Native Americans on Film: Conversations, Teaching, and Theory
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University of Kentucky UKnowledge American Popular Culture American Studies 1-18-2013 Native Americans on Film: Conversations, Teaching, and Theory M. Elise Marubbio Augsburg College Eric L. Buffalohead Augsburg College Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Marubbio, M. Elise and Buffalohead, Eric L., "Native Americans on Film: Conversations, Teaching, and Theory" (2013). American Popular Culture. 12. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_american_popular_culture/12 Native Americans on Film Native Americans on Film Conversations, Teaching, and Theory Edited by M. Elise Marubbio and Eric L. Buffalohead Copyright © 2013 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. All rights reserved. Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 www.kentuckypress.com 17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Native Americans on film : conversations, teaching, and theory / edited by M. Elise Marubbio and Eric L. Buffalohead. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. Includes filmography. ISBN 978-0-8131-3665-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8131-3681-3 (pdf) — ISBN 978-0-8131-4034-6 (epub) 1. Indians in motion pictures. 2. Indians in the motion picture industry—United States. 3. Indigenous films—United States. 4. Indian motion picture producers and directors—United States—Interviews. 5. Stereotypes (Social psychology) in motion pictures. I. Marubbio, M. Elise, 1963– editor of compilation. II. Buffalohead, Eric L., 1965– editor of compilation. PN1995.9.I48N38 2012 791.43'652997—dc23 2012040562 This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials. Manufactured in the United States of America. Member of the Association of American University Presses Contents List of Illustrations vii Introduction: Talking Back, Moving Forward 1 Section One: Theoretical Conversations Introduction to Section One 31 Dimensions of Difference in Indigenous Film 35 Houston Wood Reading Nanook’s Smile: Visual Sovereignty, Indigenous Revisions of Ethnography, and Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner 58 Michelle H. Raheja Dismantling the Master’s House: The Feminist Fourth Cinema Documentaries of Alanis Obomsawin and Loretta Todd 89 Jennifer L. Gauthier Indigenous (Re)memory and Resistance: Video Works by Dana Claxton 116 Carla Taunton Section Two: Pedagogical Conversations Introduction to Section Two 137 Native Resistance to Hollywood’s Persistence of Vision: Teaching Films about Contemporary American Indians 141 Carole Gerster Geographies of Identity and Belonging in Sherman Alexie’s The Business of Fancydancing 175 Amy Corbin vi Contents Teaching Native American Filmmakers: Osawa, Eyre, and Redroad 202 Angelica Lawson “The Native’s Point of View” as Seen through the Native’s (and Non-Native’s) Points of View 223 Sam Pack The Dirt Roads of Consciousness: Teaching and Producing Videos with an Indigenous Purpose 246 Beverly Singer Section Three: Conversations with Filmmakers Introduction to Section Three 261 “Pockets Full of Stories”: An Interview with Sterlin Harjo and Blackhorse Lowe 265 Joanna Hearne and Zack Shlachter Wrestling the Greased Pig: An Interview with Randy Redroad 288 M. Elise Marubbio An Upstream Journey: An Interview with Sandra Osawa 303 Saza Osawa Video as Community Ally and Dakota Sense of Place: An Interview with Mona Smith 322 Jennifer A. Machiorlatti The Journey’s Discovery: An Interview with Shelley Niro 337 Elizabeth Weatherford Acknowledgments 359 Selected Filmography 361 List of Contributors 369 Index 373 Illustrations The Land Has Eyes screened in Rotuma 39 Paddling a bark canoe in Ten Canoes 41 Shylock in The Ma¯ori Merchant of Venice 44 George Washington cries in Skins 49 Nanook in Nanook of the North 59 Atanarjuat’s closing credits 79 Police removing a Mi’gmaq fisherman in Incident at Restigouche 93 Cory Swan in Richard Cardinal: Cry from the Diary of a Métis Child 94 Standoff in the Pines in Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance 96 Mi’gmaq fishermen in Is the Crown at War with Us? 98 A Kainai family in Kainayssini Imanistaisiwa: The People Go On 103 Will Sampson in Images of Indians 147 Television scene from Smoke Signals 158 Inupiat whale-hunting in A Thousand Roads 162 A Euro-American performs as Chief Illiniwek in In Whose Honor? 168 Seymour in The Business of Fancydancing 182 The two selves of Seymour in The Business of Fancydancing 185 Removing the signifiers of Native identity in The Business of Fancydancing 186 The reality of cultural dislocation in The Business of Fancydancing 186 Mouse and Aristotle in The Business of Fancydancing 193 Community depicted in The Business of Fancydancing 195 Sandra Osawa 306 viii Illustrations Kate Smith in In the Heart of Big Mountain 307 Protesters in Lighting the 7th Fire 310 Illustration of comedian Charlie Hill 320 Ancient Traders Gallery poster City Indians 328 Mona Smith’s Bdote Memory Map 329 Cloudy Waters Web site image 333 Toby Burning as Shanna in It Starts with a Whisper 342 Tantoo Cardinal in Honey Moccasin 345 Billy Merasty and Bernelda Wheeler in Honey Moccasin 347 Kateri Walker (Mavis) and Eric Schweig (Bug) in Kissed by Lightning 353 Kateri Walker as Mavis Dogblood in Kissed by Lightning 354 Introduction Talking Back, Moving Forward In the spirit of conversations and relationships, the nurturing heart of Native Americans on Film, we introduce ourselves to you and extend an invitation to participate in the growing network of people interested and invested in the burgeoning field of Indigenous film. Our friendship and respect for each other’s ideas, approaches to scholarship and teaching, and philosophy of life have flourished over the years that we have been colleagues. Native Americans on Film is an expression of this relation- ship and the ones we share with the extended family of educators, schol- ars, filmmakers, and artists we have come to know through the process of creating this collaboration of voices. It also mirrors the philosophical and theoretical approach we take in American Indian studies, which is interdisciplinary and Native centered, foregrounding Indigenous ways of knowing, teaching, and telling. Native Americans on Film developed out of a commitment to provid- ing our students with Native representation in our academic offerings. Over the years we listened to our students’ and our own voices calling for more Native-centered material that talks about the representation of Native Americans in Hollywood and mainstream media, and about the rapidly expanding, multifaceted Indigenous film movement. Finding the material to provide a Native-centered approach for a variety of courses has sometimes been very challenging. Wonderful works are in circula- tion today, many of which we use, but often a suitable piece is merely a fraction of another work, such as an essay within a large edition not necessarily related to what we are teaching. Complicating the process, much of the available printed material adheres to methods of analysis that privilege Western genres, aesthetics, and ways of teaching film. While these methodologies possess great value and provide useful tools, they often fail to capture the innovations many Native films employ in merg- ing aesthetics and reformulating genres. We thus imagined a single text that offers theoretical approaches to understanding Native film, includes pedagogical strategies for teaching particular films, and validates the dif- ferent voices, approaches, and worldviews that emerge across the Indig- enous film movement.1 We imagined Native Americans on Film. 2 Native Americans on Film Native Americans on Film takes inspiration from the Indigenous film movement and the conversations around it, focusing on the creative pos- sibility that emerges by bringing together theoretical, pedagogical, and filmmaker perspectives on Native film. Our collection embraces a Na- tive point of view, one we see often in Native communities and through the work of Native filmmakers, and a commitment to film content as presented through a Native lens. Traditionally, such an approach directly contrasts with much of what First Cinema (American cinema or Hol- lywood), Second Cinema (independent or art house cinema), and Third Cinema (the cinema of the third world)2 productions and theory present. Fourth Cinema (Indigenous or Native film), however, need not simply reject these other film frameworks. On the contrary, it grew from and works within and against these influences to include a variety of forms from documentary to narrative fiction films. Referencing, morphing, and reaching across all or some of these cinematic forms, Native film in North America