Course Trailer:
Forgive the poor video skills. Clips from various interviews and documentaries on the Native American in film.
Course Description:
This 10 week course, covering 8 films, portrays to date, the most accurate and notable films portraying the modern Native American experience. These films, besides exploring identity and place, cover a number of Adler's Great Ideas, in particular, Justice, Good and Evil, Human Nature and the Meaning of Life. Michael Dorris said it best, "In the popular imagination, American Indians have usually been defined in the past tense. There's a museum mustiness in the treatment of native peoples in films... Hollywood Indians generally lack the vibrancy and immediacy of flesh and blood human beings. They stand for ideas rather than have them on their own." This project is to bring to light the films that are trying to dust out the Hollywood Native American closet, and explore the Native American point of view.
The 8 films, most of which can be viewed online, are either written, directed, or produced (in many case all of the above) by a Native American, or First Nations member (Indigenous Canadian), with the majority of the cast being Native. Many actors will become familiar faces, speaking to the fact that Native Actors and roles are view and far between. However, I believe that will speak for itself and that Native cinema will only increase in popularity and prominence.
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