11/25/97 posting
Brian Jay Green (bjg8530@silver.sdsmt.edu)
Tue, 25 Nov 1997 20:52:12 -0700 (MST)
Hollywood seldom portrays life in a true sense. However, in the
movie Thunderheart I think that they did a good job. I could relate many
of the same characteristics of the book Ceremony to the movie
Thunderheart. The first thing that I would like to touch on is the
struggle for mixed-race people to be able to live in a civilized society,
and yet to try and keep in touch with their ethnic background and
beliefs. The book talks about how the government was constantly trying to
influence the Indian people to forget their traditional beliefs and to let
go of their culture and join the so called "real world." The Indian
people in the movie sort of fought with this, when the corporation tried
to begin mining for Uranium. The businesses that were involved in the
mining ordeal were doing their test drilling on the ceremonial lands of
the Indian people. When the people tried to fight back they were always
pushed around and they were never given any straight answers. One of the
major issues in the book was the struggle of Tayo trying to figure out
what was going on with his life. He goes through the ceremonies to try
and heal himself in a traditional way, but he is canstantly tempted by the
civilized definition of his illness and the battle of deciding whether he
should let the civilian doctors help him. Sam Shepard (Val Kilmer)
struggles in the movie to try and figure out his life and his battle to
figure out what the dreams he is having mean. The Indian people tell him
that he is seeing visions. At first he doesn't believe that they are
visions, but as the movie progresses you can see that he starts to get
interested in the Indian beliefs and he starts to figure out that what he
is seeing is the visions that the old man is talking about and that what
he is seeing is actually visions. Sam is also going through life trying
to heal his problems and he is trying to get in touch with the traditional
part of his Indian heritage. These 2 key pionts are about all I can
compare between the movie Thunderheart and the book Ceremony. I think
that Hollywood portrayed the struggle that mixed-race people face in real
life in a fairly good manner. The first time that I watched the movie
Thunderheart it was quite simply just a movie, but now that I have taken
this course I have a much deeper understanding of the movie. The book and
the movie are probably similar in different ways to different people, but
the above stated material is just my opinion of what the book and the
movie share.
Brian Green
*******
To Unsubscribe send email to majordomo@majordomo.sdsmt.edu with
unsubscribe silko in the body.
An html format archive of silko is available at:
http://www.sdsmt.edu/listserve/silko/