Ethnicity in Michael Apted's 1992 Thunderheart Film - Essay Example

Michael Apted's 1992 film Thunderheart was based on the real life events of a murder of two FBI agents on a South Dakota Indian Reservation. The filmstarred Val Kilmer as the principal in the role of a ambitious young FBI agent of part Sioux heritage who is among a team of three agents sent to investigate a series of murders on the reservation. His role in the investigation is intended by his superiors to be as a liason between the people on the reservation and the FBI who have been viewed with some hostile suspicion. Apted's respect for his subject matter was evident in the film and in his treatment as he was the first film director allowed to film on a Sioux Reservation based on the trust he developed with his sensitive documentary, Incident at Ogala, a study of the real events of the murders that occurred. This film was significant on a number of levels. It was a major Hollywood release budgeted that brought in a box office of 23 million dollars and yet it managed to honestly depict the events of a highly politically charged event. It also examined the complexity seeking self identity in a group long persecuted in examining a character played by Val Kilmer who was at odds with his native heritage preferring to deny its existence and through the events of the story showed the self discovery of racial pride and identity of this character. This paper will explore the issues and themes raised by the film as they relate to the depiction of native culture. It will examine how the film showed the fight for ethnic identity in the face of outside pressures that are often hostile. This illustration of the complex nature of racial identity and political context are further heightened by the political context of the story. It will also highlight how the quest to depict native American ethnicity on film is still occasionally marred by stereotypes. The quest for identity for the protagonist is the main theme of the story. Val Kilmer's character Ray Levoi is of part Sioux descent and at the onset of the film he strongly denies his heritage. He does not talk about his heritage to his superior played by venerable actor and playwright Sam Shepard. He is shown to have become mainstream with his fashionable haircut and designer sunglasses and formal clothing. His initial contact with the people of the reservation his shown to be officious and unfamiliar. Grahame Greene's character,Walter Crow Horse who plays the town sheriff. does not like the intial presentation but something in him senses the inner conflict in the character. There is a marked tension in the character who is referred to as the Washington Redskin"" in hushed tones to refer to both his heritage and to his remarkable success in the bureau up to that point. With his succesful mainstream background Ray Levoi's character sees the events of the crime that he is sent to investigate through the official outlook of his boss. Slowly through the Graham Greene's character he awakens to his own heritage. After the intial presentation of the character there are series of events and individuals that slowly change his perspective on the purity of his own reasons for being there. The intitail reason for trip to the Reserve by the FBI is to capture Jimmy Looks Twice a chararcter who is believed to have murdered some FBI agents and is on the lam in the reservation. Apart from the steady tutelage of the town sherrif it is the idealisitc young teacher, Maggie Eagle Bear who appears to do the most to sway the protagonist's thinking. She is sincere and intelligent and she speaks to him of the real injustices that are going on in the reserve. The look at the poverty on the reserve is not spared in Apted's honest cinematography. She speaks to him at an educated level which he has come to respect from his own successes but unlike him she has not turned her back on her heritage. More than this, Ray's character sees her clear kindness and lack of rancor and it moves him. From this encounter on, Ray starts to question his own motives for being on the reserve and the motives of his superiors. The film was remarkable for highlighting the governments unjust treatment of the the American Indian Movement that sprang up in the 1970's at a time where the idea of Civil Rights was fully aflame in the public consciousness through the struggles of the African American Civil Rights. The American Indian Movement arose out of a protest through many means to express the discontent at the marginalization of American Indians. Andrea Sabbadini has argued that the government under Nixon subverted the aims of the protest movement by encouraging a rival group composed of Indians of mixed heritage to undermine the efforts of the traditionalists of AIM by in effect exposing these individuals to the policing arm of the FBI. In this context it appears that Ray Liora's character is more than a metaphor for the search for divided self identity in an individual of mixed heritage but a direct political commentary on the corrupting force of the FBI. There are certain events that bring him to this realization that are important in his spiritual and racial awakening but also in his realization of the political context. Ray's recollection of a vision he experiences is comically highlighted by the frustration of the Sheriff who has yet to experience such an event but it not only affirms his racial identity but marks him as a special individual. In some ways this event falls into the trap of a Hollywood adaptation of the story . The protagonist who so resists his native heritage is suddenly bestowed with a higher order of ability and it somehow demeans the sense of the native experience that the outsider is still the superior of the indigenous member that somehow grates the sensibility much like the idea of Tarzan being the King of the Jungle in Africa. There are other Hollywood representations as Peter Lang argues that this film and another like it fall into the Hollywood adaptation trap: both films self-consciously place themselves within the context of the conventional Hollywood Western, utilizing the techniques and narrative formats typical of the genre. They feature panoramic shots of magnificent desolate landscapes reminiscent of classics such as Ford The Searchers (though they include eagle cries on the soundtrack to signify the Indian point-of-view). They are structured by the traditional hero-villain format and action/ adventure dynamics of the (350)Western, complete with dramatic chase scenes-embodying what Andre Bazin calls the Westerns characteristic theme, the "knight errant in search of his grail" (153). This stereotyping of the story may have occurred it still did not take away from the many other merits of the film. The murder of the school teacher finally solidifies Ray's sense of his own identity and at the end of the film this is further reinforced by his encounter with the grandfather. From this point the character no longer has doubts or recriminations about who he is and he better understands the political context of the world he inhabits. Thunderheart was a remarkable film for the way in which it pushed a very controversial subject under the banner of a major Hollywood production. The popular format of the story probably did dilute the political message somewhat but the highly charged questions about racial identity and the political justice were not entirely removed from the film. What remained was an effective message in a popular medium about a controversial time in the American history presented in a complex multilayer d manner. Works Cited . American Indian Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Issues. Ed. Dane Morrison. New York: Peter Lang, 1998. Questia. 9 May 2006 . Apted, Michael, and Helen Taylor Robinson. "12 Narratives and Documentaries." The Couch and the Silver Screen: Psychoanalytic Reflections on European Cinema. Ed. Andrea Sabbadini. New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2003. 159-180. Questia. 9 May 2006 . Beck, Bernard. "Orphans of the Storm: Smoke Signals and Other Explorations of How to Survive in Your Native Land Without Parents." Multicultural Perspectives 1.2 (1999): 25-28. Questia. 9 May 2006 . Morris, Rosalind C. New Worlds from Fragments: Film, Ethnography, and the Representation of Northwest Coast Cultures. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994. Questia. 9 May 2006 . Van Lent, Peter. "14 "Her Beautiful Savage": The CurrentSexual Image of the Native American Male." Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in American Popular Culture. Ed. S. Elizabeth Bird. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. 211-225. Questia. 9 May 2006 . Read More