Powwow Highway and Smoke Signals
Last night I watched Powwow Highway, a 1989 movies about two Native Americans who take a road trip to the southwest. That reminded me of , Sherman Alexie's 1998 movie about two Native Americans who take a road trip to the southwest. I found a very interesting and lengthy interview with Sherman Alexie in which he talks about the two movies:
Cineaste: Do you think Powwow Highway (1989) was one of the more worthy previous efforts?
Alexie: When it came out, I loved it, and I saw it three times at the Micro Movie House in Moscow, Idaho. But I saw it again on Bravo recently and, after working on this film, and seeing what we could do, Powwow Highway now seems so stereotypical. The performances are fine, but it trades in so many stereotypes, from standing in a river singing, to going up on a mountaintop to get a vision, and the generic AlM political activism. Every stereotypical touchstone of a contemporary Indian art film is there. Two scenes especially really made me cringe. When Philbert goes up on a mountain, he's supposed to leave something that means so much to him, and he leaves a Hershey bar! Then there's the scene with A Martinez, as Buddy Red Bow, where the police car's coming, and Buddy has a piece of metal or something in his hand. He jumps in the air, and there's this brief flash shot of him dressed in the full costume of an Indian warrior, throwing a tomahawk, and I just thought, "Oh God!"
Our expectations of movies about Indians were so low then that we embraced a movie like Powwow Highway simply because there was no other option. Looking back, Thunderheart is a far superior movie, just in terms of its representation. I mean, it's a generic white guy saves the day movie, but I think it's better in terms of its representation of contemporary Indians. Except for John Trudell changing into a deer [laughs]. I've never seen an Indian turn into a deer. I mean, I know thousands of Indians, I've been an Indian my whole life, and I've yet to see an Indian turn into an animal! And I know some very traditional Indian folks.
And also:
- Cineaste: Would you comment on the screenplay's semiautobiographical elements?
Alexie: My friend and I took a trip to Phoenix, Arizona, to pick up his father's remains. At the Sundance Festival, quite a few people asked, "Were you influenced by Powwow Highway?," because that film's also about a trip by two Indian guys to the Southwest. "It wasn't really an influence," I said, "unless you can say that my friend's father died because of Powwow Highway." The basic creative spark for Smoke Signals came from the trip I took with my friend. It's not my friend's story, but I placed my characters within that framework of going to pick up a father's remains. That's how the short story came about. It's more about my relationship with my father than about my friend's relationship with his father. My father is still alive, but he's had to struggle with alcoholism, as I have. It's also about the struggle within myself of being this storytelling geek like Thomas, as well as this big jock masculine guy like Victor, so it's a sort of schizophrenic multiple personality of myself that I develop within the movie.