'Coming to Light' does Edward Curtis justice
Film review by Wishelle Banks, Outpost staff
From the sacred Piegan Sun Dance in Montana to the
silhouette of Southwestern mesas, prolific Seattle "society
photographer" Edward
S. Curtis was -- and
remains -- the premiere documentarian of American Indians,
capturing on film the life ways of his wary subjects. Even
now, nearly 50 years after his death, Curtis continues to be
indisputably ahead-of-his-time.
Filmmaker Anne Makepeace ("Thousands Pieces of Gold," "Ishi: Last of the Yahi") brings the "self-made photographer" to brilliant light with her in-depth documentary, "Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians" (1999, 86 minutes, color), which screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.
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But it was the workaholic's curiosity of and respect for "the vanishing race" that kept him up late at night, voraciously reading, researching and typing request-for-funding letters that would enable him to continue his impelling pursuit of photographing Native men, women and children -- "the Indian mystique" that had lost its luster for most of his audience by the 1930s. It's no secret, though, that Indian people were initially reluctant to be photographed, because they feared that the camera would capture their spirits. Curtis diligently cultivated friendships that allowed him to earn the trust of his subjects, who ultimately let their guard down long enough to make history, timeless portraits that are still selling today.
Additionally, speculation and controversy has arisen over the years that many of Curtis's masterpieces were nothing more than staged scenarios. Makepeace diplomatically sets the record straight by presenting both sides of delicate issues surrounding the expert photographer, demonstrating how the same shirt appeared on 10 different subjects in separate photographs, suggesting that the shirt must have belonged to Curtis himself.
In the Pacific Northwest, Curtis -- clad in hip waders to get the shot -- persuaded the Kwakutil people to create traditional-looking props and vignettes for his "ridiculously commercial" film, an industry Curtis himself called " a circus kind of business." The unrelenting photographer -- who by that time fancied himself a director -- actually rented a dead whale for a scene, then, in a fit of frustration, tossed his film into the water, only to demand yet another take.
Curtis rose to prominence and even fame -- then endured a public fall from grace under the pressure of his crumbling personal life, a bittersweet period in the artist's life that surely outweighed the one ton of equipment he hauled from reservation to reservation. His constant absences forced Clara, his wife of 25 years, to file for divorce. Daughter Beth was so angry with her mother that she shattered glass negatives in Curtis's studio in an effort to prevent her mother from profiting from them. Returning from an Alaskan assignment, Curtis was promptly arrested for failing to pay alimony to Clara and his four children -- and headlines blared. Weeping before the judge in a courtroom, Curtis implored, "this is my life's work."
Emotionally, physically and financially devastated, Curtis was over 60 when he moved to Colorado, where photography took a supporting role in his life. "No one wants to listen to the wailing of lost souls," he said. Curtis invented and patented a gold-mining device and completed the final volume for "The North American Indian" (which, after the Smithsonian Institution declined to support, had been funded by wealthy businessman J. Pierpont Morgan), but in the post-crash economy, there was little fanfare. Curtis died at his daughter Beth's Los Angeles home in 1952.
Twenty years later, an employee at a Boston public library found hundreds of Curtis's photographs in the basement.
"A lot of the sets were broken up and sold individually," Makepeace told the Sundance audience following the screening of the film, which received funding from the National Endowment for Humanities.
Ultimately, his 30-year career produced "some 40,000 photographs, 10,000 audio recordings, a full-length motion picture and…his magnum opus, 'The North American Indian.'"
Director/producer/screenwriter Anne Makepeace has done total justice to the myth and the man that Edward S. Curtis was. "Coming to Light" is a thoroughly researched masterpiece of its own, honoring the man whose portraits continue to honor the beauty and glory of American Indians.
Curtis would be proud.
For another site on Curtis, go to edwardcurtis.com.
Posted
March 10, 2000
Copyright 2000, Nevada Outpost
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