A cultural renewal : native Americans in road movies
Author
Gümüş, Yasemin
Advisor
Chesney, Duncan
Date
2008Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
In this thesis, contemporary Native American road films
Powwow Highway (Wacks, 1989), Dead Man (Jarmusch,
1995), Smoke Signals (Eyre, 1998), and Dreamkeeper
(Barron, 2003) are studied in terms of their relation
to the formal and thematic conventions of the road
movie genre. The movies are examined as social
reproductions of postmodern mainstream American road
picture. The films are analyzed as social texts working
as cultural renewals of the texts representing American
Indians in the mainstream American cinema as well as
they are taken as major contributions to the road
genre. In this sense, Native Americans’ use of the road
picture’s generic patterns and contemporary tendencies
in order to tell their own experiences of the road
journey is investigated.