@deanduncan63Saw #CircleoftheSun. Here’s Documentary’s prime directive, which is to give a voice to the voiceless. Paternalistic? Presumptuous? Maybe, slightly …
… inevitably. But groundbreakers can’t do the fine carpentry work too. One step at a time—one giant leap, in this case. On giants’ shoulders.
#CircleoftheSun. Gorgeous technical credits, w’ the Board’s awesome Unit B (Low, Spotton, Daly, Rathburn et al.), firing on all cylinders.
Watch it: https://www.nfb.ca/film/circle-of-the-sun
Circle of the Sun has a sequel, of sorts, catching up w’ Pete Standing Alone, the subject of the 1st film, 20 yrs. or so down the road …
… It’s here: https://www.nfb.ca/film/standing_alone
#StandingAlone. Much more relaxed, free & fluid than Circle of the Sun. Not as pioneering, but probably more profound, more true …
… mostly because the redoubtable Pete is no longer a project/symbol. He truly collaborates, charismatically, wisely, wittily. In fact, movie star!
#StandingAlone. A beautiful Robert Flaherty-fed doc, while addressing all of John Grierson’s concerns about …
… Flaherty’s (1920’s/30’s) Romantic flights. This film’s—well, clearly, its Pete’s—salvage ethnography is very much …
… aware of modernity and its benefits/complications. Flaherty’s seal battle in “Nanook” (1922) is a superb sleight-of-hand …
… Pete’s buffalo hunt utterly exposes that previously effaced artifice, & by so doing so goes so much deeper! Incalculably great.
Saw #RoundUp. This last Pete Standing Alone film (not directed by Colin Low, mind you, but by Narcisse Blood …
… a pioneering Native artist and academic in his own right) is a welcome epilogue …
… but it sure reflects all the endless rounds of systematic budget cuts! Alas, #NFB. Alas, Western Democracies!
Here’s that film: https://www.nfb.ca/film/round_up
Final reflections on the National Film Board of Canada’s Pete Standing Alone trilogy …
#PeteStandingAlone is a beautiful illustration of the Old Testament’s concluding warning/promise in Malachi 4: 5-6. The amazing thing is that, if & since …
… you’re not a Native American, this particular heart-turning isn’t just lineal, or proprietary. Doesn’t the House of Israel (eventually) = the Brotherhood of Man?
#PeteStandingAlone real life-traces that O.S. Card/Ender/self-and-other moral trajectory. Enemies, first feared & hated …
… eventually even obliterated; extinct enemy re-considered, comprehended, and then quite naturally & inevitably, best beloved.
#PeteStandingAlone. Why we need subsidy, part one million. Free markets don’t hardly produce, aren’t hardly interested …
… in this kind of material. Mixed economies, please!
So good, I’m going to go so far as to say that the #PeteStandingAlone trilogy should be declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.