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Cinema, cross-cultural collaboration, and criticism: Filming on an uneven field. Thornley, Davinia. (2014). Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan. 134 pp. ISBN 978–1–137–41158–7 EPUB. Book review DOI: 10.20507/AlterNative.2016.12.1.8 In Cinema, Cross-Cultural Collaboration, and Criticism: Filming on an Uneven Field Davinia Thornley sets out to remedy what she sees as two prevailing critical approaches to Indigenous and ethnic/diasporic cinema: a tendency to make critical judgements about such cinema based on notions of cultural authenticity or accuracy; and the privileging of close textual analysis that offers a “top-down” model of analysis that is equally restrictive. Citing the critical reception surrounding Niki Caro’s Whale Rider (2002) as an example of such tendencies, Thornley argues for a more expansive understanding of Indigenous and ethnic/diasporic films that have been made in collaboration with majority culture partners from three Commonwealth countries: Australia, Canada and New Zealand. These films include Before Tomorrow (2008), the final film in the Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner trilogy, produced by Isuma and Arnait Productions (a First Nations/Quebecois collaboration); Australian-based Päkehä Alec Morgan’s collaboration with co-producer Gerry Bostock (Bundjalung Nation) Lousy Little Sixpence (1982); and the above-mentioned Whale Rider on which Caro (Päkehä) collaborated with Witi Ihimaera (author of the novel on which the film is based) and Ngäti Konohi. Continuing the New Zealand-based theme, Thornley also discusses Peter Burger’s (Lithuanian, Ngäi Tahu and Rangitane) film The Tattooist (2007), a
supernatural thriller about the Samoan art of tatau (tattooing), and Fijian Toa Fraser’s film No. 2 (2005), both of which are described as diasporic Indigenous films. Thornley also discusses the New Zealand-based cross-cultural collaboration between director Sima Urale (Samoan) and writers Shuchi Kothari (Indian) and Dianne Taylor (ethnicity undefined) in Apron Strings (2008). Drawing substantially on approaches to Indigenous cinema laid out by American anthropologist Faye Ginsburg, along with references to the work of Mäori film philosopher Barry Barclay and enigmatic use of the work of American cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, Thornley sets out to address the conditions of production and the textual dimensions and modes of reception surrounding her selected films. Along the way she provides a useful overview of current non-Indigenous scholarship on Indigenous cinema and the limits of its approaches. Targeting a tendency in such scholarship to privilege close textual analysis as the primary method, Thornley argues for a mixed methodology that combines textual and extra-textual analysis (DVD extra-texts and websites are significant source materials) with industry and production analysis, and audience and reception studies approaches. After an introductory first chapter, Chapter 2 combines a discussion of the narrative arc of
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Before Tomorrow with an exploration of the off-screen spaces of the film’s production and reception context to argue that while the narrative ends with death, the impact of the film on its various communities has had vitalizing effects. Chapter 3 provides details on the director and communities involved in the making of Lousy Little Sixpence, a significant film about the Aboriginal Australian Stolen Generations, and surveys the critical and popular reception of the film in the wake of its release. Chapter 4 argues for the value of understanding the selected New Zealand-based films as inhabiting a boundary that might “open up a space” for rethinking notions of cultural belonging, nationhood and identity (p. 93). This chapter features analysis of the popular and critical reception of the films as well as published interview extracts involving the filmmakers. The final chapter offers 10 key elements of what Thornley calls “collaborative criticism” that critics should be mindful of when addressing Indigenous and ethnic/diasporic cinema. These 10 aspects are also offered as suggestions to audience members so that they “can continue to interact with the film(s) discussed in order to assist indigenous recovery and sovereignty” (p. 104). What follows is an ambitious list of imperatives, including the importance of “being in relationship”, “watching ‘beyond the self’” and valuing the experience of “not knowing” or understanding the full extent of the cinema in question due to cross-cultural differences. The 10 key aspects of what Thornley sees as a new model of “immersive criticism” requires the film critic “to accept a relationship vis-àvis the work and its makers” (p. 103) so that such criticism “can recognize and respect” the singularity of Indigenous cinema (p. viii). In sum, Thornley finds cross-cultural film collaborations useful in at least two ways: as an opportunity for majority culture participants to learn from Indigenous and ethnic/diasporic media texts and makers, and as opportunities for the advancement of Indigenous and ethnic/ diasporic concerns. As stated at the outset of
the book, Thornley’s work here is driven by an interest in her own role as a non-Indigenous academic writing about Indigenous cinematic representations. As such, she seeks to provide a useful framework for other academics and audiences when discussing cross-cultural film productions so that the “highly uneven playing field” conditioning such practices can be illuminated and perhaps amended by a way of viewing, researching and critiquing that affirms the life of a film before and beyond its actual screening. While such a research agenda is laudable, Cinema, Cross- Cultural Collaboration and Criticism is itself an unevenly crafted work that promises to concretize, ground and explain the value of a broad range of films from distinct sociopolitical, historical and economic contexts. Given its ambitious scope, it would have been useful to know why these particular films are the most salient examples of the dynamics the author seeks to reveal. So too, the list of imperatives in Chapter 5 could have been more evenly deployed throughout the author’s own analyses in earlier chapters. Indeed, while one of Thornley’s imperatives draws on the work of Mary Catherine Bateson to highlight the importance of the critic moving “beyond their particular viewpoint to ‘see the multiple worlds of others’” (p. 105), the author acknowledges that the materials in the book are weighted on the side of non-Indigenous members of the cross-cultural collaboration due to the difficulty of finding source materials and the limits of her own standpoint as a self-described white Päkehä member of a majority culture (p. viii). While the imperatives noted in Chapter 5 seek to affirm the usefulness of never fully knowing the standpoint and worldviews of others, this conundrum is never fully explicated in the actual case studies provided. As such, the book provides some illuminating details on particular films, and makes a useful contribution to understanding the dynamics of some cross-cultural collaborations, yet the new critical framework proposed remains at the
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level of the ideal and is not put to work in the subsequent analyses.
Päkehä
Glossary
Rangitane
Bundjalung Nation
Tatau
the original custodians of the northern coastal areas of New South Wales, Australia Ngäi Tahu the predominant Mäori tribe of the South Island of New Zealand Ngäti Konohi a subtribe of the Mäori tribe Ngäti Porou based on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand
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people of mainly European descent, defined by Thornley as the settler majority of New Zealand Mäori tribe based on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand the Samoan art of tattoo
Review Author Jo Smith, Senior Lecturer, Media Studies Programme, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Email:
[email protected]
Edgar Heap of Birds. Anthes, Bill. (2015). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. 216 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8223-5994-4. Book review DOI: 10.20507/AlterNative.2016.12.1.9 In his new book, Bill Anthes examines the career of Cheyenne artist Edgar Heap of Birds. Neither a comprehensive biography nor a chronological account of the artist and his work, the book instead explores a selection of artworks to discuss the historical context, political implications, and aesthetic choices made throughout Heap of Birds’ practice. The book is organized into four chapters that reflect dominant themes in the artist’s work: “Land,” “Words,” “Histories,” and “Generations.” “Land” focuses on the significance of the physical landscape in Heap of Birds’ Neuf series (1981–2012), which consists of abstract representations of the artist’s home on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation in Oklahoma. Anthes also discusses issues of sovereignty, displacement, and ecological destruction that continue to affect indigenous populations on their traditional lands, arguing for an understanding of the artist’s work as political landscapes. The second chapter, “Words,” discusses a
large sample of pieces in which Heap of Birds uses language to subvert colonial narratives. From public installations such as Death from the Top (1983), which confronts the United States’ “historical amnesia” (p. 95) about the Washita Massacre in 1868, to paintings such as Indian Sill Target Obama Bin Laden Geronimo (2011), Heap of Birds uses the English language to confront historical injustices toward American Indians. Anthes persuasively argues that works such as these are powerful weapons against the colonial narrative: “Like language, history is often a weapon wielded by the conqueror. [Heap of Birds’ work] invites a conversation about power . . . and the performative power of language to sharpen and define experience” (p. 116). Anthes dedicates the third chapter to “Histories,” emphasizing how the artist’s work can be understood as “sharp rocks” and “symbolic or semiotic warfare” (p. 13) that help to bring Native American histories into public consciousness. This is seen not only in works
