E-Book Overview
Native Americans have thrown themselves into filmmaking since the mid-1970s, producing hundreds of films and videos, and their body of work has had great impact on Native cultures and filmmaking itself. With their cameras, they capture the lives of Native people, celebrating community, ancestral lifeways, and identity. Not only artistic statements, the films are archives that document rich and complex Native communities and counter mainstream media portrayals. Wiping the War Paint off the Lens traces the history of Native experiences as subjects, actors, and creators, and develops a critical framework for approaching Native work. Singer positions Native media as part of a larger struggle for "cultural sovereignty"-the right to maintain and protect cultures and traditions. Taking it out of a European-American context, she reframes the discourse of filmmaking, exploring oral histories and ancient lifeways inform Native filmmaking and how it seeks to heal the devastation of the past. Singer's approach is both cultural and personal, provides both historical views and close textual readings, and may well set the terms of the critical debate on Native filmmaking. Beverly R. Singer is a filmmaker and director of the Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies at the University of New Mexico.
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H Edited by Michael Renov, Faye Ginsburg, and Jane Gaines Public confidence in the "real" is everywhere in decline. The Visible Evidence series offers a forum for the in-depth consideration of the representation of the real, with books that engage issues bearing upon questions of cultural and historical representation, and that forward the work of challenging prevailing notions of the "documentary tradition" and of nonfiction culture more generally. Volume 10
Volume 9
Volume 8
Volume 7
Volume 6 Volume 5 Volume 4 Volume 3
Volume 2
Volume 1
:: Beverly R. Singer Wiping the War Paint off the Lens: Native American Film and Video :: Alexandra Juhasz, editor Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video :: Douglas Kellner and Dan Streible, editors Emile de Antonio: A Reader :: Patricia R. Zimmermann States of Emergency: Documentaries, Wars, Democracies :: Jane M. Gaines and Michael Renov, editors Collecting Visible Evidence :: Diane Waldman and Janet Walker, editors Feminism and Documentary :: Michelle Citron Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions :: Andrea Liss Trespassing through Shadows: Memory, Photography, and the Holocaust :: Toby Miller Technologies of Truth: Cultural Citizenship and the Popular Media :: Chris Holmlund and Cynthia Fuchs, editors Between the Sheets, In the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, Gay Documentary
VISIBLE EVIDENCE, VOLUME 10
Wiping the War Paint off the Lens
Native American Rim and Video
Beverly R. Singer \ Foreword by Robert Warrior
University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London
Copyright 2001 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Singer, Beverly R. Wiping the war paint off the lens : Native American film and video / Beverly R. Singer ; foreword by Robert Warrior. p. cm. — (Visible evidence ; v. 10) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8166-3160-3 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8166-3161-1 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. American Indians in motion pictures. 2. American Indians in the motion picture industry—United States. I. Title. II.