American Indian Culture and Research Journal

American Indians have played a part in motion pictures from the time the flickering light came out of the inventor's workshop in the last decade of the nineteenth century up to the present day. It is not likely that Indians will be abandoned as a source material in the future. To understand what "part" Indians played it is necessary to have some knowledge of the way in which the motion picture industry developed. The flickering light in the darkened room moved from the experimental stage to its present state of proficiency under a variety of names: Moving Pictures, The Picture Show, Silents, Talkies, Movies, and now, more esoterically (elevated to the rarified atmosphere of an art form), Film-or, even more elitist, Cinema. But what had begun in the clinical air of the laboratory soon took to the streets and the carnival midway, where it gained instant popularity. The response of the early audience can only be called primitive. The first reaction was characterized by open-eyed wonder, awe, fascination, and delight. The enchanted eye of the masses was not confused by any critical faculties of evaluation, selectivity, or judgment of the content of the Magic Lantern offerings. Not then. A minority view of the new device among literate people- intellectuals and academicians- was one of disdain and disregard. Whereas such enlightened viewers might have recognized the significance of this new form of mass communication and made use of it for serious purposes, they showed no such perceptivity. Instead they remained aloof from one of the most effective means of communication ever developed by a technological society, secure in their conviction that those dimly lighted, jerky images would remain a sideshow attraction.