December 01, 2007

No Bury My Heart for Eyre

Eyre Talks of New Movie, Hollywood StereotypesAs a filmmaker, he said, he has avoided creating movies that depict Native people as victims of manifest destiny, a theme too often explored by Hollywood.

"It's a literally romantic notion to see Native people dying," he said.
Some people didn't like his Skins:"People were really upset about the portrayal of Native Americans in that movie," he said.

The difference between his portrayal of Rudy, the alcoholic brother, and other mainstream Hollywood portrayals of alcoholic Indians was that he showed Rudy as a human being, not just an alcoholic, he said.
The movie he'd like to do: For his next film project, Eyre wants to tackle a comedy.

"I'd like to do a re-make of 'Little Big Man,'" he said. "That was the best movie."
Comment:  I had no problem with the negative portrayals in Skins. Why is that? Because the characters were three-dimensional human beings...unlike, say, the characters in SCALPED.

Little Big Man wouldn't be my first, second, or third choice for a Native-themed movie to remake. It doesn't particularly need remaking. A remake of The Searchers, Cheyenne Autumn, or Buffalo Bill and the Indians would be better. Even Billy Jack (with a Native actor) would be better.

3 comments:

Carole said...

Just a quick correction:

The character of Rudy, played by Eric Schweig, was not an alcoholic. It was Graham Greene as Mogie who played the troubled, addicted older brother in "Skins."

writerfella said...

Writerfella here --
Not to mention the 'bad science' so clearly demonstrated in the film! Ahem! Liquor stores do not just burn, if set afire! they EXPLODE!!! Oops...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'

Anonymous said...

"Liquor stores do not just burn, if set afire! they EXPLODE!!!"

Not if they sell mainly beer.