In Our Own Voices: Native American Artists

Harold of Orange (Richard Weise, written by Gerald Vizenor, 1984, 32 mins) takes a comic approach to the subject of survival for reservation communities, using humor and fantasy (forked tongue in cheek) to tell of a group of young Indian "tricksters" who mau mau the flack catchers. In Cowtipping: The Militant Indian Waiter (Randy Redroad, 1992, 10 mins, 3/4" video) a Cherokee waiter working the graveyard shift at a Manhattan cafe finds himself at odds with his non-hunting, non-gathering customers, for whom he is a cipher for guilt, fascination, and ignorance concerning the American Indian. Urban-raised Arlene Bowman in Navajo Talking Pictures (1986, 40 mins) faces resistance to the "white man's medium" of film when she travels to the reservation to document the traditional ways of her grandmother and the remnants of her cultural past. Both elude her, with some absurdly comic results. Part Andrews Sisters parody, part Maysles-like documentary on three natural nuts, Sun, Moon and Feather (Bob Rosen, Jane Zipp, 1989, 26 mins) uses a three-person voice-over to tell of a family from the San Blas Islands adjusting to life in Brooklyn. The family's resourcefulness in adapting to Americans' image of the "Indian" is both hilarious and pathetic.

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