different levels. Fundamentally it's family, land, and justice.
Learn more about the 25th anniversary screening and RSVP to the Feb. 15 event.