In the Land of the War Canoes

Okay, first off, check the date - "In the Land of the Head Hunters" is a reconstructed and remastered print of a film made in 1914, by Edward S. Curtis, known mostly now as a photographer and ethnographer. As such, it is entirely of its time - i.e., racist, sexist and certainly specious in its depiction of a First Nations people. But valuable for all of that. The story line, for what it's worth, concerns a young son of a tribal chief who does his manhood rituals, falls in love and marries the daughter of another tribe's chieftain; this upsets the Sorceror, brother of yet another tribal chief who wanted the girl for himself - mayhem ensues, mostly in canoes but also on land, until eventually the good guy prevails. It's simplistic and definitely racist - the people are portrayed as quaintly primitive, the women are completely subservient to the men, and the main occupation of the tribes involves war and cutting off the heads of enemies.

Given that this is actually set in the Pacific Northwest, between Washington State, USA, and British Columbia, Canada, the whole head- hunting aspect is completely off. Not to mention the "primitive" label - these peoples were highly sophisticated, just not in a form recognized (at the time) by Europeans. But the positives in this film are quite striking too. First of all, the actors are all actual members of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation, from Vancouver Island, and the costumes, totem poles and especially the special dances are all authentic. The story, by white director Curtis, is worthless; as a bit of filmed historical information, however, the movie is quite valuable. Many scenes were lost over the past 100 years, and the restorers opted to insert still photographs (also by Curtis, of the same people) to bridge the gaps, which doesn't work all that well dramatically, but is again useful as an historical artifact; they also were able to restore the original orchestral soundtrack, which adds drama to this silent movie. Certainly not for everyone, but film historians and anthropologists might find something of value here.

In 1914, famed photographer Edward Curtis (1868-1952) produced this melodramatic, silent film. The first feature-length film to exclusively star Native North Americans (eight years before Robert Flaherty made his documentary "Nanook of the North"), it features non- professional actors from Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) communities in British Columbia—a people already famous then for their spectacular visual culture and performances. The film was only screened a few times on both coasts, accompanied by a live musical score composed by John Braham (1848-1919; best known for his work with Gilbert and Sullivan in New York) that was based in part on Curtis's c.1910 wax-cylinder field recordings of songs and chants. A critical success but a financial disappointment, Curtis quickly abandoned it.

The film was largely forgotten for decades until it was restored and re-edited around 1970 by Bill Holm and George Quimby, at which point its name was changed to "In the Land of the War Canoes." This version is marked by a slightly restructured narrative, the addition of new, less sensational inter-titles, and a new Kwakwaka'wakw-produced soundtrack of music, sound effects, and dialog (it is currently released by Milestone Films). Until now, all contemporary scholars have relied upon this re-edited version in their appraisals and analyses of Curtis's film.

Recently, Brad Evans has examined the original, silent cut of the film (via a black and white, 16mm copy at the Field Museum in Chicago, the same that Holm and Quimby used), which retains Curtis's narrative structure and inter-titles (see bibliography below). In addition, the UCLA Film and TV Archive (Los Angeles) has discovered three nitrate reels from the original film—complete with extensive tinting and toning as well as a whole scene absent from the Field copy—which have never been examined by film scholars. Meanwhile, Aaron Glass located the original musical score (at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles), and the original Curtis field recordings (at the Archive of Traditional Music in Bloomington, Indiana). None of this material has been presented publicly since 1915.

A project is now underway to reunite the film with the music commissioned for it (and the Native music which inspired that), and present it at screenings in the summer of 2008 with the involvement of indigenous people who participated in its making. The project promises to restore a number of important, historical elements to better contextualize Curtis's original vision for his film: its title, inter-titles, melodramatic narrative, tinted colors, and music. At the same time, presenting the film today with current Kwakwaka'wakw performers will reframe the film from being a document of the "vanishing races" to being visual evidence of cultural survival during the colonial era.

For more information, see www.curtisfilm.rutgers.edu.

In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914)

** (out of 4)

Director Edward S. Curtis took his cameras to Vancouver Island where he wanted to film the Kwakiutl Indian tribe. This film isn't a documentary but an attempt to take their beliefs and turn them into a fictional film. The story centers around Motana, a man sent off to do a spiritual dance when he sees a vision of his future wife. He eventually runs into this woman but she's been offered to an evil sorcerer.

IN THE LAND OF THE HEAD HUNTERS was at one point in the 70s re-released with altered scenes, an added vocal soundtrack and other trimmings but thankfully the folks at Milestone attempted to get the movie back to its original version or at least as close to it as possible. The film is fairly hard to judge because they had two incomplete and very badly damaged prints to work with and sadly a lot of the film is still missing and has been replaced with title cards.

Overall the film isn't all that good but it's an interesting one to watch. I say this because it is fascinating to see the various Kwakiutl beliefs including the stuff dealing with the man going out to do his spiritual thing. This of course leads to how women are bought and sold. These things are rather interesting and it's really too bad that these things weren't presented in a documentary instead of a feature. As a film this thing really doesn't offer us anything fresh or original for the time. The performances aren't memorable or very good either.

If you're a silent film buff it's certainly worth watching this once but there's really not too much here.

Land of the War Canoes is a black and white silent film remastered in 1973. Mainly they added a sound track. All the dialogue is in Kwakiutl without subtitles. The film is in terrible shape. It needs modern day digital retouching to fix the wildly fluctuating exposure levels and age damage.

It is a surprisingly long film. The plot is two tribes warring over a female. It has sorcery, head hunting, whale hunting, many tipped canoes.

The best parts are the athletic dancers in clever costumes to mimic various birds, animals and insects.

Everybody looks the same, so it hard to keep track of who is fighting whom.

The main value of the film is how alien it is. None of the attitudes, dress, food, customs... is familiar. The beauty of the film comes from the many elegant war canoes.

I really would not venture to give this silent film a score--it is not a film in the traditional sense and probably has very little value to the average viewer. However, at the same time it IS of tremendous value to anthropologists, ethnographers and the like, as it records a way of life that has long disappeared--even if the manner in which it is presented is less than satisfying.

In 1914, Edward S. Curtis released a documentary film about the Kwakiutl Indians--a tribe living near Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest. However, this film was later cut apart and pieced together in the early 1970s and music, sound effects and native dialog were clumsily added. I was not able to see the original version and I doubt if it is available (another reviewer said this is a restoration work in progress).

Style wise, the film is very old fashioned. Like only the early films, intertitle cards described (at length) what was about to happen in the following scenes instead of telling as or after the events occurred. This made viewing a tad tedious. Also, the story about Indian wars and violence seemed artificial (as it was) and I have no idea if the Kwakiutl ever hunted heads or behaved the way they do in the film--as instead of a true documentary, the end product is a romanticized version of the tribe. This damages the value of the film for professors from the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania and the like--all schools that have large and well-respected Ethnographic/Anthropological Studies departments. But, at the same time, as it DOES show native dances, costumes, animal costumes and the like, it is like gold to these same people. To the average non-academic, however, the films are probably of little lasting interest--though I know that this would disappoint many.

To me, this was mildly interesting as I am a true cinemaniac and my daughter studies this sort of stuff in college and has infused some of her enthusiasm in me....a bit. But, I certainly would not like a steady diet of this sort of film. As for me, I prefer later and better presented films like "Nanook of the North".