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Filming a Makah village for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man

University of British Columbia

This thesis looks at ethnographic film using Jim Jarmusch's 1996 Dead Man as a "site." Dead Man's penultimate scene portrays a Northwest Coast village using Makah actors and Makahmade set pieces. The production of this scene provides a setting where mainstream American culture, represented by a Hollywood film crew, comes into contact with Makah culture in a collaborative filmmaking effort, making Dead Man a site of cultural negotiation and mediation. By contextualizing Dead Man with earlier films from the Northwest Coast by Edward S. Curtis and Franz Boas, by examining the film's production through the words of the participants, and by incorporating theoretical notions of contact zones, authenticity, and experience, the author gleans an understanding of the contemporary Makah experience of Dead Man.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-05-26

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/8289

Anthropology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace