My father-in-law and my late husband, both accomplished actors, wished for a time when Hollywood would make movies about real Native Americans. Now my daughter is living it.
Please stop encouraging your writers to use the historical present tense ("I'm outside Baskyn and Robbins." No, you *are* not. You *were* outside Baskyn and Robbins at the time of the memory which you recalled when you wrote the article.) English has many varieties of the past tense *for a reason* and it's *beyond reason* depressing to see journalists ignoring it. That's not a style point; please re-read the Orwell essay on politics and the English language.
This is a terrific back story. Lily was amazing. I saw the film yesterday with my adult children and we loved it. It was fabulous! I intentionally avoided pre-movie hype so I could enjoy the movie on its own merits and was rewarded with an impressive bit of cinema. Exceptionally well shot with phenomenal acting, it was immersive and the horror of the story left the theater in North Idaho speechless at times, gasping at the atrocities at others. This is a story that shouldn’t be rushed to tell. 2/3rds the way through I felt as if I couldn’t escape the madness and wanted to stand up and scream at the screen and the injustice of it all. Now THAT is good movie making.
Will Sampson's line, "ah, juicy fruit" is unforgettable. So too was he in Outlaw Josey Wales as Ten Bears.
------------------------------
"Tim Giago, who founded the first Native American–run newspaper in the country..."
In no way meaning to disparage Mr. Giago's work, The Cherokee Phoenix started printing in 1828. It was a bi-weekly written in both English and Cherokee side by side. A remarkable thing. Cherokee history is fascinating stuff.
Great Free Press story on the full history of Native Americans in cinema told through a personal lens. I’m glad I started subscribing for content like this. I saw “Flowers of the Killer Moon” opening weekend and I admit being wary — but this article restored the honorable purpose of shared group identity and being allowed to tell one’s own stories. Though one glaring omission, obviously, are the fact the writers are white (Eric Roth and director Martin Scorsese), as was the book’s author. Though what they did was document and convey indigenous people’s experiences like few white storytellers have.
Amazing in this FP piece is how interwoven and tightly knit the Native American creative community is — and you see it here from the baby Lily Gladstone being introduced to the writer’s daughter acting across from her in “Reservation Dogs” to what may be the first American Indian lead actress Oscar nominee. Though, please nominate Gladstone for her performance and not to fill in some diversity box. That’s the worry these days and what art and culture has set itself up for. Tokenization is a thing.
Hollywood has had a huge influence on me in terms of building sympathy with the cause of Native Americans and indigenous. But did it manipulate me at a young age? Well, most art does. And TV and movies definitely made me a liberal most of my life. I saw “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman as a kid and truly got swept up in its narrative poking the eye of racist America. It was part of my “progressive” awakening through most of my young adulthood. I rewatched it in my 40s recently and found it histrionic and distorted art, emblematic of the radical turn the country was taking when it was created in the early 1970s. The director Arthur Penn years earlier made murderers Bonnie & Clyde sympathetic. “Little Big Man” seen today in the BLM era which is also built on distortions? I couldn’t buy it. It was mostly “white man bad.” It’s not that simple.
But many movies do a great job of discussing the cultural and human wreckage from the interaction between white settlers and natives. 1992’s “Last of the Mohicans” was a shining example, still an all-time favorite, and after seeing “Flowers of the Killer Moon” I would say it carries the torch well enough. It wasn’t too “woke” as some worry about, but tells an authentic story.
I, too, sorry that as we get into “land acknowledgments” and constant hand-wringing over the past with Canadian residential school burial sites (which turned out to be fake news) and talk of “genocide” we’re not actually helping indigenous people today. I believe grievance narratives never do — and they further keep communities from lifting themselves up. It can also tar Western expansionist history, which is flawed but I think truly had noble intentions. I think “white supremacy” is far more complicated than the academic and activist class framing this history.
Hell, there’s an Indian group even suing to restore the Washington Redskins name, which polls show 9 in 10 Americans had no problem with that name. Which again begs the question: Do mostly lefty artists truly tell accurately the diverse views within their communities?
Basically: Be careful of the Hollywood brainwashing. But enjoy a good and honest story. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and smart artists, no matter their bias, can still tell important stories.
Does Lily Gladstone help carry director Martin Scorsese’s film forward authentically? I think so. The tale truly is from the Osage tribe’s POV as well as the “gangsters” of this story, which are the white men. Can’t shy from that.
This film is probably as real as “Goodfellas” or “Casino” — a stylized story of human greed. Coincidentally, Robert De Niro plays the greedy gangster in all three.
I worry that we over-romanticize this dying culture struggling to survive (as are its members, facing poverty and endemic substance abuse), but we have to honor it. It’s a tough balancing act.
“Flowers of the Killer Moon” had other flaws, from the gore meant to truly suck the wind out of the audience, and maybe shame them a bit. The opaqueness of the plot doesn’t help, and I wonder why they made the choice — which I’m seeing more often these days — of having characters speak a non-english language and omit subtitles. It’s a cheap way to “immerse” the audience but makes no sense if both characters onscreen can understand one another. It confuses more then it enlightens.
Hopefully art and culture can turn a corner and present even more nuanced stories than this one. Which is still excellent. Scorsese at 80 and DiCaprio pushing 50 do it again.
3.5 out of 4 stars for “Flowers of the Killer Moon.”
(PS - I can’t believe I typed this up on my phone as my first FP comment.)
Of all the things to say about this beautiful story…so full of magical synchronicity that no one could ever orchestrate it themselves…I wanted to note that Martin Scorsese was once married to a brilliant artist named Julia Cameron, who developed The Artist’s Way, which for nearly 50 years has taught millions of dreamers in this world about creative fortitude and how to allow synchronicity to influence it. She’s the reason I know. As I read about the amazing occurrences in Nancy and her family’s lives, I praised that invisible thread that runs through it all and thought of Cameron - and then saw that Scorsese made the film, adding another layer of synchronistic beauty. I can’t wait to watch.
I believe Howard Rock published the first Native American newspaper, The Tundra Times, in 1962.
He brought the diverse Native populations in Alaska together to stop the feds from setting off an atomic bomb in Western Alaska in order to create a deep water port . A peacetime application of nuclear energy, they said. What could possible go wrong...
"Tim Giago, who founded the first Native American–run newspaper in the country."
I have my doubts about this. My recollection from my Oklahoma History class in 8th grade is that Sequoyah had a newspaper printed in Cherokee alphabet that he invented some 150 years prior.
I find it fascinating when liberal Hollywood is exposed as a very bigoted and racist place. Yet, the hypocrites connected to it claim to be virtuous. As a member of the Deplorable's in fly-over country I definitely would be interested in seeing movies based on Native Americans, Black, Brown and Asian Americans. Did anyone notice the success of Crazy Rich Asians, Hidden Figures, The Help, Yellowstone? All out of the box creative stories not typical of the Hollywood machine. The "Harvey Weinstein's" that control what gets made, are racist bigots who have slowed the progress of women, all ethnicities both gay and strait from telling their stories. Yet they virtue signal their piety to the Progressive ideology. When those who work with them stay silent about their true nature, then these despicable people control what is being done. We Deplorable's in fly-over country see the hypocrisy and endure the nonstop berating over our bigotry and racism. I will definitely check out Reservation Dogs. I, 100% Irish, roomed with a 100% Navajo in college. I would love to see Empire of the book, Summer Moon made into a movie. Let's expose those bigots and get them out of Hollywood!
Just bought the book and can't wait to read it! Will do more research and reading INSTEAD of seeing the movie. My dad always said (in the 50's) that American Indians got treated the worst of any other group.
This is a very moving story--thank you. Will Sampson was a presence in my childhood because my dad took us to the movies. The article prompted me to go to the IMDB pages for Tim, Nancy, and Tafv to learn more.
My son and I saw the film last night in a packed movie theater. There were periodic gasps followed by stunned silence by what we were seeing. Scorsese's and Roth's shift from the white-savior trope to the family makes the movie even more devastating. They just need to give the movie all of the Oscars now, particularly Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro. Just extraordinary.
Growing up, Native Americans were portrayed as “savages” whooping & hopping around a fire as if high on some hallucinogen. They were preparing for the raping of white women, kidnapping of white children & scalping of white men. And then there appeared a savior, John Wayne & the U.S. Cavalry One had to be there! That was 1940’s America.
Read Empire of The Summer Moon. They did attack Settlers and scalp them. This book will give you context and a clear eyed view... and inspite of the scalpings you will weep for the clash of cultures and the resultant decimation of the Comanche nation and their way of life...
Yeah, I think one probably did have to be there. I grew up in 1990s America, when they were always portrayed as "noble savages," constantly losing their land or dying from disease due to the nefarious white man. Every time Cloud Dancing showed up on an episode of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," you knew something awful was going to happen to him.
As a child in the 60s, I was obsessed with Native Americans and read everything I could get my hands on. I still have a set of colorful books for children that describe the environments in which each tribe live(d), their food, costumes, etc. On a trip to the Wisconsin Dells, I asked the tribe there if I could live with them instead (they said to ask my parents who said no, of course). From my perspective, I do not recall Native Americans being shown in a 'cartoonish' way in films except in cases where they play villains, but that's how American films frequently portray villains. (French films seem to get at the complexity of the dark side of human nature much better than American films.)
If I remember correctly, this Native American actor from "Cuckoo's Nest" was also in "Harry and Tonto." The role he plays is vital to the story ("Harry and Tonto" is a masterpiece, btw.)
One thing that gets me about this narrative -- that Americans or Westerners in general see "others" in cartoonish ways -- is that it actually goes both ways. Even when immersed in another culture, one cannot fully inhabit it. And the conflicts 'they' experience -- even if not exactly the same -- can be understood and analogized -- what "white" person has never felt alienated in their own culture? I think that's why I was so fascinated by other cultures as a child. I didn't particularly like the one I was in, and yet must field constant presumptions as to the way I view these other cultures, or the ways in which they are "portrayed" as if the audience weren't savvy enough to realize that there's a lot more to it than a 90-minute film could capture.
My last point is that I don't quite understand this essay -- it reads like a summary without analysis.
“...this narrative -- that Americans or Westerners in general see "others" in cartoonish ways ... actually goes both ways”
You are a man out of your own time, DogL! Indeed, it DOES go both ways, but in the de rigueur Identitarian ideology of our times, only Westerners are judged to be “bad” for such views; others are lauded for their beliefs that their culture is important or even “superior”.
I’m not sure why the writer has, as an underlying assumption, the idea that Hollywood (essentially a collection of corporations in the business of making money) is responsible for being “inclusive” of any type of group, culture, race, etc. Does the plethora of mafia movies mean that Hollywood is racist against Italians? After all, they have historically been presented as criminals, murderers, etc. rather than as full-spectrum individuals. She also seems unaware of films like Sherman Alexie’s “Smoke Signals” (1998) which was moderately successful (especially for a small budget film), “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee”, and “Hostiles”, among others.
Thank you for this very clearly written post. I share your point of view about the awkwardness of being in 'one's culture' and/while be interested in others of (the outsider looking in). Your articulated that very well, so thanks. Not an easy concept to capture.
I kept waiting to hear something about the movie … I guess she likes it because it’s authentic ? I’ll check it out anyway but I agree that all cultures are complex and misunderstood in different ways and that’s okay to keep trying to understand each other.
Great read. I’m glad I didn’t find it until after being absolutely transfixed by the extraordinary film of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
I highly recommend reading both “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Empire of the Summer Moon”. Both excellent and neither an over simplification.
Please stop encouraging your writers to use the historical present tense ("I'm outside Baskyn and Robbins." No, you *are* not. You *were* outside Baskyn and Robbins at the time of the memory which you recalled when you wrote the article.) English has many varieties of the past tense *for a reason* and it's *beyond reason* depressing to see journalists ignoring it. That's not a style point; please re-read the Orwell essay on politics and the English language.
This is a terrific back story. Lily was amazing. I saw the film yesterday with my adult children and we loved it. It was fabulous! I intentionally avoided pre-movie hype so I could enjoy the movie on its own merits and was rewarded with an impressive bit of cinema. Exceptionally well shot with phenomenal acting, it was immersive and the horror of the story left the theater in North Idaho speechless at times, gasping at the atrocities at others. This is a story that shouldn’t be rushed to tell. 2/3rds the way through I felt as if I couldn’t escape the madness and wanted to stand up and scream at the screen and the injustice of it all. Now THAT is good movie making.
Will Sampson's line, "ah, juicy fruit" is unforgettable. So too was he in Outlaw Josey Wales as Ten Bears.
------------------------------
"Tim Giago, who founded the first Native American–run newspaper in the country..."
In no way meaning to disparage Mr. Giago's work, The Cherokee Phoenix started printing in 1828. It was a bi-weekly written in both English and Cherokee side by side. A remarkable thing. Cherokee history is fascinating stuff.
Great Free Press story on the full history of Native Americans in cinema told through a personal lens. I’m glad I started subscribing for content like this. I saw “Flowers of the Killer Moon” opening weekend and I admit being wary — but this article restored the honorable purpose of shared group identity and being allowed to tell one’s own stories. Though one glaring omission, obviously, are the fact the writers are white (Eric Roth and director Martin Scorsese), as was the book’s author. Though what they did was document and convey indigenous people’s experiences like few white storytellers have.
Amazing in this FP piece is how interwoven and tightly knit the Native American creative community is — and you see it here from the baby Lily Gladstone being introduced to the writer’s daughter acting across from her in “Reservation Dogs” to what may be the first American Indian lead actress Oscar nominee. Though, please nominate Gladstone for her performance and not to fill in some diversity box. That’s the worry these days and what art and culture has set itself up for. Tokenization is a thing.
Hollywood has had a huge influence on me in terms of building sympathy with the cause of Native Americans and indigenous. But did it manipulate me at a young age? Well, most art does. And TV and movies definitely made me a liberal most of my life. I saw “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman as a kid and truly got swept up in its narrative poking the eye of racist America. It was part of my “progressive” awakening through most of my young adulthood. I rewatched it in my 40s recently and found it histrionic and distorted art, emblematic of the radical turn the country was taking when it was created in the early 1970s. The director Arthur Penn years earlier made murderers Bonnie & Clyde sympathetic. “Little Big Man” seen today in the BLM era which is also built on distortions? I couldn’t buy it. It was mostly “white man bad.” It’s not that simple.
But many movies do a great job of discussing the cultural and human wreckage from the interaction between white settlers and natives. 1992’s “Last of the Mohicans” was a shining example, still an all-time favorite, and after seeing “Flowers of the Killer Moon” I would say it carries the torch well enough. It wasn’t too “woke” as some worry about, but tells an authentic story.
I, too, sorry that as we get into “land acknowledgments” and constant hand-wringing over the past with Canadian residential school burial sites (which turned out to be fake news) and talk of “genocide” we’re not actually helping indigenous people today. I believe grievance narratives never do — and they further keep communities from lifting themselves up. It can also tar Western expansionist history, which is flawed but I think truly had noble intentions. I think “white supremacy” is far more complicated than the academic and activist class framing this history.
Hell, there’s an Indian group even suing to restore the Washington Redskins name, which polls show 9 in 10 Americans had no problem with that name. Which again begs the question: Do mostly lefty artists truly tell accurately the diverse views within their communities?
Basically: Be careful of the Hollywood brainwashing. But enjoy a good and honest story. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and smart artists, no matter their bias, can still tell important stories.
Does Lily Gladstone help carry director Martin Scorsese’s film forward authentically? I think so. The tale truly is from the Osage tribe’s POV as well as the “gangsters” of this story, which are the white men. Can’t shy from that.
This film is probably as real as “Goodfellas” or “Casino” — a stylized story of human greed. Coincidentally, Robert De Niro plays the greedy gangster in all three.
I worry that we over-romanticize this dying culture struggling to survive (as are its members, facing poverty and endemic substance abuse), but we have to honor it. It’s a tough balancing act.
“Flowers of the Killer Moon” had other flaws, from the gore meant to truly suck the wind out of the audience, and maybe shame them a bit. The opaqueness of the plot doesn’t help, and I wonder why they made the choice — which I’m seeing more often these days — of having characters speak a non-english language and omit subtitles. It’s a cheap way to “immerse” the audience but makes no sense if both characters onscreen can understand one another. It confuses more then it enlightens.
Hopefully art and culture can turn a corner and present even more nuanced stories than this one. Which is still excellent. Scorsese at 80 and DiCaprio pushing 50 do it again.
3.5 out of 4 stars for “Flowers of the Killer Moon.”
(PS - I can’t believe I typed this up on my phone as my first FP comment.)
I know you've heard it before but everyone tells me the book is much much better than the movie.
I read the book. Will see the movie when it comes out on Netflix. Will let you know.
Of all the things to say about this beautiful story…so full of magical synchronicity that no one could ever orchestrate it themselves…I wanted to note that Martin Scorsese was once married to a brilliant artist named Julia Cameron, who developed The Artist’s Way, which for nearly 50 years has taught millions of dreamers in this world about creative fortitude and how to allow synchronicity to influence it. She’s the reason I know. As I read about the amazing occurrences in Nancy and her family’s lives, I praised that invisible thread that runs through it all and thought of Cameron - and then saw that Scorsese made the film, adding another layer of synchronistic beauty. I can’t wait to watch.
I believe Howard Rock published the first Native American newspaper, The Tundra Times, in 1962.
He brought the diverse Native populations in Alaska together to stop the feds from setting off an atomic bomb in Western Alaska in order to create a deep water port . A peacetime application of nuclear energy, they said. What could possible go wrong...
The Cherokee Phoenix started printing in 1828
The street signs in Talequah are still printed in both English and Cherokee. At least last time I was there.
Fascinating people.
Right on.
"Tim Giago, who founded the first Native American–run newspaper in the country."
I have my doubts about this. My recollection from my Oklahoma History class in 8th grade is that Sequoyah had a newspaper printed in Cherokee alphabet that he invented some 150 years prior.
I find it fascinating when liberal Hollywood is exposed as a very bigoted and racist place. Yet, the hypocrites connected to it claim to be virtuous. As a member of the Deplorable's in fly-over country I definitely would be interested in seeing movies based on Native Americans, Black, Brown and Asian Americans. Did anyone notice the success of Crazy Rich Asians, Hidden Figures, The Help, Yellowstone? All out of the box creative stories not typical of the Hollywood machine. The "Harvey Weinstein's" that control what gets made, are racist bigots who have slowed the progress of women, all ethnicities both gay and strait from telling their stories. Yet they virtue signal their piety to the Progressive ideology. When those who work with them stay silent about their true nature, then these despicable people control what is being done. We Deplorable's in fly-over country see the hypocrisy and endure the nonstop berating over our bigotry and racism. I will definitely check out Reservation Dogs. I, 100% Irish, roomed with a 100% Navajo in college. I would love to see Empire of the book, Summer Moon made into a movie. Let's expose those bigots and get them out of Hollywood!
What an uplifting aericle- thank you for writing it!
Be main stream or niche. Take your pick. Can't have it both ways.
Just bought the book and can't wait to read it! Will do more research and reading INSTEAD of seeing the movie. My dad always said (in the 50's) that American Indians got treated the worst of any other group.
This is a very moving story--thank you. Will Sampson was a presence in my childhood because my dad took us to the movies. The article prompted me to go to the IMDB pages for Tim, Nancy, and Tafv to learn more.
My son and I saw the film last night in a packed movie theater. There were periodic gasps followed by stunned silence by what we were seeing. Scorsese's and Roth's shift from the white-savior trope to the family makes the movie even more devastating. They just need to give the movie all of the Oscars now, particularly Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro. Just extraordinary.
well- you give me a touch of hope, but... did you like the Irishman (film)?
Growing up, Native Americans were portrayed as “savages” whooping & hopping around a fire as if high on some hallucinogen. They were preparing for the raping of white women, kidnapping of white children & scalping of white men. And then there appeared a savior, John Wayne & the U.S. Cavalry One had to be there! That was 1940’s America.
Read Empire of The Summer Moon. They did attack Settlers and scalp them. This book will give you context and a clear eyed view... and inspite of the scalpings you will weep for the clash of cultures and the resultant decimation of the Comanche nation and their way of life...
Yeah, I think one probably did have to be there. I grew up in 1990s America, when they were always portrayed as "noble savages," constantly losing their land or dying from disease due to the nefarious white man. Every time Cloud Dancing showed up on an episode of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," you knew something awful was going to happen to him.
It was quite different by the 60s.
As a child in the 60s, I was obsessed with Native Americans and read everything I could get my hands on. I still have a set of colorful books for children that describe the environments in which each tribe live(d), their food, costumes, etc. On a trip to the Wisconsin Dells, I asked the tribe there if I could live with them instead (they said to ask my parents who said no, of course). From my perspective, I do not recall Native Americans being shown in a 'cartoonish' way in films except in cases where they play villains, but that's how American films frequently portray villains. (French films seem to get at the complexity of the dark side of human nature much better than American films.)
If I remember correctly, this Native American actor from "Cuckoo's Nest" was also in "Harry and Tonto." The role he plays is vital to the story ("Harry and Tonto" is a masterpiece, btw.)
One thing that gets me about this narrative -- that Americans or Westerners in general see "others" in cartoonish ways -- is that it actually goes both ways. Even when immersed in another culture, one cannot fully inhabit it. And the conflicts 'they' experience -- even if not exactly the same -- can be understood and analogized -- what "white" person has never felt alienated in their own culture? I think that's why I was so fascinated by other cultures as a child. I didn't particularly like the one I was in, and yet must field constant presumptions as to the way I view these other cultures, or the ways in which they are "portrayed" as if the audience weren't savvy enough to realize that there's a lot more to it than a 90-minute film could capture.
My last point is that I don't quite understand this essay -- it reads like a summary without analysis.
“...this narrative -- that Americans or Westerners in general see "others" in cartoonish ways ... actually goes both ways”
You are a man out of your own time, DogL! Indeed, it DOES go both ways, but in the de rigueur Identitarian ideology of our times, only Westerners are judged to be “bad” for such views; others are lauded for their beliefs that their culture is important or even “superior”.
I’m not sure why the writer has, as an underlying assumption, the idea that Hollywood (essentially a collection of corporations in the business of making money) is responsible for being “inclusive” of any type of group, culture, race, etc. Does the plethora of mafia movies mean that Hollywood is racist against Italians? After all, they have historically been presented as criminals, murderers, etc. rather than as full-spectrum individuals. She also seems unaware of films like Sherman Alexie’s “Smoke Signals” (1998) which was moderately successful (especially for a small budget film), “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee”, and “Hostiles”, among others.
DogL,
Thank you for this very clearly written post. I share your point of view about the awkwardness of being in 'one's culture' and/while be interested in others of (the outsider looking in). Your articulated that very well, so thanks. Not an easy concept to capture.
Couldn't agree more with your last sentence.
I kept waiting to hear something about the movie … I guess she likes it because it’s authentic ? I’ll check it out anyway but I agree that all cultures are complex and misunderstood in different ways and that’s okay to keep trying to understand each other.