through navajo eyes: sol worth: appendix

8/7/2019 THROUGH NAVAJO EYES: Sol Worth: Appendix

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AppendixA Brief Summary of theFilms M ade by the Na vajo

Practice FilmsT h e fi rst f ilms made by the Navajos we re made af ter tw o days ofins t ruct ion in the technical use of th e camera , expo sure meter ,and spl icer . T h e Navajos w ere to ld : H ere is a hun dred feet offilm. Shoot any thing you w ant wi th it. T he y were then askedwhat they w ere go ing to do, o r subsequent ly wh at they had done.All the stud ents decided to make l i t t le movies ou t of wh at w as tous a pract ice ass ignment in the use of technology. T h e conceptof m ere pract ice seemed alien to t he Nav ajo (ei ther because ofinh ere nt dislike of waste, o r because of inab i l i ty to imag ine use-less pra cticing ). At th is poin t , i t mu st be remem bered the re hadbeen n o instru ct ion in edi t in g o r concepts of fi lmmaking.


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264 ) AppendixMIKEANDERSON:he Pinlon Tree. z minutes.

This was the first subject that Mike thought of. He said, Imake a movie of a piiion tree. It grows from small to big. Thefilm is a series of twelve edemes (shots) in which Mike startedwith a small bush (but shown full in the frame), going to biggerand bigger bushes, and finally trees. After this series of edemes(which Mike photographed in such a way that all the trees werethe approximately same size in the frame) he continued with adying piiion tree, then a fallen and dead piiion tree, then someold rotting branches of a tree, and finally a single piiion acorn.

Mikes only sequencing during editing was to transfer part ofthe acorn shot to the beginning of the film, keeping the other partfor the ending.JOHNNYELSON: he Summer Shower. z minutes.

Johnny had to tell a story. It was how the earth is dry and theNavajo waits for rain. Then comes the rain and everyone feelsgood. This was also Johnnys first idea for a film. He executedi t with the confidence of a Hollywood director. He too shot it inthe order in which the shots were to appear on the screen. Hestarted with some moving shots of dry earth, cracked earth, drygrass, and cloudless skies. Then a Navajo boy walks in the dustyfield and stoops down to crumble the dry earth in his hand.Suddenly the rain comes, a puddle forms, a small flower grows,the rain clouds are shown.

Here Johnny directed Worth to hold a water hose in such away as to make rain (as it looked to him through the camera). Heplanted a flower and arranged the water so it puddled and flowedin the direction he wanted.JOHNNY ELSON: he Navajo Horse. 3% minutes. (Photos 6-11.)

This was Johnnys second film. Here he wanted to make amovie about how important a horse is to the Navajo and how


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Appendix 265he knows all about him. The film started with ten or fifteenextreme close-ups of hoofs, nostrils, eyes, saddle, bridle, etc.Some of the shots were moving and some were still. At one pointJohnny asked Worth, If I take lots of shots of parts of a horse,and then take shots of many horses, and put the shots of parts ofone horse in between all the horses, will people think the partsof one are parts of all? He then tried to photograph anotherhundred feet of film showing many horses at the Squaw Dance(a ceremony held the next day). This was successful, and he madea film which started with several shots of complete and differenthorses, then cut back and forth from extreme close-ups of the onehorse to shots of the horses as a group getting ready for a dashacross the fields (part of the ceremony). In editing the film, hearranged his shots in an order different from that in which hetook them in the camera, and cut shots into shorter pieces, usingthem in several different places in the film. The end of the filmshows the dash of the horses across the field marking the start ofthe ceremony.TSOSIEISTERS: John Adair Hangs Out the Laundry. 2 minutes.

At this point the two sisters first decided to work as a team.They said they would make a film of John Adair and DickChalfen (our assistant) hanging out the laundry. This film fol-lowed a conventional plot structure, and merely had Adair hangout some laundry, aided by an assistant. It was shot in sequenceand had the girls giggling for hours. I t was edited almost the wayit was shot.MAXINESOSIE:he Boys on the Seesaw. 1% minutes. (Photos 2-3).

Here Maxine photographed two boys on a seesaw. She took aseries of shots from the same cademe showing the boys and theseesaw going up and down. When the film came back from thelab she decided to cut it up and splice it for fun. She achieved


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266 ) Appendixthe remarkable feat of cutting the action of a seesaw into parts,re-arranging them in a different order without changing the flowof action.AL CLAH: he Monkey Bars. 2% minutes.

Clah felt that he wanted to experiment with the motion. Hechose for his subject a set of climbing bars (monkey bars) whichwere in the school playground. He took a series of ten or twelvepans moving up, across, and down the various metal parts of theplayground toy. Contrary to the others, he did not expect tophotograph his little exercise in the sequence in which he wouldfinally put it together. He said he merely wanted to try out howit looks when the camera moves. It was in this first film that Clahbegan to show his extreme control over a variety of camera move-ments, and it was here that he first showed that he moved thecamera in a circular rather than a linear fashion. When the filmwas returned he was pleased with the results and spent aboutfour hours on the editing bench putting the sequence together.When asked what he was doing he said, 1 want to see how themotion goes together.SUSIEBENALLY:he Swing. z minutes.

Susie photographed the frame of the swings in the playgroundfrom various angles. Then she had several shots of the emptyswings. Th e last shot showed a little Navajo girl swinging on aswing. It also was photographed in sequence, but Susie cut outparts of shots which she felt were wrong.MIKEANDERSON:he Ants. 2% minutes.

Mike wanted to photograph red ants in an ant hole. Hecrouched over the tiny hole and heap of sand and waited for antsto emerge. Since he shot with a wide angle lens, the ants werealmost invisible and Mike did nothing further with this footage.


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Appendix 267There were several other films made during the first practice

day. All the students showed more or less the same skill in theuse of the camera. All of them exposed their film accurately,loaded the cameras accurately, and were in general able toachieve just what they said they wanted to achieve.

Full Length FilmsAt the end of the first week the Navajos began working ontheir full length films which are described below.SUSIEENALLY: Navajo Weaver. 2 0 minutes. (Photos 26-30).

Susie chose to depict her mother as she wove a rug. The filmstarts with a series of short shots showing a Navajo woman weav-ing a t her loom. It then turns to the job of raising the sheep,shearing the wool, digging yucca roots for soap with which towash the wool, carding and spinning, walking, digging andsearching for roots with which to make dye, dying the wool, andputting the warp on the loom. Interspersed with these activitiesare large sections showing the mother walking and searching forthe various materials necessary to make and to complete all thesestages in the process of weaving. When towards the end of thefilm, after I5 minutes have gone by, the mother actually begins toweave the rug, we see interspersed shots of Susies little brothermounting his horse and taking care of the sheep, the sheep graz-ing, and various other activities around the hogan. The film onlyshows about three inches of a six-foot rug being actually woven,and only about 4% minutes of actual weaving. It jumps from thelast shot which shows the mother handling the wool on the loomto the final shots which have the mother standing inside thehogan holding up a series of finished rugs. These are alwaysshown in close-ups and long shots with the rugs held both hori-zontally and vertically. The same sequence is repeated with a


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268) Appendixdifferent set of rugs with the mother standing outside the hogan.Of particular note in this film is the fact that there is only oneclose-up of a face-the I am thinking about the design shotwhich we mention in our analysis.JOHNNYELSON:he Navajo Silversmith. 2 0 minutes. (Photos31-34.)

This film is structured in almost the same fashion as the weav-ing film. The film starts with a series of shots showing the Navajosilversmith completing the filing on some little Yeibechai figureswhich have already been cast and are on his work bench. We thencut away from this (as in A Navajo Weaver) to what is apparentlythe beginning of the story. We see the silversmith walking andwandering across the Navajo landscape and finally arriving atwhat appears to be a silver mine. The silversmith spends a greatdeal of time finding nuggets of silver embedded in the rock. Hethen spends another period of walking and wandering to look forthe particular kind of sandstone from which he will make hismold. We see him working at sawing and grinding his mold,finally drawing his design in the sand, and then transferring itto the mold. At this point we have again the only face close-up(thinking of the design) in the film.

After the mold is made we see him melting the nuggets ofsilver and pouring the silver into the mold. He goes through theprocess of filing and polishing and the last shot in the film is theshot with which we began. At one point in the film, during thesilversmiths wanderings to find silver, the film is interrupted toshow us what appears to be an abandoned log cabin. In thissequence, the circular camera movements, moving clockwise likethe sun, are most clearly apparent. This sequence was insertedto show that the mine was indeed very old, because the dwellingplaces around it are also old. Of note in this film, and mentionedin our analysis, is the fact that the Navajo have never mined silveron the reservation. Johnny was aware of that, but seemed unableto tell his story without starting at the beginning, and didntworry about the real truth.


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Appendix 269MAXINEN D MARYANE TSOSIE:he Spirit o f the Navajo. 20 min-utes. (Photos 35-40.)

Here the daughters of the chapter chairman of the communitydecided to make a film showing the old ways. They chose theirgrandfather as subject. He was one of the best known singers(medicine men) in the area. The film opens with the old medicineman walking and wandering across the Navajo landscape, againdigging and searching for roots and herbs which he is to use aspart of a ceremony. We see him a t one of the camps before aceremony, eating and drinking. The sequence of the grandfathereating is the only one in which a face close-up is shown. It isapparent, however, that the shot was considered a humorous one,almost like a home movie in which one of the children sticks histongue out at the camera. But even here the grandfather cannothave his eyes looking right a t the camera, and we see an almostterrified sweeping back and forth of his black pupils as he triesto avoid looking straight at us.

We then see the making of a sand painting from beginning toend. We see the grandfather preparing the sand in his hogan,searching for the rocks with which to make the dried powderwhich is then dripped on the sand as paint, and we see part ofthe curing ceremony in which a patient appears. It was impos-sible for the Navajo to consider using a Navajo as a patient, sothey chose our assistant, Chalfen, who agreed to reenact the partof a patient. The film ends with the grandfather walking from thehogan after his ceremony to his own camp.JOHNNY NELSON:he Shallow Well. 2 0 minutes. (Photos 41-43.)

This is a film that Johnny undertook to make after he wasreprimanded by the community for making the photographs ofhorses which are described in the text. It was at that time that hewas asked to supervise the construction of a shallow well.

Johnny previously had experience as a foreman helping to


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270 ) Appendixconstruct these wells in the community. He told the relative whosuggested that he undertake the supervision of this constructionthat he couldnt do it because he was learning to make movies.But then he realized that perhaps he could make a film about itand thus regain some of his status.

This film is in many ways different from any of the otherfilms made by the Navajo and is discussed in the analysis sec-tion. It opens, however, in much the same way, showing theold first-a series of shots of the old open ponds from whichthe Navajo used to draw water. We then see a series of close-ups of flies and insects on the water. After moving with thecamera around the stagnant pool we cut quickly to a series ofNavajo workmen beginning to build their shallow well. Wefollow, in almost educational film style, all the processes, inclose-up, by which the various portions of the well are built.Intercut at moments are shots of the Navajo reading blue-prints, measuring with yardsticks, and receiving instructionsfrom the foreman who actually was in charge of this project.Johnny again shows the typical Navajo use of the circular panin many of the shots of the cement work as the camera ex-plores the various parts of the installation, always moving in asunwise direction. When the job is finished we see a Navajo(Johnny used Worth to play the part of a Navajo) walking upto the well and drawing water and we see water coming fromthe various parts of the shallow well. The film ends not withshots of anybody walking, but with a series of shots of trucksdriving away from the well.

Of interest here is that although there are no face close-ups,there are also no shots of Navajos walking to get anything. Allthe tools and all the equipment they need are right there. Insteadof walking away from the job they ride away. This is the onlytime in any of the films in which Navajos are shown using theirpickup trucks.


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Appendix 271MIKEANDERSON:ld Antelope Lake. 15 minutes. (Photos 5660,22-25.)

In this film Mike decided to make a movie about a lake. Firsthe shows what turns out to be the source of the lake, or the mouthby which it is fed. He then proceeds to move sunwise. (again)around the lake showing a variety of details of both animal andplant life. He also has a sequence of his younger brother washingclothes at the lake. The sequencing of shots in the film followsan almost exact natural order. That is, not only must the se-quence be in a sunwise direction around the lake, but also certainshots must be followed by the appropriate animal and directionof action. The time element isnt very important in this film.Scenes that were shot in the morning appear later in the film thanscenes that were shot in the afternoon. What was important toMike was that we first saw the source and then moved all aroundthe lake showing the unity between the natural things and thehuman beings in the environment.AL CLAH:ntrepid Shadows. 15 minutes. (Photos 48-55.)

This is one of the most complex films made by the Navajo. I tis the one least understood by the Navajo and most appreciatedby avant-garde filmmakers in our society. The film opens witha long series of shots showing the varieties of landscape aroundour schoolhouse. We see rocks, earth, trees, sky, in a variety ofshapes but mostly in still or static shots. The shadows are verysmall or short. When we have familiarized ourselves with thethings that comprise the world we see a young Navajo comewalking into the landscape. He picks up a stick, kneels down, andbegins to poke a t a huge spider web. At this point the tone of thefilm changes. Suddenly a hand appears rolling an old metal hoop.The hoop is cut in intermittently throughout the rest of the film,rolling as if propelled by unseen hands through the variations inthe landscape. A Yeibechai mask appears in the film a t this point,


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272 Appendixwandering and walking through the landscape seemingly look-ing for something. The Yeibechai wanders behind trees, seenalways through bushes, looking a t the sky, looking in all direc-tions, and is intercut in an extremely complex manner withcontinuing scenes of the landscape and of the legs and body ofa person dressed in white. As the Yeibechai mask wanders, thecamera work depicting the landscape begins to change fromstatic to complex circular, spiral, and almost indescribable move-ments. As the hoop, and then a rolling ball, and then the pagesof a notebook turn and move faster and faster, so do the move-ments of the camera as they seemingly search along trees androcks and bushes for whatever the Yeibechai is searching for.Now the shadows in the film are long and some of the scenes aredeliberately dark. Suddenly we see what is very clearly theshadow of the camera man walking through the landscape tryingto lengthen itself, and merging with the various parts of thelandscape, the rocks, the bushes, and the trees, until at the veryend the shadow of the man is almost a hundred feet long. Therefollows the last shot in the film, a long shot showing the shadowof the hoop whirling and twirling for almost fifteen seconds;suddenly in the corner of the frame the hoop itself appears, andas the spinning, which can now be seen as the hoop and itsshadow, grows slower, both come into the frame so that at thevery end we see the hoop spinning and the shadow that it makes.The film is ended abruptly.ALTAKAHN:Untitled jil m . 10 minutes. (Photos 44-47.)

Susie Benally undertook to teach her mother to make a movie.Susie taught her to load and use the camera and exposure meterin one day. The completed film was made in one week. The filmin many ways is very similar to Susies film about her motherweaving a rug. Aha Kahn starts by showing Susie picking herbsfor the dyes. She then has her daughter dying the wool andspinning it. She spends a great deal of time on the spinning of


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Appendix 273of the wool, whereas Susie, for example, spent a great deal of timeon the finding of the herbs and several of the other processes.After Susie spins the wool she sets up her belt loom and weavesa belt. Some of the close-ups of hands and wool are extraordinaryfor one who has never used or seen a movie before. The film endsin somewhat the way that Susies film ends: that is, Susie walksoutside holding the belt up for the camera to look a t , and thecamera pans up and down very much as Susie did with hermothers rug.

What seems interesting is that there are no titles in this film.It is the only film made by the Navajo that does not have titles;and it is easy to speculate that titles never occurred to her motherbecause she had never seen a film. All the titles on the other filmsare extremely long-between twenty and forty-five seconds.Some of them contain several shots of the same title splicedtogether. Discussions with the students made it clear that theyfelt this was the proper time needed for reading the three or fourwords of each title.


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through navajo eyes: sol worth: appendix

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