Clearcut links, Ironbow, and land acknowledgements

How would Arthur -- the character played by Graham Greene in Clearcut -- respond to a land acknowledgment? 

I'm trying to figure out how to do one tonight, before the 8:30 screening of Clearcut at the Cinematheque. It feels almost inappropriate, before so angry a film, like it's all about salving white conscience. The first words I would imagine coming out of Arthur's mouth, on hearing a land acknowledgment, would be, "Gimme a fuckin' break." Then he'd say something really pointed, cutting, and memorable: "You think ya can make it easier on yourself, do you? Forgive me, Arthur, for I have sinned? It has been 600 years since my ancestors came here? If you say it nice, the guilt will go away?" 

I'm really not sure how I'm going to approach this challenge tonight, have been up since 5am thinking about it. But I'll figure something out, perhaps starting exactly the same place as this blogpost. What I really want to do tonight is to frame two questions: Is Clearcut a kind of white saviour film? And, "Is it responsible?"

I'll pose those questions, play a clip from the commentary, and somewhere in there, play some Willie Dunn and Willie Thrasher and such, and then we'll do the film. It's a very, very angry, very potent film, and I love it, trust it, am very glad that it's come back to us; I hope people enjoy it and that it prompts some stimulating conversation. But I have decided to try to stay out of the way as much as possible. I could tell the story about interviewing Ryszard, or so forth, but I've already written it here. It's an interesting story, for me at least, but it's kind of small potatoes compared to the content of the film and the questions it raises.   

After the film, I'll stand down, and let Shane Harvey, who composed the score, speak about it and answer questions. He worked with Ryszard on several projects (there's a featurette on the blu ray about this, note).  

Meanwhile, people who came here wanting links to stuff on Clearcut can find more here (how I came to be involved in the film), here (an excerpt from my Ryszard Bugajski interview, and the only one you'll be reading, since, for the next few years, I sold the rights to the Clearcut portion of that interview to Severin who are using it as a commentary); and here (Adrian Mack writing about the last public screening of the film in Vancouver, back in 2015). Of more relevance, I'm directing people to this feature-length review of the film, which appeared in Ironbow magazine, which Ryszard mentions in a clip I plan to play. He sent this to me when we were corresponding. It's pretty great. 

May 1992

IRONBOW

(INDIAN MAGAZINE)

by Bradlee Larocque

There's a certain positive appeal about negativity and the way it is presented or seen.

I have seen Graham Greene perform in roles ranging from a clown in Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, to a Navajo lawyer in the television series LA Law. No doubt his most recognized role came in that true-confession of Kevin Costner Lakotaness, Dances With Wolves. But I have never been so re­lieved as when I saw Mr. Greene's deci­sively savage performance in Polish director Richard Bugajski's Clearcut.

Unlike the gaggle of "walk-a-guilt-filled-mile-in-my-moccasins" films to come out in the last few years, 1990's Clearcut is a topical, controversial and sophisticated psycho­logical drama about the deep frustrations haunt­ing Indian people today. It is one of the better films to come out and if there are any flaws (like the fact that an Aboriginal director did not do it) they do not take away from its message.

The story takes place during a bitter land dispute that pits a Northern Ontario Indian band against a paper mill that needs to build a lumber road through Indian territory. The main character is Peter, a white "activist" lawyer who has just lost the band's land rights case that sparks a violent confrontation be­tween the Indian people and the provin­cial police.

Peter's guilt and anger over his loss intrigues a trickster-type character named Arthur (Greene) into brutally challenging Peter's liberal insincerity for "revenge" by kidnapping him and the lumber mill manager. Arthur takes them deep into the wilderness and makes them aware of the extent of anger and frustra­tion that silently exists in the Indian community.

Arthur reflects the image of horrific, logically radical thought that everyone around him suppresses at one time or another. His "no bull-shit" attitude and his intense spiritual connection to Mother Earth causes him to take action that a lot of people would find disturb­ing. But through his calm, logical and sometimes comical explanations about his motives, Arthur comes to challenge the film's audience by not making the film's message "clear-cut" at all. In fact, the director takes a good shot at everyone and everything, in this movie the hy­pocrisy of the "I hear Ya'" wishy-washy liberal, the unjust justice system, the blind greed of industrialists, and even the savage thoughts of violent revenge.

The movie is an excellent portrayal of how confusing and varied the "answer" to injustice is.

In one especially thought provoking scene, Arthur "de-barks" the lower leg of the mill manager. When the sleeping Peter awakens to see the grisly act, Arthur explains that "the soldiers used to play catch with the breasts of Navajo women because they were slippery and hard to hold onto. "

The scene is both horrifying and ambiguous. The audience struggles with the gruesome con­tent of the images and also finds itself struggling with the validity of Arthur's explanation. The film is based on the ideals of Peter and how Arthur is sent to educate him (and maybe even the audience) on the harsh and often violently unjust reality of issues involving Indian people. But it also gives no indication of "right and wrong" or of "just and unjust" - there is no clear cut im­age or message that relieves the audi­ence of their discomfort and, as a conse­quence, it forces them to search for their own answers of justifications.

Excuse me if I sound a bit twisted, but this is the kind of thing that makes this film so refreshing. There is nothing beautiful about this story. There are no beautiful, spiritually correct, nature/ poetry spewing Indians, no blubbering white person ready to braid his hair and throw off the silk shackles of the capitalist office gulags, and certainly no warm, cozy, squishy feelings of fuzzy feel-good happiness. It exposes things that are contemporary to everyone in the audience. It exposes rage, frustration, hypocrisy, confusion, deceit, truth, violence, dreams, ghosts and white smoke - everything that should leave us asking a lot of questions.

Just like the justice system cannot give us justice, or violence cannot give us understanding, or wishy-washy liberal ideals cannot give us the reality of our every day lives - the film offers no heroes or bad guys for the audience to love or hate. This is exactly what makes it so appealing - the film grinds away at people's docile comfort in their belief that everything will turn out OK. That everything is somehow being taken care of and that solutions are in the ability to conform with the status quo. The audience is used to leaving the theatre with the problems resolved and their comfort restored.

Clearcut lets them leave with a lot of questions and hardly any answers.

From a biased Aboriginal point of view, the film portrays a real aspect of Mother Earth's dilemma and how we have been compromised away from our duties as her protectors. Arthur represents the spirit of the fight, not necessarily the means. His actions may be right or wrong in different people's mind, but they are certainly not the solution.

The idea of protection has never been lost, it has just not grown as fast as our earth is being eaten by industry. Somewhere our circle has lost touch with what we are supposed to be doing. We cannot let our minds become as tangled as theirs are tangled because at some point we are going to have to do a lot of quick thinking to cover our inaction over the years. Regardless, when that time comes the decision we make has to do the right one in defense of our Mother. If you decide not to do the right thing: "Momma says, Knock you out!"