On Friday night, November 14th, at the American Museum of Natural History here in the NYC the Margaret Mead Film Festival began it’s program with a screening of a restored print of controversial photographer Edward S Curtis’ In the Land of the Head Hunters. The film was accompanied by an all-indigenous live orchestra put together by violinist, Laura Ortman.

A slide show and opening presentation by the descendants of the original cast preceded the screening. It was quite touching to hear the positive words of the current chief of the Kwakwakaa’wakw people who were Curtis’ collaborators in the film. He expressed gratitude for the film’s resurrection and the exhibition to a near capacity crowd in New York City. I was surprised to hear him say as much considering many believe, myself included, that Curtis’ work with the native people of North America was exploitative. However if you could see your great great uncle when he was a young strappin’ man dancing around a prayer fire in a vintage print, even if a jingoistic quasi-racist white man made it, I guess you’d have a different opinion.

As an interested observer, especially of narrative tropes in film history, I was surprised to see that the essential plot of Curtis’ film was “Boy meets Girl, Boy gets Girl, Boy loses Girl, Boy gets Girl in the end.” What we have here is the first iteration of a chick flick, but with an all Indian cast. Though Curtis’ photographic works have always been viewed as documentarian he never intended to make a documentary film, but rather a narrative that would stand out in the glutted market of the “Indian Pictures” popular at the time. He sought to do so by promoting his film as “more authentic” by dint of the on location shoot and the all-Native cast. Though critically praised at the time it was a commercial flop. I guess we had to wait for Kevin Costner to give us Dances with Wolves before any film boasting an authentic Indian location and cast could be commercially viable?

The score is of special interest because it is evocative of the time when a live orchestra played along with the film. This particular score, produced by John J Braham - an Englishman closely associated with vaudeville and Gilbert and Sullivan operas, was supposed to have been directly influenced by Kwakwaka’wakw music. Trust me it wasn’t. It was amusingly vaudevillian, at times laughable, but for the improvised indigenous and percussive elements added by the all Native orchestra. I spoke with a few of the members afterwards. Saxophonist, Vince Redhouse, told me he thought at times he was playing to cartoon episode of Mighty Mouse instead of a landmark silent film. In all fairness the original score was missing key musical elements (e.g. the conductor’s score) therefore matching the score to what is in fact an incomplete film (stills from an unearth second print were added to fill out the more complete, but damaged version) is somewhat impossible and entirely dependent on the conductor’s interpretation. And, that brings us to the Coast Orchestra.

Laura Ortman first heard about the resurrection of the film from a contact at the National Museum of the American Indian. Believing it a crucial point to have an all-indigenous orchestra perform the score along with the film she set out to find a talented pool of classically trained musicians. Though a daunting task (classical music and Indians does seem like an oxymoron) Laura was not discouraged, and though the going was slow, she did prevail. To that end, if there were any doubts that Native musicians are just as talented playing classical instruments as they are hand drums, this group of highly trained sophisticates should put them to rest.

The orchestra, led by conductor Timothy Long, was precise in it’s interpretation of the score, yet belied an indigenized sensibility to the arrangement by adding percussive instrumentation where there was none in the original, as well as, traditional native singers. In fact, the original score called for a thirteen-piece orchestra but Laura was only able to find ten high quality, and willing, musicians. However they managed to fill out the score by adding piano accompaniment and re-working the wind arrangements by replacing the trumpet with saxophone to provide a more evocative sound. Though at times the original string arrangements were silly (only because of the obvious vaudeville roots) the overall effect was provocative and certainly laid to rest any notions that Native people are only attracted to instruments like, the flute, or the aforementioned hand drum.

This was a landmark experience, not only for the mostly Caucasian audience, but for the musicians and descendants of the Kwakwaka’wakw because they circumvented the long held dogma that places native people in an a-historical past settling themselves fully in the 21st century, and without having to sacrifice their cultural and creative inclinations. Let’s hope to hear more from this talented group of musicians.

For more information on Edward S Curtis and his film please visit: www.curtisfilm.rutgers.edu

For more information on the Coast Orchestra please visit: www.myspace.com/thecoastorchestra

To listen to Longview’s interview with violinist and Native music advocate, Laura Ortman, Click the player below.

To see photos from this event visit our gallery page by clicking “gallery” up top of the blog.

All photos: M Colon

 Interview with Laura Ortman [13:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download