Film Festival Film #5: Reel Injun

[bcholmes]

Reel Injun was preceded by the short, 6 minute film, Found by Paramita Nath. Found is an interesting visual treatment of the works of a Toronto-area poet, Souvankham Thammavongsa. Thammavongsa was born in a Lao refugee camp in Thailand, and her poetry talks about issues like how we live in a culture that needs paperwork in order to prove that we're alive -- it's not enough that we're here. The film itself uses mixed visuals. There was some animation, some conventional photography. Beautiful graphics. Even some of the conventional film photography superimposed this paper-y texture. It was a great treatment of source material, in my opinion.

Reel Injun was an amazing film. A documentary about the representation of Native and First Nations peoples by Hollywood, in the style of The Celluloid Closet. The director, Neil Diamond, criss-crosses the country (in a Rez car) to visit important sites and talk to a number of people.

The film was full of facts that I didn't know. Aboriginal people have been the focus of film, essentially from the beginning of film. The first Edison kinetoscopes showed scenes of Native dances. Apparently, in the silent picture era, there were metric gazillions of films being made, including many by and about native people. The Silent Enemy, about hunger and starvation in Native communities, was hugely successful. Its star, Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, was considered fashionable to invite to your hoity-toity party. (Or, at least until it became known that he was actually multiracial. Once it was public knowledge that he had white, Native and black ancestors, well... then he was avoided in droves).

Also, after the silent era finished, public appetite for films made by Native filmmakers evaporated.

The film charts a progression of depictions of Native people: from the curiosity of the early 1900s, to the noble warrior phase of the 30s. Then, in the 40s, natives pretty much become savages (a lot of the blame for this particular phase is placed on John Ford and Stagecoach, although there was a lot of talk about how much John Wayne's violence toward Native people was normalized).

There was interesting talk about how Hollywood helped to erase the diversity of nations by creating a sort of homogeneous "Indian" that could be consistently represented. All Indians became Plains Indians in dress. There was talk about how the headband became a staple because it helped keep an actor's wig on when he was falling off of a horse.

And then, in the '60s, the new "Groovy" Indian became a fad. Long hair and headbands were the staple of hippie communities. Films suddenly develop conscience about the historical treatment of aboriginal people. One commentator talked about how Westerns were suddenly playing out social anxiety about the civil rights movement. Different depictions of natives emerge in this time: Little Big Man and The Outlaw Josey Wales. (Both starring Chief Dan George).

Other facts I didn't know (but feel I should have known): Marlon Brando declined his Oscar for The Godfather because of what was going on at Wounded Knee. He sent Sacheen Littlefeather to make a statement in his name. The film interviewed Littlefeather in the modern day, and showed historical footage. Some people booed her. In the modern day, she said that John Wayne had had a lot to drink, and that security people had to prevent him from accosting her.

Also, a treatment of Iron Eyes Cody, probably best remembered to people of my generation as the famous "crying Indian" from the anti-littering ads in the 70s (did these play in Canada, or did I see the ads 'cause we got a lot of Detroit television?) He was really the son of Sicilian immigrants, and although he pretty consistently played Indians in film, he also consistently presented himself as Indian off screen. At some point in his life, he seems to have started to believe that he was who he claimed to be.

The 80s were a dry period for Indians in film, but then we hit Dances with Wolves (about "a white guy with a mullet") and suddenly there's another craze for films about Native peoples. Films like Thunderheart (in which John Trudell played a role. And finally, this culminates in Smoke Signals -- a film about modern Native American life filmed by a Native director (and based on Sherman Alexie's story, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven).

But one of the really great films that they discuss is Atanarjuat, and what it means for Native-created cinema.

Reel Injun was an incredibly fascinating film, full of interesting interviews (including actors like Clint Eastwood, Graham Greene, Wes Studi; film critics like Jesse Wente; and activists like John Trudell). It has strange, surreal moments (Neil visits a boys summer camp, where the boys are organized into "tribes" and paint their bodies "like Indians").

At the Q & A, Neil talked about how he recogizes that a lot of these films were deeply problematic, and yet he still loved watching them. Reel Injun is apparently going to open the imagineNATIVE festival, and should get some broader circulation. Overall, I really enjoyed the film; I'd love to watch it again.