Indigenous Cinema, the camera ashore, and House Made of Dawn

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the complexities of film authorship in relation to the 1972 film House Made of Dawn. Produced and directed by Richardson Morse, a non-Indigenous director, House Made of Dawn occupies a somewhat awkward position within scholarship on Indigenous Cinema. Using the film as a case study, this paper draws on Barry Barclay’s idea of Indigenous Cinema as the camera in the hands of Indigenous filmmakers to unpack notions of film authorship. The paper suggests that the answer to the question of who holds the camera is not always a simple one by drawing on interviews between Joanna Hearne and key figures in the filmmaking team of House Made of Dawn. In particular, this article argues that determinations of authorship must also consider the film’s source text by Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday as well as the input of lead actor Larry Littlebird. Failure to consider these forms of authorship serves to undermine Indigenous approaches to storytelling in favour of a Western model and subsequently undermines the input of the Indigenous authors of the film.