¶ … Smoke Signals directed by Chris Eyre. Specifically it will discuss what the film is attempting to say to us.
"Smoke Signals" made history because it was the first film made by Native Americans, and acted by Native Americans. The story is really about two young men coming of age and learning to accept each other, and their past, to move ahead in life.
The textbook calls Native American history "among the most intriguing in history, that has captivated scholars for centuries" (Gibson 2). This film is a natural evolution of that history. It is natural that Native Americans would want to tell their own story on film, and this film is the culmination of Native Americans working together to tell their own story. Victor and Thomas have to come to terms with their past in order to move on with their lives in this film. That past revolves around Arnold, who was Victor's father and saved Thomas from a fire that killed his parents. To Victor, Arnold was an abusive alcoholic who abandoned the family....
Dunbar is presented as a man that loves life and all the good things about it. He expresses a sentiment of extreme pride when he prefers to die rather than have his leg amputated. Most people have returned to their homes after the war with the desire to have a normal life and a well-paid job. Dunbar, in contrast, chooses to remain in the military to protect an abandoned
Often, these films portrayed the Indians as bloodthirsty villains who preyed on whites for no reason. They were often violent, and whites almost always died at their hands. In addition, most of the "Indian" actors were actually white actors in makeup. These stereotypical ideals where what most Americans thought of when they thought of the Old West, and as this film shows, they were often very far from the
Conceptualization/Film Analysis: Dances with Wolves The movie, 'Dances with Wolves' is among the most noteworthy of Hollywood motion pictures. Though it comes with its flaws, the movie has still proven to be successful in bringing an image of the culture of Native Americans into mainstream America's collective consciousness. The movie's screenplay manages to introduce a better understanding, acknowledgement, and sensitivity towards Lakota people. Several scenes in the movie back the
In contrast, Dances with Wolves seems more like a western in that it takes place in the wild frontier and it centers on the white man's relationship with the Native Americans. The initial conflict and anxiety that the Natives experience is something that we can link to a western. There are other scenes, too, that make the film feel more like a western. These include a buffalo hunt and a
Dances with Wolves is a movie that clearly shows the moral and political dilemmas that existed in those times and it also represents that fairly savage policy that the United States had against Indians and those that sided with the same. It also proved that skin color alone is not enough to keep people separated, as proven by Costner's character and the white woman he eventually took as his wife.
When the pigs take refuge in the second house, their case is similar to the one when the Natives have been constantly trying to defend their territory. In spite of their attempts, they have been pushed back and sent into reservations by the new-comers. The wolf had been blinded by his greed and did not pay any attention to the suffering that he caused along his migration toward the west. At
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