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Black Cloud| 139 Dear Diary: Justboughtabutt-loadofWhiteCloudtoilettissue.Doyouthinkthisisaproductsponsorship for the movie Black Cloud? Those clever Indians! What will they think of next? Love ya, Hollywood Black Cloud f f f Maureen Trudelle Schwarz Black Cloud (2004) opens with violence: pounding flesh against muscle and bone in a practice boxing match between Black Cloud (Lakota, Eddie Spears) and his coach Bud (Lakota, Russell Means). Rick Schroder’s screenplay is loosely based on the true story of Navajo boxer Carl Bahe of Chinle, Arizona. Bahe overcame alcoholism through boxing and established a successful boxing club for Navajo youth that to date has produced twenty-four national boxing champions. Schroder chose to tell his story within the familiar genre of the Western. This film contains many of the predictable devices of the Western genre; however, it deviates from the genre as well. In particular, being Indian, Black Cloud is not a conventional Western hero.Moreover,thefilm’ssettingismarkedby twosignifyingborders.Thefirstdividesasymbolic wilderness, in the form of an Indian reservation, from civilization. The second border divides the past, in the form of deceased ancestors, from the present, the living. Fists stand in for guns, the usual symbols that cowboys use to prove their masculinity in Westerns. As a result, instead of a memorable scene such as the shoot-out at the OK Corral, Black Cloud contains what might best be termed “the beat-down in the men’s room scene.” While there is no doubt that violence is part and parcel of the protagonist’s redemption, it’s arguably exactly that act of violence that providesBlackCloud’sredemption.Or,maybe,regeneration.Whileamoralmessageisconveyed in the film, it deviates from a classic Western. The film is filled with the usual suspects: Euro-American settlers (now townsfolk), cowboys, saloon girls (women in bars), a sheriff played by Tim McGraw, bartenders, store owners, and, 140| Maureen Trudelle Schwarz of course, Indians and half-breeds, including Black Cloud, and a disturbing use of the Noble Savage, an anachronistic stereotype, wherein the only real Indians (read: traditional) are his grandfather, who dies during the film, and his deceased ancestors! The latter two categories are vital because Western mythology is inextricably linked with the often-contested relations among Euro-Americans and American Indians. Making an Indian the hero casts Anglos like Eddie Young and Sheriff Powers as enemies. Can anyone say binary? Black Cloud is a proper Western hero nevertheless; he abides by his word, and he is a skilled horseman. Eddie Spears is also a fine horseman, but never mind, the focus is on Black Cloud. Some of the best scenes in the film are when he supposedly breaks a wild horse and rides it with its companions to the home of Sammi(JuliaJones),wheresheandBlackClouddeclaretheirlove.Therobust wildhorsesBlack Cloud breaks look nothing like those commonly seen on the Rez, which are typically rail thin. Driving the film’s plot are Black Cloud’s repeated crossings back and forth over the two signifyingborders.Hecrossesthefirstbordertogooff-reservationinordertofightcompetitively, attend rodeos, beat up Eddie Young, visit bars or pool halls, and purchase alcohol, which is how he encounters the law. In multiple scenes, Black Cloud “crosses over into the spirit world” to commune with his dead ancestors. Bud is the first to realize that Black Cloud has begun to have spiritual experiences in the ring that empower him to overcome his opponents. Bud feels compelled to discuss these with his protégé: bud: You don’t even know when it happens, do you? b.c.: What? What happens in the ring? I don’t know, I just fight. bud: Crossing over into the spirit world is a powerful thing. b.c.: What do you mean? bud: Where you went. Our ancestors called for you, and you answered. b.c.: There was this one voice that rose above the rest, (Smaltzy voice-over) you are chosen bud: Figure out why they are calling you. b.c.: Great. I thought only medicine men had to deal with this. (Sigh) While other errors in ethnographic detail are evident, these crossings are most egregious. Navajopeopleareknownfortheirtaboossurroundingcontactwiththedead.Typically,aNavajo family will not even mention the name of a deceased family member for at least four years after he or she has expired, and traditional burials involve as few people as possible to delimit contamination by the ch’iidii (the first two i vowels have high tone marks and are nasalized), “disembodied spirit capable of evil,” released at the time of death. (Ironically, traditional Navajo burialcustomsareproperlyportrayedinthefilmwhenBlackCloudputshisgrandfathertorest.) Given these beliefs, still held...

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