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Cinematic Parallels & "Noble" Heroism
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April 8, 2019 at 2:08 pm #1372Nicholas GentryParticipant
*As we established last class, there doesn’t appear to be a way to reply to people’s published blog posts, so to circumvent that I’m just going to just make my responses a new topic here on the forum.
I have a couple of topics that came up in some way or another in this weeks’ blog posts that I’d like to respond to. First, I’d like to discuss the cinematic parallels that exist between Winder River and Silence of the Lambs. I notice a lot of parallels in the characterization of each movie’s “hero figures.” Both Jane Banner and Clarice Starling are FBI agents who appear to be unequipped for the task at hand. Clarice hasn’t even graduated from the academy yet and, though she is hard working and willing to learn, she often lets her inexperience show. Jane, on the other hand, is from Las Vegas and arrives to the reservation in the middle of the winter without gloves, a hat, or any of the necessary clothing. The agents are also judged to be out of place by their peers, Clarice because she is a woman working in a “man’s field” and Jane because she is a non-Indian coming onto the reservation with little knowledge of how things operate. Similarly, Cory Lambert and Hannibal Lecter are characterized as the mentor figures. Cory is a highly skilled hunter and marksman, who is extremely familiar with the land. Hannibal is a renowned psychiatrist, whose expertise in behavioral analysis aid the FBI in identifying and locating their suspect. Hannibal mentors Clarice, working with her to exchange information and helps to teach her how to understand the basic motives of human behavior. Cory mentors Jane by showing her clues in the terrain that lead to crucial pieces of evidence. In the end, Clarice Starling solves the case and saves a girl’s life. Jane Banner, however, does not save anyone. Justice is not served in the traditional way, instead a much more personal approach more along the lines of vigilante justice is taken.
This leads me to the second thing I would like to address: the “hero” figures in Wind River. I don’t know if I believe that there are any “heros” in this movie. The movie doesn’t end with Pete in prison, but with Pete dead on the top of a mountain. Cory follows through on the promise that he made to Martin, to hunt down whoever hurt his daughter. Cory is not looking for justice, he is looking to avenge the death of his close friend’s daughter and to get some closure regarding his own daughter’s death. Is that heroic? Does revenge make someone a hero? Jane too does not act heroically. She tries her hardest to solve the case and to bring Pete to justice, but she only gets as far as confronting him in his trailer before she is shot and subsequently must survive a shoot out. All the work she had put into finding Pete is just thrown away when she tells Cory to go after him, knowing that he is not going to bring Pete back alive. Is that heroic? Does failing to bring someone to justice make you a hero? I’m not sure.
Lastly, I want to address a theme in this movie that frustrates me: the relationship between white people and the Native Americans. In my opinion, Sheridan did a great service by focusing on the struggles that Native Americans face while living on reservations. The way that he wrote the relationships between the white and Native characters was really well done and showed a very realistic tension and distrust between the groups. He addressed the social issues like alcoholism and drug use, and the governmental issues like poor police presence and issues of jurisdiction. What is frustrating to me is the way that many people seem to interpret the movie, particularly the interpretations of heroism. Native populations have been mistreated, disrespected, cheated, and murdered at the hands of white people for centuries. There seems to be this prevailing belief now that all of that is in the past and everything that’s going wrong on the reservations is the Native Americans’ own fault. The federal government is at fault. Americans are at fault. Of Native Women who have been sexually assaulted, approximately 84% identified their attackers as non-Indian. Crimes are committed on Indian land on such a frequent basis, yet the General Crimes Act and the Major Crimes Act does not allow tribal governments to prosecute non-Indian persons if they commit crimes on Indian land. The federal government is the only entity that can prosecute non-Indian offenders. You have to keep this in mind when you watch this movie. If the tribe could investigate the situation itself, it would. Justice would be served that way. But because they have to have the FBI investigate the crime, justice is less likely to be served. Non-Indians have to be called in to be the “heroes” who solve the crime. What frustrates me about this movie is the fact that many people view Jane and Cory as the heroes of the film, when in reality this perspective of non-Indians as the hero figures covers up the underlying issues of tribal oppression and the mistreatment that tribes continue to face. The American government causes so many problems for Natives living on reservations, but the American government is also the “hero.” What I do like about the ending of this movie is that nothing really seems to change. No justice is served and no non-Indian people are held responsible for their crimes. That is the most accurate part of the whole movie.
April 8, 2019 at 2:58 pm #1373Gabrielle EspositoParticipantYou bring up an interesting point about Wind River and the “hero” figure. I think that since this movie is dealing with difficult subjects such as rape and murder, the expectation of a “hero” is going to be challenged. Cory doesn’t bring Pete to justice in the conventional way, but there is something horrifically satisfying about seeing Pete die in the same fashion as Natalie–a kind of poetic justice. “There is no legal punishment that would ever satisfy Natalie’s death” appears to be the message in Cory’s motivation for letting Pete drown in his own blood. I think Cory is the hero that the legal system cannot be, which in my opinion makes him the kind of person who is heroic in the fact that he accomplishes what others cannot. Not many people would be able to submit people to fate like Pete’s but Cory does for the sake of bringing Natalie’s father peace.
I do agree with you that Jane isn’t too heroic. She does dispel the tension during the possible shootout, but I think her greatest disadvantage is simply the fact that she isn’t familiar with Wyoming’s Indian reservation. As a result, Cory is often leading Jane. There is the visual element of Cory driving Jane up the mountain while she sits behind him, a possible visual symbolism that suggests Cory has a larger role to play than Jane. She seems to learning constantly throughout the movie, first with Cory’s fact about what happens to lungs in cold weather, and then the fact that she is shot because she learns too late that someone is in the trailer. Jane is never really sure of herself, whereas Cory is confident, able to lead, and knows many things about the potential tragedies Wyoming holds that Jane doesn’t. Jane comes off as an outsider reliant on Cory, and not a hero.
April 9, 2019 at 4:35 pm #1376ALISON AMESParticipantCommenting on your hero in Wind River response, I agree with you. I left the film feeling as though there was an absence of heroism in the film. Although Cory appears to mentor Jane through the investigation, he is driven by a want for vengeance not justice. As Jane stumbles around behind him, not every truly understanding the gravity of her situation, her character never really reaches a moment where there is any clear character development. In fact, I would argue that she devolves; initially she attempts to ‘just do the right thing’ but she ends up sending Cory after Pete- not simply assuming the implications of this action, but acknowledging it. I do not support the ‘eye for an eye’ justice system because it reduces our heroes to criminals.
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