[Movie Clip]
David Hast: Scott, have you seen Smoke Signals?
Scott Vander Werf: I have seen Smoke Signals. I remember when it came out in 1998. I wanted to see it back then for whatever reason I didn't. And then I recently saw it and I loved it.
DH: Yeah, it's a really fun movie and a really moving movie. uh It is the,came out in 1998 and it's the first narrative feature film written, directed and co-produced by Native Americans. And since we just did three consecutive episodes before this where we wanted to look at the changing nature of Westerns, and we did a Western from the40s, a Western from the 50s, and a Western from the 60s, I decided considering the horrible portrayal of Native Americans for most of movie history, it seemed like a good time to look at a movie where Indians finally had control of the production.
SVW: And it's interesting that it took this long up till 1998. So many other communities outside of Hollywood have--they're the African American filmmaking ventures going back to the 30s and the 40s. So it's interesting that it took this long.
DH: That's true. There were no movies, I mean, that I know of, there might be something incredibly obscure, but there were no movies that we know of that were made in Hollywood or around Hollywood in the 30s, 40s, 50s. I mean, when did…? this is it. This is really the first one. There was Powwow Highway, right? When was that, about 10 years before this? But they weren't Native Americans in control, even though by then, by the 80s, you cast, if there were Native American characters, you cast Native American actors, but it wasn't their scripts or their direction.
SVW: And this is based on a short story from Sherman Alexi,
DH: It's actually based on a collection of short stories. His first book called The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven.
SVW: Now you read the book from what I thought that it was just based on one of the stories in the book, but it's based on more than one of the stories.
DH: Yeah, it's not at all based on one story. The book has the same characters,the characters, Victor and Thomas reappear multiple times as well as some of the other people in it.And it's just, he took bits from many of the stories.It's an autobiographical or semi autobiographical collection of stories. It's really Alexei's way of using fiction to tell his own story. And the characters Victor and Thomas, the two main characters in this, have elements of Sherman Alexei in both of them.
SVW: And this is what's referred to a lot of times as a fix-up novel, where there areinterlinked short stories that provide an overarching theme ornarrative plot.
DH: Yeah. So the story, you know, I referred to Westerns because that's where you mostly saw Native Americans. I guess this isn't technically a Western. It's more of a road movie. But I still think of it uh as a response to the Western for sure.They talk specifically, they mention John Wayne, they talk aboutportrayals of Indians in Hollywood.And it does take place in the West. So the story is, it takes place on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, which is in Idaho. And the movie was shot in Idaho and Washington.
SVW: It was also shot somewhat in Canada as well.
DH: Oh, OK. It's about two characters who are in their early20s, Victor Joseph and Thomas. Thomas's last name is Builds the Fire. And they're the main characters. They've known each other all their lives because Arnold Joseph, Victor's father, saved Thomas, they were both infants. They were like newborn babies. They were born around the same time to different families. But Victor's father saved Thomas from a burning house and both of Thomas's parents were killed in this fire. So Thomas was raised by his grandmother.Victor, he’s the son of the guy who saved Thomas. He and Arlene, Arnold Joseph and Arlene, Victor's mother and father are...alcoholics and they fight a lot and when they're 12 they have a fight about drinking, and when Victor is 12 and Arnold leaves home for good. So they're contrasting characters. Victor, who's now been abandoned by his father and lives with his mother, he's handsome, he's athletic, he's a good basketball player, which is a real thing. Basketball, at least at this time, was big on, at least on the Coeur d'Alene Indian reservation. But he's really bitter.I mean, he's bitter. His father has left. He's seen his parents just live this terrible life.
SVW: He's holding a grudge.
DH: Yeah. Andhe's got a big chip on his shoulder. Thomasis a nerdy guy with glasses and a funny suit. um He's bookish and he's always telling stories. And Victor can't stand him and has picked on him all their lives, maybe just because...Native Americans are already different and he makes himself even more stand out.
SVW: Also, he challenges him a lot. There's the phrase, hey Victor. He's always saying,Victor.
DH: Right, and he's got this big grin, he's always coming on really strong and Victor is like, “what are you smiling about? Our life is terrible.” So the movie's a road movie, because what happens early on is they find out, we see a lot of flashbacks to their childhood and how they, even though they were born together and they're linked by this fire. Victor picks on nerdy Thomas a lot, but they find out that Arnold, Victor's father, who's left 10 years ago uh and is living in Arizona, has just died of a heart attack. So Victor and Thomas take the bus to Arizona. Victor ends up, he can't come up with enough money to getto Arizona. Thomas has got a jar full of coins and bills and he says, “I'll help you go. I'll pay for us to get down there, but you got to take me with you."And they make this road trip down to Arizona to get the ashes of Arnold uh and bring them back to the reservation.
SVW: And one of things should be pointed out is that Thomas thinks very positively about Victor's father, probably because he saved his life.But he also treated him nice as opposed to the way that the father treated the son.
DH: Yeah. And obviously living on an Indian reservation is really tough. mean, to this day, those are the, I think those are the poorest Americans, Native Americans living on reservations, highest level of unemployment, addiction, all kinds of terrible things. But Thomas, yeah, he was saved from this fire. He never knew his parents. So it didn't affect him. He was a baby and his grandmother is very kind and he was raised by her. So he's basically kind of a happy guy who tells stories, but poor Victor is very bitter. So basically what happens down there, I'm not going to give away the ending or the important stuff, but they meet this young woman named Susie Song, who's also a Native American from New York.And she had befriended Arnold down there.And she talks about how he always said he was going to go back home and she reveals some really important things about Arnold that are really important to the story, including who started the house fire, but she won't. Well, I won't reveal those and a lot of things she won't reveal. And Victor is like, who's this young, pretty thing, you know, and my father was this alcoholic who beat my mother and abused me as well. And he really didn't like her. And he's like, what's your relationship? What was your relationship with my father? And she says, we kept each other's secrets.
SVW: And she talks about him as being this really happy guy, nice guy, you know, oh and he's known in the community, he's known by the sheriff, who we would meet later, uh played by Tom Skerritt.
DH: Yeah. So, I mean, in many ways that it bears resemblance to other stories about, children with, estranged from their parents, divorced, and where that character is thought of nice, as a nice person by others, but the poor kid is like, no, he was awful. But I think most important about this movie, so the story, it's a road movie and it has this, you know, dealing, trying to resolve and get closure over these childhood traumas. Okay, much like many dramas. But what's different about this one is just the insight into Native American culture.
SVW: It's also very funny. And one of the things that uh Sherman Alexi has spoken about this, but other Native American writers have spoken about, you know, that...a lot of the portrayals of Native Americans in movies has been the tragedy, uh theviolence, alcoholism, and there's,as you've mentioned,there's violence and alcoholism here, but it's put within the context of real life as opposed to uh high drama. And also it shows the humor, how humorousand how humor uh lightens the load of living this life of poverty.
DH: Yeah, and Sherman Alexi is a very funny writerand he's gone to a lot of, he makes it a very big point that Native Americans have a lot of sense of humor. Humor is a big part of their culture, but it's the portrayal of Indians by, particularly in Westerns. I mean, there's only three kinds of Indians in Western, right? The most common one is the horrible, savage, murdering,know, the Indians that they're fighting. The other one is the Indians that somehow get assimilated a little like Tonto in Lone Ranger and Tonto.They start to live in white culture and they realize the best way is we're just gonna go along and have our place and they'll respect us and we'll respect them to some degree. And the third one is this sort of um the noble savage.
SVW: The noble enigma.
DH: Right, so they, yeah, they're in touch with nature and they know something we don't know but that cannot have anything to do with our culture. It's just, you know, they can go off and live on the mountaintop. But all three of those, no matter how they're portrayed in movies, they're humorless. They're always stoic andfrowning. And this movie shows there couldn't be anything further from the truth.
SVW: Although there's a great scene on the bus where Victoris uh telling Thomas that he,to wipe that grin off his face, and he's telling him to be stoic. He's telling him how to look, how to present his face to the white world.
DH: Right, because he says, uh if you don't look uh tough, white people will walk all over you. So he shows him this whole way of frowning and crossing his arms. And Thomas tries doing it, but he just can't do it.
SVW: And then in the following scene, there are two white men that steal their seat on the bus and force them to go to the back.But then their response is to start up the chant that is mocking John Wayne that they do very loudly that everybody else in the bus can hear.
DH: Right. Victor says, you notice when you see John Wayne in movies, you never see his teeth. And they start to sing this song about teeth. I don't know if that's totally true. can Google John Wayne and click on images and you'll see plenty of still photos of him where he's smiling and you see his teeth and they don't look weird or like I never saw this in the movie.
SVW: I think they're saying he's got wooden teeth.
DH: Yeah, what are they? Are they steel? Are they wood? But the scene before they get kicked back there and they fight back a little by doing this song um loudly for the whole bus to hear. But when those guys are taking their seats, we see how they really have to live in white society. There's no way they can challenge these two guys. These are just like two rednecks. They just sat down in their seats. They say really racist stuff to them and there's nothing they can do.
SVW: And they're two older men too.
DH: Right. It's not the symbol. The symbolism is pretty obvious when they have to go sit in the back of the bus.
SVW: So this is a great film. oh The performances, it really reeled me in the first few scenes.I'm enjoying it, but I'm not into it yet. But by within 15 minutes, and it's not a long movie, it's a 90 minute film. It's an hour and half within the next 15 minutes. I'm hooked.
DH: Yeah, it's really a great movie, a must see. And we should talk just a little bit about the actors. Like Gary Farmer, who plays the father, is to me one of the most famous Indian actors and he's in all kinds of stuff, including recently Reservation Dogs.
SVW: He began his career in 1982. He was in the Jim Jarmusch films, Dead Man and Ghost Dog, Way of the Warrior. And you mentioned to me before we started recording that his character's named, “Nobody,” and there's an actual scene in one of the flashbacks where uh the word nobody is used over and over again, and it's definitely an in-joke.
DH: It's an in-joke. It's a reference to the Jim Jarmusch film from 95, three years earlier, where his character is Nobody. He's like the spirit guide to Johnny Depp.
SVW: And if you look at both his television and his movie credits,they're huge. And uh he's a Canadian actor. In fact, all of the actors that are in the leads, lead roles are all Canadian, were born in Canada, except for Irene Bedard, who was born in Alaska.And she plays Susie Song. And uh Gary Farmer is big in Canada. He's a big star.
DH: Yeah. But you know, the fact that he's so big also speaks to the fact that, okay, after once you got to the seventies and later, you know, and Little Big Man and movies like that happen, now you finally, at least these movies will cast Native Americans in roles, but there are so few roles or just one meaty role in a movie that they found Gary Farmer was like the go-to guy, right? So it still says something that if you look at the filmographies of many Native American actors, until very recently, there isn't much for most actors.
SVW: Now, Tantoo Cardinal, who plays uh Thomas's grandmother, uh she was,no, actually she plays Victor's mother…uh She was in uh Dances with Wolves, Black Robe, Legends of the Fall. She played the mother of Lily Gladstone's character in Killers of the Flower Moon, the Scorsese film.And she started her acting career in 1978.And she's also Canadian. And so she's been in a huge amount of stuff, both in Canada and in the US.
DH: Yeah, so she and Gary Farmer would be in their 60s now, Iguess.
SVW: 70s, actually. Okay, yeah.
DH: But this movie, wouldn't you agree that...
SVW: You know, we haven't talked about Adam Beach the two the two main leads Adam Beach, this was not his first film, but it was his first big role, but he went on in the in the2000s He was in some very prominent movieswind talkers about the World War two codebreakers with Nicolas Cage and flags of our fathers the World War two movie directed by Clint Eastwood.
DH: Right, about Iwo Jima.
SVW: And he won awards, won acting awardsfor those.Yeah, he's a very recognizable face now. And then Evan Adams is interesting. He plays uh Thomas, and he, two years after, or four years after this movie was released, he got a medical degree. So he's a medical doctor, but he's continued being an actor and a playwright in Canada. He's also a gay activist for Native Americans in Canada as well.
DH: So wouldn't you say that this movie,mean, obviously we both would recommend it.wouldn't you say to people who haven't seen positive portrayals of Native Americans, this is a really good place to start?
SVW: This is a great start.
DH: Because it gives a lot of insight into that culture.
SVW: It also, mean, just in terms of movies, it’s a low budget film, but it’s made very... oh realistically it reminded me of so many different films that I thought it could have been made in the 70s or the even the80s not in terms of the Native American aspect of it but the road trip uh a road trip movie with this sort of aesthetic the cinema aesthetic reminds me of so many movies throughout that that 20 or 30 year period.
DH: Yeah it's got that kind of authentic feeling like they're making it as they go along andit's not all super polished which fits the story very well.
SVW: And this is a movie that I've been hearing again, hearing about since 1998 for whatever reason, not getting a chance to see it or not taking the initiative to see it. And now that I have, I love it.
DH: Great. Well, I hope other people can see it and love it too. Thanks, Scott.
SVW: Thank you.
