Re-imagining Nature and American Indian Identity in Film

Abstract

Whether in terms of aesthetics, production, or consumption, llm is a preeminent art form of modernity. American Indian and other Indigenous peoples have played a pivotal role in its development. In US llms with American Indian themes, the constellation of nature and religion is saturated with political meaning: white settlers delne their identity through the conquest of a presumably untamed and sparsely populated wilderness paradise, whereas Indigenous efforts aim at portraying nature as rightful homeland and the site of contested colonial invasion. New llms about the era of boarding schools accentuate the clash of culture and religion and the portrayal of nature as a zone of historical encounter.