Since the early days of the silent era, Native Americans have been captured on film, often in unflattering ways. Over the decades, some filmmakers have tried to portray the Native American on screen with more balanced interpretations—to varying degrees of success. More recent films such as The New World, Flags of Our Fathers, and Frozen River have offered depictions of both historical and contemporary Native Americans, providing viewers with a range of representations. In Native Americans in the Movies: Portrayals from Silent Films to the Present, Michael Hilger surveys more than a century of cinema. Drawing upon his previous work, From Savage to Nobleman, Hilger presents a thorough revision of the earlier volume. The introductory material has not only been revised with updated information and examples but also adds discussions of representative films produced since the mid-1990s. Now organized alphabetically, the entries on individual films cover all relevant works made over the past century, and each entry contains much more information than those in the earlier book. Details include film summary nation represented image portrayal production details DVD availability Many of the entries also contain comments from film critics to indicate how the movies were regarded at the time of their theatrical release. Supplemented by appendixes of image portrayals, representations of nations, and a list of made-for-television movies, this volumeoffers readers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of hundreds of films in which Native American characters have appeared on the big screen. As such, Native Americans in the Movies will appeal not only to scholars of media, ethnic studies, and history but also to anyone interested in the portrayal of Native Americans in cinema.

Looks at the movies of Native American filmmakers and explores how they have used their works to leave behind the stereotypical Native American characters of old.

The indispensable sage, fierce enemy, silent sidekick: the role of Native Americans in film has been largely confined to identities defined by the “white” perspective. Many studies have analyzed these simplistic stereotypes of Native American cultures in film, but few have looked beyond the Hollywood Western for further examples. Distinguished film scholar Edward Buscombe offers here an incisive study that examines cinematic depictions of Native Americans from a global perspective. Buscombe opens with a historical survey of American Westerns and their controversial portrayals of Native Americans: the wild redmen of nineteenth-century Wild West shows, the more sympathetic depictions of Native Americans in early Westerns, and the shift in the American film industry in the 1920s to hostile characterizations of Indians. Questioning the implicit assumptions of prevailing critiques, Buscombe looks abroad to reveal a distinctly different portrait of Native Americans. He focuses on the lesser known Westerns made in Germany—such as East Germany’s Indianerfilme, in which Native Americans were Third World freedom fighters battling against Yankee imperialists—as well as the films based on the novels of nineteenth-century German writer Karl May. These alternative portrayals of Native Americans offer a vastly different view of their cultural position in American society. Buscombe offers nothing less than a wholly original and readable account of the cultural images of Native Americans through history andaround the globe, revealing new and complex issues in our understanding of how oppressed peoples have been represented in mass culture.

Covers over 800 films, including many Silents and all relevant sound films. With a film title index. 'A welcome addition to the film literature...' REFERENCE BOOKS BULLETIN

Standing at the intersection of Native history, labor, and representation, Picturing Indians presents a vivid portrait of the complicated experiences of Native actors on the sets of midcentury Hollywood Westerns. This behind-the-scenes look at costuming, makeup, contract negotiations, and union disparities uncovers an all-too-familiar narrative of racism and further complicates filmmakers' choices to follow mainstream representations of "Indianness." Liza Black offers a rare and overlooked perspective on American cinema history by giving voice to creators of movie Indians--the stylists, public relations workers, and the actors themselves. In exploring the inherent racism in sensationalizing Native culture for profit, Black also chronicles the little-known attempts of studios to generate cultural authenticity and historical accuracy in their films. She discusses the studios' need for actual Indians to participate in, legitimate, and populate such filmic narratives. But studios also told stories that made Indians sound less than Indian because of their skin color, clothing, and inability to do functions and tasks considered authentically Indian by non-Indians. In the ongoing territorial dispossession of Native America, Native people worked in film as an economic strategy toward survival. Consulting new primary sources, Black has crafted an interdisciplinary experience showcasing what it meant to "play Indian" in post-World War II Hollywood. Browse the author's media links.

An overview of Indian representation in Hollywood films. The author notes the change in tone for the better when--as a result of McCarthyism--filmmakers found themselves among the oppressed. By an Irish-Cherokee writer.

The image in Hollywood movies of savage Indians attacking white settlers represents only one side of a very complicated picture. In fact sympathetic portrayals of Native Americans stood alongside those of hostile Indians in the silent films of D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, and flourished during the early 1930s with Hollywood's cycle of pro-Indian adventures. Decades later, the stereotype became even more complicated, as films depicted the savagery of whites (The Searchers) in contrast to the more peaceful Indian (Broken Arrow). By 1990 the release of Dances with Wolves appeared to have recycled the romantic and savage portrayals embedded in early cinema. In this new study, author Angela Aleiss traces the history of Native Americans on the silver screen, and breaks new ground by drawing on primary sources such as studio correspondence, script treatments, trade newspapers, industry censorship files, and filmmakers' interviews to reveal how and why Hollywood created its Indian characters. Behind-the-scenes anecdotes of filmmakers and Native Americans, as well as rare archival photographs, supplement the discussion, which often shows a stark contrast between depiction and reality. The book traces chronologically the development of the Native American's screen image while also examining many forgotten or lost Western films. Each chapter will feature black and white stills from the films discussed.

Don’t miss the TV series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, now on AMC and AMC+! Don’t Miss the AMC television series, Dark Winds, based on the Leaphorn, Chee, & Manuelito novels, coming this summer! The tenth novel in Tony Hillerman's acclaimed Leaphorn and Chee series — “Bolt the door, disconnect the phone, and declare yourself off limits....Coyote Waits is a real confounder, not at all what you expected.” (Denver Post) The car fire didn't kill Navajo Tribal Policeman Delbert Nez—a bullet did. And the old man in possession of the murder weapon is a whiskey-soaked shaman named Ashie Pinto. Officer Jim Chee is devastated by the slaying of his good friend Del, and confounded by the prime suspect's refusal to utter a single word of confession or denial. Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn believes there is much more to this outrage than what appears on the surface, as he and Jim Chee set out to unravel a complex weave of greed and death that involves a historical find and a lost fortune. But the hungry and mythical trickster Coyote is waiting, as always, in the shadows to add a strange and deadly new twist.

Offering both in-depth analyses of specific films and overviews of the industry's output, Hollywood's Indian provides insightful characterizations of the depiction of the Native Americans in film. This updated edition includes a new chapter on Smoke Signals , the groundbreaking independent film written by Sherman Alexie and directed by Chris Eyre. Taken as a whole the essays explore the many ways in which these portrayals have made an impact on our collective cultural life.

In this deeply engaging account Michelle H. Raheja offers the first book-length study of the Indigenous actors, directors, and spectators who helped shape Hollywood’s representation of Indigenous peoples. Since the era of silent films, Hollywood movies and visual culture generally have provided the primary representational field on which Indigenous images have been displayed to non-Native audiences. These films have been highly influential in shaping perceptions of Indigenous peoples as, for example, a dying race or as inherently unable or unwilling to adapt to change. However, films with Indigenous plots and subplots also signify at least some degree of Native presence in a culture that largely defines Native peoples as absent or separate. Native actors, directors, and spectators have had a part in creating these cinematic representations and have thus complicated the dominant, and usually negative, messages about Native peoples that films portray. In Reservation Reelism Raheja examines the history of these Native actors, directors, and spectators, reveals their contributions, and attempts to create positive representations in film that reflect the complex and vibrant experiences of Native peoples and communities.