ABSTRACT

This article explores the complexities of film authorship in relation to the 1972 film House Made of Dawn. Produced and directed by Richardson Morse, a non-Indigenous director, House Made of Dawn occupies a somewhat awkward position within scholarship on Indigenous Cinema. Using the film as a case study, this paper draws on Barry Barclay’s idea of Indigenous Cinema as the camera in the hands of Indigenous filmmakers to unpack notions of film authorship. The paper suggests that the answer to the question of who holds the camera is not always a simple one by drawing on interviews between Joanna Hearne and key figures in the filmmaking team of House Made of Dawn. In particular, this article argues that determinations of authorship must also consider the film’s source text by Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday as well as the input of lead actor Larry Littlebird. Failure to consider these forms of authorship serves to undermine Indigenous approaches to storytelling in favour of a Western model and subsequently undermines the input of the Indigenous authors of the film.

摘要

本文探讨了与 1972 年电影《黎明之屋》相关的电影作者身份的复杂性。由非原住民导演理查森·莫尔斯 (Richardson Morse) 制作和导演的《黎明之屋》在原住民电影学术界占据了一个有点尴尬的位置。本文以电影为案例研究，借鉴了巴里·巴克莱 (Barry Barclay) 将土著电影作为土著电影制作人手中的相机的想法，以解开电影作者的概念。该论文通过借鉴乔安娜·赫恩 (Joanna Hearne) 与《黎明之屋》电影制作团队中的关键人物之间的访谈，表明谁拿着相机的问题的答案并不总是那么简单。. 特别是，本文认为作者身份的确定还必须考虑 Kiowa 作家 N. Scott Momaday 的电影源文本以及男主角 Larry Littlebird 的投入。不考虑这些形式的作者身份会破坏原住民讲述故事的方法，而偏向于西方模式，并随后破坏了电影原住民作者的投入。