Author(s): Nunes, Jorge Eduardo Radburn
Date: 2008
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/415
Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
Subject(s): Cinema - Estados Unidos da América - séc.20-21; Índios - América do Norte; Relações raciais - Estados Unidos da América
Tese de mestrado em Cinema e Literatura Norte-Americana apresentada à Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa, 2008
The rehabilitation of American Indians in Hollywood movies from 1970 onwards is the main theme of this dissertation. Before considering a number of the films that made this rehabilitation possible, some questions about the American Indian as a primordial race in America are dealt with. The first is a terminological one and it will be discussed in order to avoid misconceptions; the second focus the collision of two races and cultures in the United States of America and how this has been presented by the film industry; finally, the way American culture sees the Indian and how the Indian sees himself are evaluated as the cultural context that allows for the understanding of the Native-American image made popular by Hollywood. Three films by white American directors Ulzana's Raid, Little Big Man and Dances With Wolves are analyzed in the second chapter. Essays authored by Indian American writers and scholars provide the main argument in the following chapter. These essays help us to a better understanding of the stereotyped images created by the Hollywood industry. In the final chapters, rehabilitation is observed as a gradual process in the history of the American cinema. Some early incidents illustrate and comment the misrepresentation of the American Indian, followed by the analysis of two classic American Westerners, Broken Arrow and Cheyenne Autumn (1950-1964), where the gradual change in the stereotype popularized by Hollywood is noticeable. These movies anticipate the changes that, in the seventies, will reverse popular stereotypes. The last chapter deals with such a reversal. A River Runs Through It, Geronimo: An American Legend and Smoke Signals reconstruct, so to say, history and myth. Smoke Signals, the last movie under analysis, is directed by Chris Eyre, a Native American, in collaboration with Sherman Alexie, who is the very successful American Indian writer whose work is translated into filmic language. Cinema and literature combine to give the primordial culture of America its proper place among the other cultures of the United States.
