And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Native themes examined in full
light, sharp focus
Victor Masayesva Jr. produces a powerful look
at film
http://www.northscape.com/news/docs/0317/27D3E9D.htm"
By Dorreen Yellow Bird
(Grand Forks) Herald Staff Writer
"Imagining Indians"; producer and director: Victor
Masayesva Jr.; length: 60 minutes; producer: ITVS,
Independent Television Service, San Francisco.
"Imagining Indians" is a powerful film. If this is typical of
Masayesva films, I want to see more.
He grabs the gut and yanks it.
It is a film that a Native American must produce because
it examines ceremonies and rituals in films from the
perspective of Native Americans. It also examines Native
American themes and roles in today's filmmaking.
He examines commercial films like "Dances With
Wolves," "A Man Called Horse," "Thunderheart" and
"Darkwind" through a series of interviews with Native
people involved those films. He tells them in full light and
sharp focus.
"Imagining Indians" opens in an Indian Health dental
office. The dentist's tools of trade -- the drill, the
mask --
arch above the head of a Native American woman. They
are harbingers of the film's message.
Native Americans are still background and scenery for
filmmakers, a Native actor says. But we have come a
long way from films that used white actors painted brown
to portray Native Americans.
Difference of opinion
Not far enough, say many of the Native people
Masayesva interviewed. They are still the "extras," the
background or scenery for films about Native people.
One Native American extra said his role in "Dances With
Wolves" paid just $45 a day in poor working conditions.
Rodney Grant, in his interview on screen in "Imagining
Indians," doesn't agree. He had a major role in "Dances
With Wolves," as Wind in His Hair. He says that without
those white filmmakers, films about Indians wouldn't be
done.
Masayesva uses no subtitles, so if you haven't seen
"Dances With Wolves," you might not know that Rodney
Grant was Wind in His Hair. It was frustrating for me
because I knew him as Wind in His Hair but couldn't
think of his name until a friend told me that it was
Rodney Grant.
The camera rolls on past the exploitation of the Native
American actors to the exploitation of the spiritual
ceremonies -- the use of tobacco ties, the sweat lodge and
the Ghost dance in films.
One of the scenes talks about why a film depiction of a
ceremony is objectionable. It is wrong to perform
ceremonies for film, a Native American woman says, but
to use the wrong songs or wrong dance is even more
offensive. Exposure to details of Native ceremonies
without proper instruction and mindset can be harmful to
your mind, one Native American interviewed says.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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