Redskin was one of the best movies we have seen so far. Beside the great action, which reminded me a little of free running, it had a great theme. This theme shows its evidence throughout the film, in multiple ways over the course of the film’s timeline. The story is one of separation. Our hero of the film, who looks very Italian, is the chief’s son, Wing Foot, goes through many incarnations of separation. The first is the physical separation between himself and his parents. But when the white man comes to take him away, he is not just separating him from his parents but his tribe, his identity. We somewhat define ourselves based on the people we are constantly around, and he was forced to live away from them all. When at this school, more like an institution, he is again physically forced from his heritage. The first act of this crude American baptism is the replacing his Navajo “costume” ( the word they use for what the Native’s wear instead of clothes, which is what they use for the white’s) and replaced by western clothing. Clothing is a huge part of this film. Clothing is how everyone defines themselves, and those around them, but more on that in a second. Another symbolic act was the separation of his hair. They cut his long dark hair into some cruel bowl-cut, another forced assimilation. But as the years progress so does his attachment to the heroine of the story, Corn Blossom. And when she is forced to go back home by a false letter of her mother’s eminent death, Wing Foot is once again forced with separation. But like all separation in this film he is eventually reunited once again. His first reunion was with his father and tribe. And judging based completely on Wing Foot’s clothes, his father and the rest of the tribe believe he has abandoned his heritage. Only does his grandmother, who is nearly blind, accept him. And only after she has replaced his western clothes to ones more fitting of a chief’s son, does his father and tribe accept him. He later goes after Corn Blossom who is being forced to marry someone else. They are reunited as well.
Straying a bit from the topic I found another theme that, also, seems a little obvious, and one I have seen in another movie, Babel. The simple idea that if we just listen to each other we can get along. Redskin deals with Native and White relations, as well as Native to other tribe relationships. And once again I am reminded of separation. We don’t need separation between anything. Whether it be our lady, family, culture, or anyone else’s based solely on appearance, or for any other reason for that matter. We break this divide, this line, with education, and I think in a small way, that is what this film was about. He wouldn’t have been able to unite two tribes, and benefit his own without the best education. We just need to listen and learn.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Gregarious
I don’t know if it was the paragraph long title of the 1880 period drama “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (2007) that kept this movie under the radar, but somehow this movie went relatively unnoticed. I am a big fan of these modern, stylistic period movies, but I have become more than a fan for this movie. I wouldn’t call it an obsession, more along the lines of a healthy appreciation. This film has it all: music, acting, cinematography, and a fantastic dual-personal story of two iconic figures of American history. But it has a nostalgic and modern pairing of early cinema as well.
The writer for the screen and director of the film, Andrew Dominik, showed this appreciation of early cinema in several ways. One incorporates both narration as well as the cinematography itself. During a scene, while narrating, the screen would go blurry in both the left and right side, leaving only the center portion in focus. This is very similar to the primitive cameras used during the industries birth. Another great technique used by the director was the color pallet used on screen. This pallet is not without color, but greatly muted. Heavy blacks, bright whites, and every shade of brown, a color scheme nearly identical to the early nitrate film, the movies were printed on. I especially loved the darker scenes, when all the blacks used on screen are blended together in one, almost solid, mass, much like a black hole, no detail, nothing. Although this movie is shot in a very modern style, with a great mix of both close ups, point-of-views, long shots, and medium shots, but because of the techniques employed by the director I mentioned above, it has an almost historical weight, and not solely because it is a historical film.
On the subject of history, I believe this film shows an accurate portrayal of the class system, especially outlaws. It shows most of these men as uneducated and almost sexually obsessed. The narrator said “the James Gang committed twenty-five bank, train, and stage coach robberies”. And toward the end of their rein (1867-1881) there were only two original members left, Jesse and his brother. The rest “were either in jail or dead”. This idea is similar to the gangster portrayal in Oscar Micheaux’s, “Within Our Gates”. But unlike Micheaux’s film, there are only white people, men and women, in Dominik’s film. The portrayal of these women is very simple. They are to be housewives, or sexual pursuits. The women in this film are shown rarely and stereotypically. They are either cooking, cleaning, tending to the kids, their husbands or falling to the deceptively slick words of Dick Liddle.
The fact that most people have not heard of this movie, or know little or nothing about it, makes me want to kick them in the head. And when I am done maybe I will realize the reason people don’t get it is because we naturally associate Jesse James with action. This film takes part in the last year of Jesse’s life, and through the entire film, only in the beginning does it show a train robbery. This movie is about obsession; whether it be Bob Ford meticulously analyzing every tick, gesture, or way of speech of Jesse, or Jesse’s own obsession with trust. But more than this, it is a tragedy. A boy obsessed with grandeur and notoriety, to stick out from dusty herd, but failing spectacularly in every attempt. Bob Ford is Jesse James doppelganger, his evil twin, his shadow. This film shows that America has hardly changed in almost a century and a half. We still value our rock stars, athletes, and actors more than we do justice. That is what Jesse James was—a rock star. And if Bob is anything, he is the jury or judge. They called Robert Ford an assassin, and a coward, and just as how Jesse reached his end, so did Bob.
“Edward O Kelley came up from Bachelor at 1 pm on the eighth. He had no grand scheme, no strategy, no agreement with higher authorities. Nothing beyond a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford. Edward O Kelley would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado penitentiary for second degree murder. Seven thousand signatures would be eventually gathered on a petition asking for Kelley’s release. And in 1902, governer James B Oreman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for Bob. No photographs of his body would be sold in sundry stores. No people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral. No biographies would be written about him. No children named after him. No one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in”.
Jesse would be shown in print alongside the sphinx, Taj Mahal, and the catacombs of Rome, for murdering seventeen people, and robbing hundreds, most of which were innocent civilians.
The writer for the screen and director of the film, Andrew Dominik, showed this appreciation of early cinema in several ways. One incorporates both narration as well as the cinematography itself. During a scene, while narrating, the screen would go blurry in both the left and right side, leaving only the center portion in focus. This is very similar to the primitive cameras used during the industries birth. Another great technique used by the director was the color pallet used on screen. This pallet is not without color, but greatly muted. Heavy blacks, bright whites, and every shade of brown, a color scheme nearly identical to the early nitrate film, the movies were printed on. I especially loved the darker scenes, when all the blacks used on screen are blended together in one, almost solid, mass, much like a black hole, no detail, nothing. Although this movie is shot in a very modern style, with a great mix of both close ups, point-of-views, long shots, and medium shots, but because of the techniques employed by the director I mentioned above, it has an almost historical weight, and not solely because it is a historical film.
On the subject of history, I believe this film shows an accurate portrayal of the class system, especially outlaws. It shows most of these men as uneducated and almost sexually obsessed. The narrator said “the James Gang committed twenty-five bank, train, and stage coach robberies”. And toward the end of their rein (1867-1881) there were only two original members left, Jesse and his brother. The rest “were either in jail or dead”. This idea is similar to the gangster portrayal in Oscar Micheaux’s, “Within Our Gates”. But unlike Micheaux’s film, there are only white people, men and women, in Dominik’s film. The portrayal of these women is very simple. They are to be housewives, or sexual pursuits. The women in this film are shown rarely and stereotypically. They are either cooking, cleaning, tending to the kids, their husbands or falling to the deceptively slick words of Dick Liddle.
The fact that most people have not heard of this movie, or know little or nothing about it, makes me want to kick them in the head. And when I am done maybe I will realize the reason people don’t get it is because we naturally associate Jesse James with action. This film takes part in the last year of Jesse’s life, and through the entire film, only in the beginning does it show a train robbery. This movie is about obsession; whether it be Bob Ford meticulously analyzing every tick, gesture, or way of speech of Jesse, or Jesse’s own obsession with trust. But more than this, it is a tragedy. A boy obsessed with grandeur and notoriety, to stick out from dusty herd, but failing spectacularly in every attempt. Bob Ford is Jesse James doppelganger, his evil twin, his shadow. This film shows that America has hardly changed in almost a century and a half. We still value our rock stars, athletes, and actors more than we do justice. That is what Jesse James was—a rock star. And if Bob is anything, he is the jury or judge. They called Robert Ford an assassin, and a coward, and just as how Jesse reached his end, so did Bob.
“Edward O Kelley came up from Bachelor at 1 pm on the eighth. He had no grand scheme, no strategy, no agreement with higher authorities. Nothing beyond a vague longing for glory, and a generalized wish for revenge against Robert Ford. Edward O Kelley would be ordered to serve a life sentence in the Colorado penitentiary for second degree murder. Seven thousand signatures would be eventually gathered on a petition asking for Kelley’s release. And in 1902, governer James B Oreman would pardon the man. There would be no eulogies for Bob. No photographs of his body would be sold in sundry stores. No people would crowd the streets in the rain to see his funeral. No biographies would be written about him. No children named after him. No one would ever pay twenty-five cents to stand in the rooms he grew up in”.
Jesse would be shown in print alongside the sphinx, Taj Mahal, and the catacombs of Rome, for murdering seventeen people, and robbing hundreds, most of which were innocent civilians.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Pronounciation
This blog is pronounced "zanadeeyose". A highbrid of the two words: xanadu and peccadilloes... Enjoy.
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