Synopses & Reviews
In Indigenous North American film Native Americans tell their own stories and thereby challenge a range of political and historical contradictions, including egregious misrepresentations by Hollywood. Although Indians in film have long been studied, especially as characters in Hollywood westerns, Indian film itself has received relatively little scholarly attention. In
Imagic Moments Lee Schweninger offers a much-needed corrective, examining films in which the major inspiration, the source material, and the acting are essentially Native.
Schweninger looks at a selection of mostly narrative fiction films from the United States and Canada and places them in historical and generic contexts. Exploring films such as Powwow Highway, Smoke Signals, and Skins, he argues that in and of themselves these films constitute and in fact emphatically demonstrate forms of resistance and stories of survival as they talk back to Hollywood. Self-representation itself can be seen as a valid form of resistance and as an aspect of a cinema of sovereignty in which the Indigenous peoples represented are the same people who engage in the filming and who control the camera. Despite their low budgets and often nonprofessional acting, Indigenous films succeed in being all the more engaging in their own right and are indicative of the complexity, vibrancy, and survival of myriad contemporary Native cultures.
Review
andquot;Schweninger honors the resistance and survivance of Natives in films. His perceptions are cogent and original and demonstrate a profound knowledge of the 'cinema of sovereignty.'andquot;andmdash;Gerald Vizenor, author of Native Liberty: Natural Reason and Cultural Survivance
Review
andquot;Schweningerandrsquo;s book makes a bold contribution to the growing field of Indigenous media studies by theorizing a distinct genre of Indigenous North American film. In addition to offering a new perspective on several well-known films, the author introduces his reader to films that have received scant scholarly attention, such as The Exiles, Tkaronto, and Naturally Native. Students, scholars, and interested lay people will find the book engaging, as it is written in a highly accessible style with a keen attention to detail. I look forward to using it in my Indigenous media classes.andquot;andmdash;Jennifer Gauthier, associate professor of communication studies, Randolph College
Review
andldquo;This is a worthwhile and readable text for any college or university library. Schweninger concludes with the assertion, andlsquo;There is a futureandrsquo; for indigenous cinema. Indeed, this text helps to create a critical structure to understand such films of the present and of the future.andrdquo; andmdash;Richard Sax, Journal of American Culture
Review
andldquo;Native American cinemaandmdash;indigenous North American filmandmdash;has been desperately undeserved in most conventional cinema histories. That is why this book is so valuable and important. . . . The authorandrsquo;s style is careful, meticulous, and accessible. . . . This would be a wonderful text for a course on Native American cinema. As an introduction to a world that is often overlooked, it offers a distinctly different vision of the US than the one the conventional Hollywood film serves up. . . . Highly recommended.andrdquo;andmdash;W. W. Dixon, CHOICE
Review
andquot;Lee Schweningerandrsquo;s text Imagic Moments gives deep context into fourteen Indigenous North American films from the last fifty years.andquot;andmdash;Shirley K. Sneve, Great Plains Quarterly
About the Author
Lee Schweninger is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He is the author or editor of numerous books including The First We Can Remember: Colorado Pioneer Women Tell Their Stories and Listening to the Land: Native American Literary Responses to the Landscape (Georgia).
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction
Where to Concentrate 1
Chapter 1
He Was Still the Chief: Masayesvaandrsquo;s Imagining Indians 21
Chapter 2
Into the City: Ordered Freedom in The Exiles 36
Chapter 3
The Native Presence in Film: House Made of Dawn 51
Chapter 4
A Concordance of Narrative Voices: Harold, Trickster, and Harold of Orange 68
Chapter 5
I Donandrsquo;t Do Portraits: Medicine River and the Art of Photography 83
Chapter 6
Keep Your Pony Out of My Garden: Powwow Highway and andldquo;Being Cheyenneandrdquo; 98
Chapter 7
Feeling Extra Magical: The Art of Disappearing in Smoke Signals 113
Chapter 8
Making His Own Music: Death and Life in The Business of Fancydancing 128
Chapter 9
Sharing the Kitchen: Naturally Native and Women in American Indian Film 142
Chapter 10
In the Form of a Spider: The Interplay of Narrative Fiction and Documentary in Skins 158
Chapter 11
The Stories Pour Out: Taking Control in The Doe Boy 173
Chapter 12
Telling Our Own Stories: Seeking Identity in Tkaronto 188
Chapter 13
People Come Around in Circles: Harjoandrsquo;s Four Sheets to the Wind 202
Epilogue
Barking Water and Beyond 216
Filmography 225
Works Cited 229
Index 239