|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Skins (film) |
| Skins | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Chris Eyre |
| Produced by | Brenda J. Chambers Chris Cooney Jeff Cooney Chris Eyre Jon Kilik Jennifer D. Lyne Eugene Mazzola David Pomier Larry T. Pourier |
| Written by | Adrian C. Louis Jennifer D. Lyne |
| Starring | Eric Schweig Graham Greene Gary Farmer Noah Watts Lois Red Elk Michelle Thrush |
| Music by | BC Smith |
| Cinematography | Stephen Kazmierski |
| Editing by | Paul Trejo |
| Release date(s) | 2002 |
| Running time | 87 minutes |
Skins is a 2002 feature film by Chris Eyre and based upon the novel of the same name by Adrian C. Louis. The film is set on the fictional Beaver Creek Indian Reservation in South Dakota near the Nebraska border, a place very much like the actual Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the setting in the book and the place where the film was actually shot. Lakota Sioux tribal police officer Rudy Yellow Lodge (Eric Schweig) struggles to rescue his older, alcoholic brother, Mogie (Graham Greene), a former football star who was wounded in combat three times in Vietnam. Winona LaDuke makes a cameo appearance as Rose Two Buffalo.
Contents |
Rudy and Mogie Yellow Lodge are Lakota Sioux brothers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Mogie is a severe alcoholic with no job and a high school age son and Rudy is a police officer trying to take care of his brother, nephew and the rest of the town through the hands of law. Rudy tries to help his brother by bringing him food and money and taking him to a picnic, but Mogie is resistant to Rudy's attempts, choosing to drink and make jokes about the depressed state of their people and town. Iktomi the trickster spider appears to Rudy early in the film and Rudy's attempts to help begin to wander outside the lines law.
When Rudy is sent on a police call to an abandoned house, he finds a bloodied, dead body who has been kicked to death. He sees a person in the darkness, but they run away before he can identify them. Chasing after the criminal, Rudy trips and falls head first onto a rock, knocking him more into the confusion that the trickster spider has started in him.
Rudy's friend tells him that rocks are very spiritual and Rudy really begins to think that something has gotten into him when he becomes a vigilante. He sees a teenage boy wearing the same shoes as the figure who ran away from the scene of the murder, and follows the boy and his friend secretly. He hears them talking about the murder to each other, saying that it was in fact they who committed it. Disguising himself with black paint on his eyes, Rudy sneaks up on the boys with a baseball bat and viciously beats in their kneecaps, announcing himself as the ghost of the boy they murdered.
Next, a camera crew visits the town to report on the millions of dollars that a liquor store in a bordering town is sucking out of miserable alcoholic Indians on the reservation. The subject of the news report angers Rudy into going to the liquor store in the middle of the night, this time with black paint over his entire face, and setting the building on fire. He doesn’t realize that his brother is inside the building. Mogie escapes and survives, but is severely burned and spends some time in the hospital.
Mogie’s near-death accident awakens his family to hospital tests full of proof of his deteriorating health, including a terminal liver condition. Mogie, his son Herbie, Rudy, and Aunt Helen have dinner when Mogie gets out of the hospital, and Mogie brings up American Horse, an Oglala Indian who testified against the 7th Cavalry. This brings up the story of the Wounded Knee Massacre, which Rudy tells to Herbie.
Wracked with guilt, Rudy tells Mogie that he started the fire, and Mogie replies that the one thing he can do to make up for it is blow the nose off of George Washington on Mount Rushmore. Rudy replies sternly that his idea is crazy, and he won't do it.
Rudy gets a police call saying that a man is stuck in a trap. He arrives at the house to find a dead man caught in a bear trap in a family's yard with the family standing in front of him. The family says that they put the bear trap out to catch burglars and seem to have no remorse for the man's death. The man is Mogie's drinking buddy, and when Mogie finds out the story behind his death, he seeks revenge. He goes to the house of the bear trap family with a gun and aims it at the man of the family but does not pull the trigger.
On Herbie's 18th birthday, he visits his father to find him drunk and in very poor condition. He and Mogie take him to the hospital, where they reveal that among his other conditions he has pneumonia, and must stay at the hospital. Rudy, Herbie, and Aunt Helen stay with him.
A ceremony is held when Mogie dies. Rudy receives a letter, written to him from Mogie before he died, asking him to take care of Herbie. Rudy finds out that the liquor store is being rebuilt to be twice as big with two drive-in windows. He buys a large can of oil-based paint and drives to Mount Rushmore. He climbs to the top, and standing on the head of George Washington makes a tribute to Mogie by throwing the can of paint which drips down George Washington's nose.
Skins is a powerful tale of the bond between two brothers and the undeniable effect that the destruction in Native American history has had on their lives today. Through his sometimes extreme attempts to help his family and his people, Rudy explores his reasons for his actions and the reasons that his people and family are in a condition that needs such help.
The Lakota Sioux originated from the Great Lakes region where they were called Dakota. When they were pushed West by European colonists, they became a part of the Sioux and called themselves Lakota. Today there are about 70,000 Lakota Sioux, 20,500 of which speak Lakota.
Mogie and Rudy are Oglala, a “sub-tribe” of the Lakota which most residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation identify with. Pine Ridge, the reservation in southwest South Dakota where Skins takes place is the largest but poorest reservation, with unemployment at around 80% and 49% of its approximate 28,000 is below the poverty line. These statistics are unfortunately increases of those from 2002 when the movie was filmed.
The harsh living condition and high rates of alcoholism and violence of this particular reservation is very apparent in the film. Mogie’s door is falling off of the hinges and every one of Rudy’s police calls involves either intoxication or violence or both. Unfortunately, the fictional film is a very realistic depiction of life on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Pine Ridge was originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation established by the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868, but after several wars, including the Black Hills War, the reservation was divided into seven reservations, one being Pine Ridge. The Black Hills were very sacred to the Lakota and the conflict between them and the United States originally started because the Lakota did not want mining to happen in the Black Hills, but the U.S. persisted when gold was found there. The Black Hills are mentioned in "Skins" when Rudy's friend is telling him how sacred rocks are ("like the Black Hills"). On December 29, 1890, while the U.S. 7th Cavalry was moving the Oglala to Pine Ridge, 300 Oglala and 25 members of the U.S. 7th Cavalry were killed during what has now been named the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Mogie and Rudy tell the story of Wounded Knee over dinner with Herbie and Aunt Helen. “At that time, all Indian religious ceremonies were banned because [white soldiers] were afraid of them” Rudy tells Herbie. It is obvious through Mogie’s anger during the the story that the injustice of the Wounded Knee Massacre still haunts him. Through the rest of the film, Mogie’s satirical humor makes it clear that the white man’s power still looms over Pine Ridge through the faces of Mount Rushmore that ironically watch over the reservation, and that he hasn’t forgotten the past.
In more recent history of Wounded Knee, 1973 was the year that the AIM led the Wounded Knee Incident—a 71-hour stand-off between AIM members and FBI agents and the national guard when the AIM members seized the town. The incident triggered the violence that swarmed the rest of the decade at Pine Ridge, naming it the “murder capitol of the United States” with up to 170 murders to every 100,000 people in 1976. In Skins we see the residue of this brutality with one murder, one killing by a bear trap set for humans, and one instance of domestic violence, and two pairs of knee caps broken by baseball bat.
Alcoholism Alcoholism is depicted in the film in numerous ways, and as such is an exploration on the topic of alcoholism present within Native American culture. On the Pine Ridge Reservation alcoholism is nine times the national average, and life expectancy is nearly half of that in the rest of the country. Mogie suffers from alcoholism, as many on the reservation do, and is diagnosed with a terminal liver condtion as an effect of his drinking. Skins explores the tragedy and depth of despair caused by alcohol amongst indigenous peoples of North America, and brings the issue to the forefront in its almost brutal depictions of the disease. The lineage of alcoholism is also explored when it is revealed in flashbacks that both Rudy and Mogie were abused by their father, an alcoholic in his own right.
Western Expansion and Massacre The theme of western expansion and the devasting effect this had on Native Americans is most prevalent within the setting of the film. The Pine Ridge Reservation is in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, a gigantic monolith of white expansion and the desecration of sacred tribal grounds. America's founding fathers were carved into a mountain sacred to the Sioux, highlighting the lack of respect by Euro-American cultures for Native Americans. This theme becomes especially prevalent in the final scene, which takes place with Mount Rushmore hovering ominously in the background.
Another aspect of western expansion explored in the film is the fact that the location of the Wounded Knee massacre is only a short distance from the Pine Ridge Reservation. The mention of the massacre and the proximity of the reservation is a not so subtle dig at the suffering Native Americans experienced at the hands of Euro-Americans during their western expansion.
Failure of White Justice for Native Americans One of the most intriguing themes explored is that of the failure of white justice for indigenous Americans. The constant failures and lies by the American government towards indigenous peoples is explored via Rudy becoming a vigilante and pursuing justice on his own. The anger that Rudy feels towards white businesses selling liquor to his people when welfare checks are released, by taking advantage of the alcoholism present on the reservation leads him to burning down one of these businesses. This is clear retribution for the wrongs that white society has done to the reservation.
Critical reception for the film has been mixed. Metacritic has an aggregate score for the film of 57 out of 100 based on 19 reviews. Notable critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, citing, "To see this movie is to understand why the faces on Mount Rushmore are so painful and galling to the first Americans. The movie's final scene is haunting." Mark Holcomb of the Village Voice is not nearly as positive. " Like his popular 1998 debut, Smoke Signals, Chris Eyre's follow-up, Skins, is a humorless slice of family melodrama that functions as cut-rate ethnography."
Skins is based on the novel of the same name by accomplished author Adrian C. Loius.
Born in norther Nevada in 1946, Louis is the eldest of twelve children. Of mixed heritage, Louis is of Lovelock Paiute descent. He moved from Nevada to South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation, the basis of location for both the novel and film.
Louis graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor's and MA in Creative Writing. From 1984-1997 he taught English at Pine Ridge's Oglala Lakota College. Louis was also a former journalist and along with being editor of four tribal newspapers, he was the managing editor of Indian Country Today. Louis also co-founded the Native American Journal Association.
Louis's writing of both poetry and fiction have garnered him much recognition and awards. He has ten published books of poetry and two novels and many works in the pre-publication stages. His work has been praised by some of the other notable modern Native American writers, from Sherman Alexie, M. Scott Momaday, James Welch to Leslie Marmon Silko. In 1999, Louis was added to the Nevada Writer's Hall of Fame. In 2001 Louis was awarded the Writer of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writer's and Storytellers and the Cohen Award for best published poem in Ploughshares. He is also the recipient of the Pushcart Prize as well as fellowships from the Bush Foundation, the South Dakota Arts Council, the Nebraska Arts Council, the National Endowment of the Arts and the Lila-Wallace Reader's Digest Foundation.
Since 1999 Louis has taught English within the Minnosota State University systems.
Time Being Books--Adrian C. Louis
 |
This 2000s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This article relating to Indigenous peoples of North America is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |