Class Schedule

writing exercise: What do you know about Indians in films? What do you want to know?

Important issues in Native Studies/Natives in film
US/Indian Relations: how governmental laws/policies affect Indians
Treaties/Sovereignty

Problems of identity and misrepresentation
Settler Colonialism and Manifest Destiny
representing Others
stereotyping

Indigenous Values
place/wisdom sits in places
all my relations
circle of life
the trickster (often Coyote)/humor
resilience or survivance
living in two worlds (or more)

importance of storytelling to film, to identity, to community
cultural sovereignty: telling your own story, representing yourself

Be sure to consult the tips for watching and writing about film (see "Guides to Watching/Writing" button at left)

READINGS (3 total): Choose 3 questions to respond to for each reading (last reading answer all questions)

1. (pdf) "Introduction: Thinking Indian Thoughts,"
from B. Singer's Wiping the War Paint From the Lens

misrepresentation
tribal storytelling as a transfer of cultural information + Native filmmaking
adapt old + new
reconnect with old relationships/traditions
revive storytelling and restore old foundations
cultural sovereignty
oral tradition is fundamental to understanding Native film and "how we experience truth, impart knowledge, share information and laugh" (3)
Storytelling as recovery of authentic identity
Stories keep the people together
Stories connect us to the "universe of medicine--of paranormal or sacred power"
"Storytellers are highly valued because they have the power to heal the spirit"
Heal the ruptures of the past--healing is up to the viewer

"Indian people offer explanations on Indian terms and present culture directly from tradition bearers, so that it cannot be misinterpreted by outside scholars. This is a strategy for eliminating stereotypes, validating the beliefs and practices of native groups, and retaining intellectual property rights to cultural patrimony" (4)

Intention for book: "To present our story of filmmaking on Indian terms" (4).

2. Kilpatrick, Celluloid Indians
Introduction
Chap. 1. Genesis of the Stereotypes

Chap. 2. The Silent Scrim
Chap. 3. The Cowboy Talkies of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s

Discussion questions:
Chapter 1: Genesis of the Stereotypes
What are the major stereotypes of Native people and where did they come from?
What cultural texts/events influenced the creation of the Hollywood Indian? Who are the major literary sources of the invented Indian?
What is nationalism and how did Indians help create American nationalism?
How did the invented Indian help America create itself as a national community?

Chapter 2 The Silent Scrim
How did silent films contribute to the invented Indian? What stories and images became prominent?
How did body language, camera work and sound (nondiegetic--off the screen) contribute to the “Hollywood Indian” in the silent era, both male and female?
What did the sound of these films convey to audiences?
Describe the generic Indian of the silent era:
Was he played by a Native person? Why or why not?

Chapter 3 The Cowboy Talkies of the 30s, 40s and 50s
How did the advent of sound affect these films?
What was Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 “Frontier Thesis” and how did it affect western films?
What mythology did help to create, which was then played out in film?
When (politically/economically) have western films been most popular and why?
What is the primary “American myth” and what/who is the primary “American hero”?
How is the primary American story about real estate, land, and how does the Western tell that story?
How does John Wayne in Westerns come to epitomize the “American hero”? What were his attitudes about Indians and land?
How in the 1950s do filmmakers begin to use the invented Indian more sympathetically?
What does Kilpatrick mean when she calls them the malleable or “all-purpose metaphor”?
What is miscegenation and how is it treated historically in “Indian films”?

3. Oshana, Maryannn, "Native American Women in Westerns: Reality and Myth"
from Frontiers: A Journal of Womens Studies

Discussion questions:
What realities of Native American women’s lives have been ignored by film?
What are the major themes related to Indian women in Western films?
What is the major problem and what is its solution?

Trailer from The Far Horizons 1955

(Fred McMurray as Meriwether Lewis, Charlton Heston as William Clark and Donna Reed as Sacajawea!)

Far Horizons trailer mashup
(Sacajawea is getting advice for getting a man from a white woman in the film)

Debra Paget

Discussion questions:
1. According to Pye, what is it about the Western genre that makes it difficult to make a liberal, anti-racist Western?
2. What are the 2 views on miscegenation (interracial love/sexual relations) the film provides? And what characters and scenes demonstrate these views?
3. Do you agree that Ethan is portrayed as obsessed with racist hatred and that we are to distance ourselves from his perspectives?
4. How does Pye/the film show that Ethan's racism is at the heart of the white community and our governmental policies?
5. Explain how the captivity of white women is shown in 2 very different ways in the film.
6. What are the two views of Indians that Westerns typically present? How are those 2 views present in The Searchers?
7. Pye argues that the ambiguity of The Searchers' point of view (POV) is resolved in the final scenes. What happens to resolve the contradictory vision the film has created?
8. How do you think a 1950s audience would receive this film? How might the messages differ depending on the viewer's race and/or ethnicity? What overall message did you get from it?

Film Terms to Know
Genre: a critical category for organizing films according to shared themes, styles, and narrative structures; examples are "horror films" and "gangster films," "westerns" and "science fiction".
Ideology: An analytical approach that attempts to unmask the stated or unstated social and personal values that movie or group of movies.
Narrative: the way a story is constructed through a particular point of view and arrangement of events.
Point of view: The position from which an action or subject is seen, often determining its significance.
Scene: A space within which a narrative action takes place; it is composed of one or more shots.

To keep in mind while watching:
how are Native Americans represented?
from whose point of view are we seeing?
who are we "supposed" to sympathize with?
who are we supposed to see as credible?
what values does this film espouse?
what might it be critiquing?

View: The Searchers (John Ford 1956; 119 min.)
discussion of "Double Vision" and The Searchers

Assign Paper 1 (see Writing Prompts button at left; choose one prompt to respond to, or create your own focus/thesis.)

1. Kilpatrick, Chap. 4 Win Some and Lose Some: The 1960s and 1970s

historical context:
US Indian policy: recovering from Relocation and Termination policies of 1950s: Urban Indians
Film:: The Exiles trailer

The politically activist "Red Power" movement arises to fight for tribal/Indian rights

The Viet Nam War--for some filmmakers, US treatment of Indians becomes metaphor for US involvement in Viet Nam;
counterculture/anti-establishment movements; environmental movement

Little Big Man is considered a "revisionist" western which uses two literary traditions:
* the picaresque (the roguish, often comic, hero encounters a series of adventures) and
* the initiation archetype (the (innocent) hero attains mature insight through experiences that shape him)

Like The Searchers, Little Big Man's protagonist is a white male, yet the film's representation of both white and Native culture is quite different from that of The Searchers, and it revises earlier Westerns' view of white expansion and Native societies..

To keep in mind while watching:
how are Native Americans represented? how are they represented differently here from "The Searchers"
from whose point of view are we seeing?
who are we "supposed" to sympathize with?
how does Jack's search for identity differ from how male identity, white or Native, is portrayed in "The Searchers"?

View: Little Big Man (Arthur Penn 1970; 139 min)

Discussion questions for Little Big Man
1. How does LBM revise the myth of the Western/West told by films such as The Searchers?
2. How is the motif of the massacre used to develop the theme of the moral emptiness of white American society?
3. How would you characterize the representation of the Cheyenne in the film? How does it compare with the representation of the Comanches in The Searchers?
4. While being largely sympathetic to the Cheyenne, why do you think the filmmakers distorted two Cheyenne traditions: Little Horse is introduced as heemaneh "a sexually ambiguous role taken on by some men in many native tribes that combines the behavior, dress, social and sexual habits of both women and men--these people were highly respected in Native societies before colonization/Christianization." What do you think of the film's depiction of this tradition? Younger Bear is for a time a Contrary--Contraries acted by opposites and did not choose the role but were called to it by dreams or vision. Contraries accepted enormous hardship and responsibility and their role was powerful--they were considered spiritually pure. What do you make of Younger Bear's depiction as a Contrary in the film? How significant are these depictions to the overall effect of the film?

For traditional Native American sex and gender roles see: Two Spirit Tradition and twospirits.org

5. Who/where/what is the moral center of this film? What statement does this film make about the human condition?
6. In tribal languages, the name for the tribe usually translates into English as "The People." Why do you think the filmmaker chose to translate the Cheyenne's tribal name into "Human Beings," and what effect does this have on you as a viewer?
7. What has Jack Crabb accomplished by telling and recording his narrative? What do you think he is thinking and feeling in the last scene in the Veterans Home?

1. Anderson, Eric "Driving the Red Road: Powwow Highway"
from Hollywood's Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film, Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor, Editors

1. What are the generic conventions of Pow Wow Highway--what "kind" of film is it? From whose point of view do we experience the story?
2. How are Indians represented in the film? What "types" of Indians does the film present?
3. What is significant about the representation of Native people and Native life in the film, especially in the historical context of representations of Indians in film, and from an indigenous rather than dominant culture or mainstream perspective?
4. What are some of the conflicts in the film, and how do they reflect Indian historical reality, but on the reservation and at Pine Ridge?
5. What scenes might be trying to convey a traditionally Native way of seeing the world, of reality, of combining the every day with the mythic?
6. Buddy is a political activist with little use for Cheyenne tradition. Does Buddy "enlarge" his identity as a Cheyenne over the course of the film? Consider the scene when Buddy Red Bow uses the car window as a war shield.
7. How does Philbert embrace tradition in unexpected ways? Consider Philbert's connection to his car/pony. In what ways does Philbert function as a traditional trickster figure?
8. Why do you think Native people generally tend to like Pow Wow Highway?
9. Respond to Eric Anderson's claim in "Driving the Red Road": "Powwow Highway suggests, finally, that the collaboration of Philbert and Buddy, and thus the combination of venerable traditions and new adaptations, make a variety of desired political and spiritual results possible. In other words, the movie demonstrates that Buddy and Philbert's successes are directly linked to their distinctly Cheyenne dreams and visions and improvisations; 'Cheyenne' is a vital, flexible, highly imaginative and adaptable and surviving identity" (149).
10. In what ways might this film be anti-colonialist--are there scenes that would support this reading?

View: Lakota Woman:Siege at Wounded Knee (100 min)

AIM era/themed films

Alcatraz is Not an Island
Trudell: The Movie
Incident at Oglala
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Thunderheart

1. Indigenous Aesthetics

2. Kilpatrick, Chapter 6 The American Indian Aesthetic

Where might an Indian aesthetic begin and include?

According to Kilpatrick, what needs to happen for American Indians to make successful (commerical) films?

The Trickster and "Survivance"
The trickster is an important figure in many cultures; in Native American cultures he is sometimes a creator (Coyote, Raven, Spider); he breaks rules, crosses boundaries, has all the good and bad qualities of humans, he outwits others, especially those ostensibly more powerful than he. Kilpatrick writes that "the purpose of a trickster is to shake up the status quo with irreverent acts and words that cause us to look at ourselves again for the first time" (183).

"Survivance" is a term coined by Anishinabe scholar/writer and author of Harold of Orange, Gerald Vizenor: resistance + survival; the repudiation of domination. Much Native literature and film expresses the theme of survivance. Harold of Orange express Vizenor's ideas about the power of words, trickster ethics and aesthetics, Native values, and survivance. Vizenor might claim that colonialism was/is a failure of the imagination (for example, in its inability to see the benefit in sharing with others and accepting their differences), and that tricksters and their cultures excel and survive by emphasizing the power of the imagination.

1. Conceptual Framework for Oppression
How does social and institutional oppression work?
Explain target groups and agent groups?
Give examples of way that agent groups are able to oppress target groups?
How are American Indians a target group? Give examples of methods used by agent groups to oppress Indians.
How and why do target groups sometimes collude in their own oppression?

Important concepts
intergenerational grief
internalized oppression
disenfranchised grief
What do the above authors recommend for the healing of historical trauma and intergenerational grief?

For those unfamiliar with how oppression works at the individual and institutional level, please read:
Conceptual Framework for Oppression

View: American Holocaust: When It's All Over I'll Still Be Indian (dir. Joanelle Romero, 30 min)
View: A Century of Genocide in the Americas: the Residential School Experience (dir. Rosemary Gibbons; 17.45 min)

HEGEMONY (hegemonic): The processes by which dominant culture maintains its dominant position: for example, the use of institutions to formalize power; the employment of a bureaucracy to make power seem abstract (and, therefore, not attached to any one individual);

What are major themes of Smoke Signals?
What seems particularly significant about this film?
Do you agree with Mihelich that the film subverts stereotypes about Indians?
Do you agree that one their own, popular culture productions may not have the power to truly subvert hegemonic power that keeps stereotypes and the status quo of inequality in place?

Wednesday 4/06
Form groups. Meet with your group for 30-45 minutes to choose film category.

screen Reel Injun: On the Trail of the Hollywood Indian (dir. Neil Diamond (Cree); 88 min.)

Guest Speaker: Sharon Eagleman (Ft. Peck Sioux, Assiniboine)

Ms. Eagleman is a renown Champion Jingle Dress dancer who has spent much of her life traveling the "Pow Wow Trail." She will share her knowledge of the pow wow circle and the significance of women's roles within the circle. Listen as she explains how these roles transcend the pow wow and influence her everyday living, family, career and education.

Sponsored by Native American Student Center (Steven Martin, Director)
and the Women's Center

Atanarjuat: T he Fast Runner (2007; 172 mins.)

Atanarjuat is Canada's first feature-length fiction film written, produced, directed, and acted by Inuit. An exciting action thriller set in ancient Igloolik, the film unfolds as a life-threatening struggle of love, jealousy, murder and revenge between powerful natural and supernatural characters.

BE ON TIME: THE FILM WILL TAKE THE ENTIRE CLASS TIME--DON'T MISS--THIS IS AN EXTRAORDINARY FILM!

Consider Eric Cheyfitz's claim: "it is practical social power, not aesthetic originality or genius that serves as the category of understanding in Native art, so that for a Native community the beauty of expressive oral culture is synonymous with its practical social power" (Krupat 607).

What does Cheyfitz mean by "practical social power"?

and from Arnold Kruptat in "Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner and its Audiences":

[Native/postcolonial] works ask their audiences if not to alter then at the least to relativize theri habitual perspectives, ultimately, to 'move the center' [away from a European/Western view of the world]" (607).
(Krupat in Critical Inquiry 33:3 Spring 2007)

Why is it important that a Native film move viewers from the center?

What makes this a distinctively Native film?
Elements to consider:

The camera/point of view (POV); how the film LOOKS
where does the camera/film make you feel situated? Inside? Outside?
the story
the setting
the characters: Atanarjuat, his brother, Oki, Atuat
the themes
sound
costumes
language
pacing

How does the film counter Euro/Euroamerican hegemonic representations of Native people?
How does the film tell us who the Inuit people are today? Who are they?
Does the film move you from your typical viewing stance and expectations?
Did you as a viewer translate it into a "universal" story or perhaps some story you could relate to such as Homer, Greek tragedy, or Shakespeare?
Did you try to understand it on Inuit terms?
Why is this film important in Native film history?

Native American Cultural Activities

UI Tutxinmepu Pow Wow, Saturday and Sunday, Moscow Junior High School Gymn
Grand Entry Saturday at Noon and 7 pm; Grand Entry Sunday Noon

(I must cancel this class due to an important American Indian Studies meeting at Lewis Clark State College in Lewiston; I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.)

Wednesday 5/04
Group Presentations: 20 min. with 5 min. q/a per group 25 minutes total
Try to come a few minutes early to load your film clips, etc.

***** Thursday, 5/12, Final Exam Time: 3-5 pm*****
Group Presentations: 20 min. with 5 min. q/a per group 25 minutes total
Try to come a few minutes early to load your film clips, etc.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

About Imagining Indians, Kilpatrick writes that Masayesva's documentary "is a cleverly constructed commentary on issues involving the making of films about or including American Indians [and] it addresses in very powerful ways the problems and responsibilities involved in presenting Indians and in having Indians represent themselves" (210). Of major concern to Masayesva, is the commodification of Indians and Indian culture. This film was not made for a mass audience, and it is packed with complicated issues. As a Hopi filmmaker, Masayesva feels a responsibility to his culture's traditions. Certain information is sacred to Hopis and not shared with others/outsiders. Allowing this information to be filmed and viewed by "outsiders" is a form of cultural genocide, in Masayesva's view. He says that Native filmmakers have this "censorship" built into them, whereas white filmmakers don't, because they are often primarily motivated or influenced by a desire for money or profit.

About Harold of Orange, Kilpatrick writes that "it privileges the Native audience in the way that Hollywood films have privileged the mainstream audiences from the beginning of film history" (192). While a Native audiences gets the jokes and recognizes the issues the film addresses, it is harder for a mainstream audience to pick up on all of this, although some of the issues include white fantasies about Indians, stereotypes, colonialism (the Bureau of Indian Affairs), genocide (the Ghost Dance and the Massacre at Wounded Knee), the commodification (commercialization) and acquisition of Indians and their culture (through collecting of "artifacts") and the display of Indians/artifacts in museums.

Kilpatrick writes that Harold and his Warriors are trying to get a grant from a nonprofit, charitable foundation, "where--from a native American trickster's point of view--white money launders its conscience" (183). In other words, the tricksters are actually giving the white foundation what it wants: an opportunity to assuage its guilt over the U.S.'s treatment of Native Americans. While the board members aren't aware of their patronizing and patriarchal attitude toward Harold and the Warriors, Native people having been having to deal with it for hundreds of years. From the author/writer Gerald Vizenor and Harold's point of view, laughter and imagination are better ways to deal with these issues than are anger, violence or depression.

Medicine River (1993; 96 min.)
Review
Our text discusses Medicine River in the American Indian Aesthetic chapter (6) starting on 193; it is a First Nations/Canadian made-for-TV film based on Cherokee writer Thomas King's novel of the same name. Writes Kilpatrick:

"This Canadian film takes a realistic approach to Native ideas, ideals, and issues in a manner that is accessible to non-Native audiences. Although the characters in the film come from a different background than the typical televiewer, have a different history to draw upon, and look toward different ideological horizons, the story is a universal one, understandable to any audience. The result is a film that privileges a Native audience but remains accessible to a mainstream American and Canadian audience as well" (193).

discuss Medicine River
vision of reservation
identity as related to place
vision of family/kinship
vision of Native women
the trickster
indigenous aesthetics
who or what is the "hero" of this film?