Thunderheart scribe saves horses
RANDOM THOUGHTS: The story of another Trail of TearsScreenwriter John Fusco owns Red Road Farm and he is working to preserve this horse descended from the Colonial Spanish Horse, America's first horse. The breed developed on the Arabian deserts, eventually moved to Spain and, during the 15th and 16th centuries, they were brought to the New World by Columbus and the Conquistadores.
As an adult, his writing featured Indian stories and the films Hidalgo and Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmarron were based on those stories. When he worked on Thunderheart he became very close with the respected elder at Pine Ridge and he learned to speak the Lakota language. He was adopted into the tribe.
8 comments:
Writerfella here --
writerfella always has admired the film, THUNDERHEART, though his appreciation was more for the intentions of the screenplay rather than for its eventual execution. As with the scene in POWWOW HIGHWAY where Buddy is puzzled to find himself following Philbert into a cold mountain stream to greet the dawn, Fusco's part-Native character is fraught with 'racial memories' that his non-Native side refuses to acknowledge. Like Mr. Spock, the intermix lends itself to make the character more interesting than he might have been otherwise. Fusco himself took the trouble to become a 'renegade', wishing so much that he was Native that he pushed aside all the identities he had had to that point. This comes across in the screenplay, THUNDERHEART, in the character of Ray Levoi, who is as much rejecting his Native side as the author was wishing that he had one. Even in HIDALGO, the part-Native character is empowered by nis Native side and wins the day because of it. writerfella admires John Fusco most extremely, as both writers are attempting to speak the same filmic languages in the same ways...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
I think Thunderheart is still the best of Fusco's screenplays. The critics and I have pointed out the flaws in such works as Hidalgo and Dreamkeeper.
Of course, it's odd that the non-Native Fusco was able to get it right. Didn't you say that non-Natives (e.g., Tony Hillerman) could never get it right?
Writerfella here --
One of writerfella's 'Four Word Rules of Life' is this: Rule Five - There are FEW absolutes...
Heretofore in this blogsite, writerfella has indicated that Frank Herbert, R. A. Lafferty, and Howard Waldrop were non-Native writers who 'got it right'. The properties that writerfella acknowledged were Herbert's SOUL CATCHER, Lafferty's OKLA HANNALI and his short story "Narrow Valley", and Waldrop's two short stories "Custer's Last Jump" and "Green Brother". Hillerman attempts to write Native characters but does not have the consciousness to be able to have his characters THINK like Natives, period. That is what you refer to, Rob, but once again, YOU got it wrong...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Perhaps you misspoke when you commented as follows on my posting of 10/14/06:
"Hillerman's characters DO NOT THINK LIKE NATIVES AT ALL. And the reason is, Hillerman isn't Native."
Because this implies that no one can think like a Native unless he or she is a Native. If you meant to say that this problem was limited to Hillerman--that non-Native writers like Fusco and me can think like Natives--you should've said so.
In fact, you've denied this possibility before. This same posting is the one where you invented the concept of racial memories in an unsuccessful attempt to explain yourself. Quoting you again:
"The best I can do in expository terms is to say it is an almost-instinctive ability, sort of a genetic racial memory."
So which writers have this "genetic racial memory"? You? Hillerman? Fusco? Herbert? Lafferty? Waldrop? Me? Please specify which of these seven writers has the genetic racial memory you claimed is necessary to think like a Native and write like a Native.
Writerfella here --
Incorrect! And here is where you got it wrong, Rob! Who ELSE besides Hillerman gets mentioned by writerfella in the same sentences and breaths? Unh-unh! Oh, I'm sorry, there's Beulah The Buzzer! You don't win the lounge suite and we will have our agents hanging around to seize your first-born child. But play with us again, if you must!
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
I said, "Please specify which of these seven writers has the genetic racial memory you claimed is necessary to think like a Native and write like a Native," and you responded, "Incorrect!" This is called a non sequitur, Russ. It's also called non-responsive, evasive, and intellectually dishonest--at least by me. Try again:
Which writers have this "genetic racial memory"? You? Hillerman? Fusco? Herbert? Lafferty? Waldrop? Me? Please specify which of these seven writers has the genetic racial memory you claimed is necessary to think like a Native and write like a Native.
I think it's funny that since you invented the concept of "genetic racial memories" a few months ago, you've never repeated or even owned up to your own words. Is that because you find them as embarrassingly vague as I do? What's your current stance on whether someone must have a "genetic racial memory" or an "awareness granted by heredity" to understand what being an Indian is?
Writerfella here --
One thing is obvious, EuroMan ALWAYS has obeyed HIS genetic racial memories, that he wishes to destroy any or all other racial or sub-species group that is not his, period. That imperative has been demonstrated all too often throughout ancient and recent history. Too bad that EuroMan does not realize that, in the current climate of global warming and decrease in ozone in the upper atmosphere, his people will suffer first and foremost because they are white from living on the edges of the Arctic Circle during the last Ice Age. Lacking protective skin pigmentation whatsoever (freckles don't count), they will be the first to suffer massive skin cancers and other maladies from increased exposure to solar radiation. Cleverness cannot replace evolutionary design. Thus may be explained why the White Man struggles so hard to be brown and why there are so many tanning parlors or members of his race laying on sunlit beaches. He at least subliminally knows what is coming, more or less through his own terraforming of the world as we have come to know it...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Interesting if non-responsive, again.
Actually, "EuroMan" learned about destroying things from his culture, just as Indians have learned from their cultures. It didn't come from your imaginary "genetic racial memories."
So which writers have the "genetic racial memories" necessary to think and write like a Native? You? Hillerman? Fusco? Herbert? Lafferty? Waldrop? Me? Please specify which of these seven writers qualifies.
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