American Indian Filmmakers Ignored
Calendar has reported from time to time on how minority filmmakers such as Spike Lee, John Singleton and Edward James Olmos have joined the ranks of successful movie directors, while other articles have dealt with the emergence of blacks on American prime-time television.
However, as a June 15 Counterpunch (“Latinos Are Imprisoned by TV’s Color Barrier, Too”) correctly noted, even with these recent achievements, the racial barrier is still very much entrenched in the entertainment industry. Where, for example, are the screen credits for American Indian directors?
Given today’s trend toward Indian-theme pictures, it is ironic that the American Indian’s contribution as a filmmaker is sorely lacking. From 1988’s fleeting memory of “War Party” and 1990’s colossal epic “Dances With Wolves” to the harsh realities of “Thunderheart” and the forthcoming remake of the legendary “Last of the Mohicans,” more and more non -Indians are making features about Native Americans.
Years ago, the future looked bright for Indian directors. James Young Deer (Winnebago) performed in circuses and Wild West shows before acting in early silent films. By 1912, he was named general manager of Pathe’s West Coast studios, and while in Orange County, he directed hundreds of short Westerns.
Edwin Carewe, a quarter Chickasaw, was best known for directing the 1928 screen version of Helen Hunt Jackson’s acclaimed novel “Ramona,” starring Delores Del Rio and Warner Baxter.
Today, however, the American Indian as a director has seemingly disappeared from Hollywood.
The recent documentary “Incident at Oglala,” a close look at the guilt or innocence of Indian activist Leonard Peltier and his disputed conviction for murder of two FBI agents in 1975, is a case in point.
Robert Redford, the movie’s executive producer and narrator, is also co-executive producer of the yet unreleased “The Dark Wind,” a mystery thriller set on the Navajo reservation and directed by a non-Native American, Errol Morris. A longtime advocate of Indian rights, Redford is founder of the Sundance Film Institute, a program committed to supporting independent film artists through its financed workshops and film festivals.
An American Indian director for “Oglala” seemed appropriate. But Redford hired British director Michael Apted, who admitted that he was “fairly ignorant” of the Peltier issue. Apted’s proven track record of documentaries and feature films (including the recent “Thunderheart”) became a convenient mask for an industrywide reluctance to hire Indian directors.
As talented Indian filmmakers steadily emerge from regional and national festivals, their visible absence from Hollywood is most puzzling.
The recent “Wind and Glacier Voices: The Native American Film & Media Celebration” at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts featured 23 films and videos produced, directed and written by Indian artists. If anyone believes that Indians lack the expertise to become directors, a visit to an American Indian film festival would quash that myth.
It is not an understatement to say that few Americans have ever seen an Indian’s point of view. Armed with cameras and microphones, these independent filmmakers have peeled away layers of traditional stereotyping while exposing their own dilemmas with an unabashed candidness and self-effacement.
Their films bridge the gap of cross-cultural communication and challenge our own secure models of truth and objectivity.
Take a look at Bob Hicks’ “Return of the Country” (1982), a satire on Indians who discover America and promptly establish a Bureau of Caucasian Affairs. Hicks (Creek-Seminole), an alumnus of the prestigious American Film Institute Directors Workshop, has turned our stable world upside down: Children must abandon their language, shed their European clothing and dispose of the Christian Bible.
George Burdeau (Blackfeet), former director of Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts’ Center for the Production of Native Images, has been fighting an uphill battle in Hollywood for years. No stranger to production, Burdeau has directed at least a dozen Indian-themed documentaries, including “Pueblo Peoples: First Contact,” the pilot for PBS’ forthcoming (October) program, “Surviving Columbus,” of which he is co-executive producer.
The problem, he claims, is that studios cling to stereotyped visions of ignorant, drunken Indians and are “afraid to take a chance with Native American filmmakers.”
Never before have so many Indian directors like George Burdeau, Bob Hicks and others proven their ability to master this visual art. And with the resurgence of Indian pictures, Hollywood should seize the opportunity to close this racial gap.