Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. - While filming a documentary on her grandmother, Navajo film maker Arlene Bowman discovered a chasm that spanned generations and life ways.

Bowman envisioned an ethnographic film, hoping to document Ann Ruth Biah's traditional lifestyle at her hogan north of Greasewood on the Navajo Nation. She planned to film Biah hauling water, chopping wood, tending her sheep, horses, dogs and cats.

"It began as a day in the life of my grandmother, but another story emerged," Bowman said.

"Navajo Talking Picture," a favorite at film festivals around the world, reveals the conflict between an urban Navajo woman whose life work is film making and the traditional lifestyle of her grandmother.

The film has been selected for the festival DuCourt Metrage Clermont-Ferrand in France Jan. 31-Feb. 8.

Bowman began filming, "Navajo Talking Picture," as a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1981. Despite the language barriers and Navajo taboos about being photographed, Bowman secured her grandmother's permission to record her life on camera.

At one point, she hoped to capture her grandmother interacting with other family members at the trading post. That single incident almost proved fatal to the project. Bowman said jealousy motivated relatives to dissuade her grandmother from further participation in the project.

Relatives viewed her as a wealthy film maker with opportunities unavailable to Navajos living in an isolated community. "When you live in a big city, everyone thinks you have money. They didn't understand that I have to raise all the money for my films. They didn't understand film and video. They thought it could be done and out of the way in two days."

In addition to a language barrier, there were numerous cultural barriers. "I didn't know my culture and way of life," Bowman said. "The relatives tended to put me down for not knowing it. They used it to blame me and made me a scapegoat. They were explosive at the time."

Even though relatives branded her as "someone who had no culture and was not even a Navajo," Bowman continued to film visits with her grandmother between 1981 and 1983. Finally, her grandmother asked her to leave.

"I could not understand it. All I felt was hurt at the time." Bowman said despite the conflicts, the film project drew her closer to her grandmother before her death in April 1993.

"Usually documentary film makers conceal what is happening behind the scenes. They edit it out. They want the film to be perfect."

At film festivals around the world, tempers flare when viewers watch Biah flee the camera and seek refuge behind the wood stove in her hogan. Bowman said festival goers often resort to shouting matches when ethics of the film are discussed. "Camps are set up. Some people become hostile and shout at one another. But I've been told that when a movie creates a lot of emotion, it is a sign of a g ood film."

While mainstream audiences tend to see her grandmother as a fragile victim, Bowman said people living on the Navajo Nation realize her grandmother's strength. "They realize she is a survivor." That also is an apt description for the film maker.

Bowman, a member of the Native American Producers' Alliance, said racism and gender prejudice in Hollywood make it difficult for independent American Indian film makers to produce, direct and write feature films. The mainstream media, too, has been slow to recognize the accomplishments of Native American film makers, she said. "We are really alive. We exist." Bowman said she would continue to examine controversial issues including race and gender struggles in her work.

"Song Journey," currently being televised by numerous PBS affiliates, reveals the triumphs and struggles of American Indian women singers and drummers on the powwow circuit. Bowman interviewed Native men who vigorously oppose women drumming and singing.

Another Bowman film, "Men and Women are Good Dancers," was recently screened at the American Indian film festival in San Francisco. She is currently writing a screenplay about an urban Navajo woman who leaves Los Angeles in search of her own reality.

Bowman earned her bachelor's degree in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. She graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts in motion picture television from the University of California at Los Angeles. After graduate school, Bowman spent six month s backpacking alone through South America and worked for the Navajo Nation and Rough Rock Demonstration School in Rough Rock, Ariz. Born in Fort Defiance, Ariz., near her father's family at Tohatchi, N.M., Bowman grew up in Phoenix and spent 16 years in Los Angeles.

Bowman said after filming her grandmother's life on the Navajo Nation, she realized that like Thomas Wolfe she can never go home again.. "I'm an L.A. woman."

CAROLYN CALVIN, Navajo, is a freelance writer on the Navajo Nation. She previously worked as a staff reporter and copy editor for Navajo Times, features editor for The Salt Lake Tribune and served as tribal spokesperson during the administration of Navajo President Peterson Zah. For more information: Carolyn Calvin, Phone: 520-871-5261

PHOTOGRAPHS: For recent photographs of Arlene Bowman, visiting a Seri village in Mexico or filming on the Navajo Nation, contact Brenda Norrell at the email address found below.

BRENDA NORRELL, a freelance journalist based on the Navajo Nation, is a former managing editor and staff reporter for Indian Country Today and former correspondent for The Associated Press and USA Today. Norrell first met Bowman in 1971 when the two women traveled to San Francisco together. After 24 years, the women met again in 1995 during a reading by Sherman Alexie in Scottsdale, Ariz.

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Contact Brenda Norrell by e-mail: brendanorrell@usa.net

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