SILKO FILM POSTING
Anthony Sichinga (as8356@silver.sdsmt.edu)
Mon, 1 Dec 1997 21:37:04 -0700 (MST)
The film thunderheart and the book ceremony are quite similar. In
both cases they seems to be a struggle of the character's beliefs and what
society has chosen to the norm. The beliefs in both cases seem to deal
with traditional Native American traditions and the modern scientific
world. In the book Tayo's eliment was cured by what scientific people may
deem as questionable and primitive means. While in the film, the land was
saved from pollution by an agent was in contact with the spirits and
divine intervention.
In both instances I believe that something good was achieved, the
question therefore remains do the ends justify the means? In my opinion
if both science and in this case religion can be used to cure and bring
about general good to the people, then both should be practiced. The
practitioners of both should do so without looking down on people of
varying views. On weather the movie portrays Hollywood's stereotypes of
Indians, I think it does so, how do we expect a director who probably's
never lived on a reservation to portray and give as a true picture of life
on the reservations?
Another similarity between the film and the book is the reference
to the mining of uranium. Although the book is quite vague about the
tension that existed between the miners and the traditional landowners,
the film is not. In the book the following passage seems to illustrate
this point " He walked to the mineshaft slowly, and the feeling became
overwhelming: the pattern of the ceremony was completed there. He knelt
and found an ore rock. The gray stone was streaked, with powdery yellow
uranium, bright and alive as pollen; veins of sooty black formed lines
with the yellow, making mountain ranges and rivers across the stone. But
they had taken these beautiful rocks from deep within earth and had laid
them in monstrous design, realizing destruction on a scale only they could
have dreamed"(page 246). The film's central theme is actually based on
this very tension between the miners and the traditional landowners.
Yet another similarity between the book and the film is the
mixed-blood ancestry of the leading characters, both are half Indian and
white. They are forced to choose and decide which way to lean to, also in
both the book and the film the leading characters both undergo some kind
of ceremony. This ceremony leads to a greater understanding and awareness
of the surrounding and nature in general.
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