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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2003 |
Special Musical Presentations Event presented in cooperation with Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
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| Film Title |
REDSKIN |
| Alternative Title 1 |
ORGOGLIO |
| Alternative Title 2 |
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| Alternative Title 3 |
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| Country |
USA |
| Release Date |
1929 |
| Production Co. |
Paramount |
| Director |
Victor Schertzinger |
| Format |
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Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
|
24 |
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| Footage |
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Time |
| 7402 ft |
|
82' |
| Archive Source |
Library of Congress |
| |
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| Print Notes |
b/w & Technicolor.
Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles. |
| Cast |
| Richard Dix, Gladys Belmont, Jane Novak, Larry Steers, Tully Marshall, Bernard Siegel, George Rigas, Augustina Lopez, Noble Johnson, Joseph W. Girard, Jack Duane, Andrew J. Callaghan, Myra Kinch, Philip Anderson, Lorraine Rivero, George Walker, Paul Panzer |
| |
| Other Credits |
| story/sc.: Elizabeth Pickett; ph. (b/w): Edward Cronjager, Harry Hallenberger; ph. (Technicolor): Ray Rennahan, Edward Estabrook; asst. dir.: Henry Hathaway; didascalie/titles: Julian Johnson; ed.: Otto Lovering; partitura orig. / orig. music score (1929): J.S. Zamecnik |
| |
| Other Information |
data dist. / released 23.2.1929.
Musica composta ed eseguita da / Music composed and performed by
National Braid: Laura Ortman (violino/violin, campionatore/sampler), Brad Kahlhamer (chitarra/guitar).
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| Program Notes |
Dissatisfied with The Vanishing American (1925), Richard Dix had another chance to play an Indian when Paramount embarked on Redskin. It had the advantage of Technicolor, and, at the initial showing, Magnascope. The Technicolor was only used for scenes on the reservation; the rest of it was in monochrome (tinted). Henry Hathaway said that this had nothing to do with aesthetics. It was purely financial. The production was more expensive than the front office had anticipated, and Schertzinger was ordered to complete it in black-and-white. Schertzinger transformed a potential catastrophe into an asset. The documentary scenes are all in colour, and include footage of Acoma, the Pueblo stronghold that Robert Flaherty attempted to film for Fox.
Victor Schertzinger, a veteran of Inceville, was an excellent director (and a noted musician) sadly ignored by film history. At the end of his career (he died in 1941) he directed two of the Crosby-Hope Road pictures.
Story and scenario were by Elizabeth Pickett, who had made propaganda pictures for the Red Cross, and was one of the few people to win the confidence of the Pueblo Indians. They had allowed her to make documentary films in 1925. The story was inspired by Jim Thorpe, the Indian runner - the college is called Thorpe - and it does not avoid the racial issue.
Louise Brooks was originally scheduled to play the girl: "I made a test with Richard Dix. But I wouldn't put on those hideous Indian make-ups, and my wig backwards. So they said, 'To punish you, you have to play in The Canary Murder Case. You will simply be the dame that gets shot.' I said, 'That's okay. I ain't going to no Indian reservation, boy, not with Richard Dix. He always had a hangover..." Paramount had a hard time finding a girl who looked Indian without make-up. They claimed to have tested over 200 women before settling on an unknown, Gladys Belmont.
While working on a documentary on Buster Keaton in California in l986, I was telephoned by a Julie Randall. She didn't want to be interviewed, although she said she had "worked extra" for Keaton. She had been "Gladys Belmont" and had got the part in Redskin by accident. She told me that the conditions on location in New Mexico were miserable: "Unbearable heat, living in tents, sand and cactus. Getting on top of the plateau meant you had to go hand over hand up a cleft in the cliff. To beat the hot sun we had to leave for location at 6:30 a.m. The Indians were co-operative, but you couldn't use a snapshot camera. How they got them to face the motion picture camera I never found out."-Kevin Brownlow
Our score for Redskin was created mainly in just a few weeks, and continually grows and metamorphoses through each performance. We re-veiwed the film, picking out highlights, characters, and textures, came up with a theme song, and the rest was pure inspiration off the film. The film really speaks to Brad and me because we were both adopted. It's like trying to fit in Native America through the language of music. The film's main character is taken of the reservation, educated in the 'white' world, and comes back to the reservation with lots of complications, which ultimately resolve. We understand the clash of cultures, and we feel his predicament." - Laura Ortman
National Braid, an alternative country band with a Native flavor, was formed after Native American musicians Brad Kahlhamer and Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) met at the American Indian Community House in New York City. National Braid has performed in New York, London, Paris, and Prague, and has also completed an album of original songs.
The teaming of National Braid in 2002 with the 1929 Paramount film Redskin produced a haunting score, which has been described as "reminiscent of the impact of Neil Young's soundtrack for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man". Their live musical score for Redskin was premiered at the Native Cinema Showcase in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2002, through the help of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian and Taos Talking Pictures, and has since been performed to enthusiastic audiences at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City and Febiofest in Prague.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, since 1997, Laura Ortman has taught art in elementary schools, worked on series of drawings and sculptures, and collaborated with several artists for live performances, dance, and film music.
Musician and singer songwriter Brad Kahlhamer is also an internationally renowned painter, based in New York City. In the last two years, he has exhibited in Milan, London, Brussels, Seoul, and Santa Fe. - Laura Ortman |
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