Oregon Movies, A to Z » 1980’s

Tamanawis Illahee: Rituals And Acts In A Landscape (1983)/Lost film

Anne Richardson — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 15:31:48 +0000

Chinook man in canoe, circa 1910, by Edward Curtis

Another lost film I hope I get to see!

Ron Finne’s Tamanawis Illahee is a perfect demonstration of Oregon’s deep, and deeply unacknowledged, biculturality. Here’s the synopsis from the Canyon Cinema catalog:

Tamanawis Illahee (Medicine Land) (1983) 58 min 16mm
A film of the Pacific Northwest, the native people, poetry, history and the forces of change.

“TAMANAWIS ILLAHEE, subtitled RITUALS AND ACTS IN A LANDSCAPE, is an homage to the Indian heritage of the Pacific Northwest and a study in the contrast of how native people used the land, as opposed to European settlers who gradually took it over. “It is experimental in style, combining time-lapse photography, archive footage, classic photographs by documentarist Edward Curtis, museum artifacts and other image sources.

“The film is a plea for a spiritual reconnection with native forebears
and a recognition of their heritage.” – Ted Mahar, The Oregonian

This film was made possible in part by a grant from the Oregon Committee for the Humanities, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

I understand George Venn’s poem, Directions For Visitors, is featured in Tamanawis Illahee.

DIRECTIONS FOR VISITORS
by George Venn

If you want to find my place
get out of town any way you can.
Find the Cascades in early morning.
When you see the Tatoosh Peaks
where the Nisqually flows
into Alder Lake at Elbe, stop,
ask directions at the grocery.
I won’t be mourning in the tavern.
The Post Office closed last year.
I have no phone and mail hardly comes.

Take the road to Alder by the lake.
When you see the garden above the road
that will be Uncle Ernest’s homestead.
He’s 95 this year, prays every day.
Keep going. When you reach the crest
you will see Uncle Leonard’s pasture
on the left, Grandpa Mayo’s honey house
across the road. Grandma still lives
that farm alone. Cross the swamp
on Alder Creek past Uncle Charlie’s pond.
My father’s house is on the left knoll.
He died and I moved away to town.

On the next wide curve, turn right
onto the gravel going uphill until
you come to a Dead End sign hidden
in the grass and fireweed. Turn there.
To the right. This will be two ruts
a berm of grass down the center
mudpuddles and chuckholes all along.
In one place, a creek flows across.
No more signs now. Curves will be blind.
I’d suggest slowing down.

In two miles, you’ll come to a gate.
Park there and get out. You will hear
Clear Creek splashing over stones,
a dipper will welcome you upstream.
Follow the current through bracken
buttercups, devil club, blackberries
skunk cabbage, deadfall cedar and alder
until you come to a waterfall and pool
surrounded by second growth fir.
I should be there fishing somewhere.
You may see the smoke from my fire
rising like a ghost through green limbs.

If you don’t see me, don’t call.
This place can’t hear a shouting voice.
I’ll know you have come by the way
the crows and chickadees carry on.
I’ll come out then and eat lunch
with you and we can talk and feed sticks
to the fire. If you wait an hour or more
and I don’t appear somehow,
I’m simply not the George you knew.

Catch a few fish for yourself then–
under the falls is the best cast.
If my fire’s out, there’s still wood.
Make a fire of your own, eat, get warm,
and leave the same way you came by dark.
Please do not tell anyone where I live.
Try to forget this place all the way home.

Director Ron Finne is appearing at the April 2 screening of his 1972 film, Natural Timber Country, at the Whitsell.

I hereby claim Tamanawis Illahee, sight unseen, as an Oregon film, based on the Oregon citizenship of director Ron Finne.

Sid and Nancy (1986)

Anne Richardson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 03:33:04 +0000

In honor of Gary Oldman’s Oscar nomination for Best Actor, I am turning my attention to his only Oregon film. Courtney Love’s first film role was a small part in Sid and Nancy. Alex Cox created the role of Gretchen for her, after seeing her audition for the role of Nancy.

That’s not her in the above photo – that’s Choe Webb and Gary Oldman.

When Oldman and Love next appeared in a film together, it was Basquiat (1996). In the intervening decade, both had become stars.

I hereby claim Sid and Nancy as an Oregon film, on the basis of the contribution by Oregonian Courtney Love.

A Claymation Christmas Celebration (1987)

Anne Richardson — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 16:15:39 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Entertainment Weekly called them “the coolest wrinkled musicians this side of the Stones”. The brainchildren of California Raisin Marketing Board, the musically talented Raisins first came to life at Will Vinton Studios in 1986.

They took the country by storm.

Executive producer Will Vinton, producer David Altschul and writer Ralph Liddle collected a 1988 Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program for their work.

I hereby claim A Claymation Christmas Celebration as an Oregon film on the basis of multiple criteria (credits include two Oregon Oscar winners – Will Vinton and Joan Gratz).

Road House (1989)

Anne Richardson — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 05:50:10 +0000

In Point Break, Patrick Swayze gives advice.

In Road House, he gets it – from Sam Elliot, graduate of David Douglas High School, Class of 1962. Young Sam studied theater at Clark Community College in Vancouver, Washington before heading south to Hollywood to sidle into movies via television. In Road House, twenty years into his career, he plays Wade Garrett, the Jiminy Cricket to Swayze’s Pinocchio.

If, like me, you haven’t ever seen Road House you can do one of two things. You can see it or you can go see what Meagan Kate, Courtenay Hameister, Ted Douglass, Sean McGrath, Nicholas Kessler, Karate McQueen, Rob Campbell, Michael Fetters, Shelley McLendon, Kate Piatt-Eckert, Scott Engdahl, Tony Marcellino, Wm. Steven Humphrey, and Brad Fortier ( pictured below) have done to it.

Road House: The Play! opens May 8 at the Ellyn Bye Studio in the Gerding Theater at the Armory, located in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon. Here’s where you can get more info (plus tickets).

Road House: The Play! returns in May 2011 after sold out runs and rave reviews in 2010.

First released as a film in 1989 and starring the late Patrick Swayze, Road House tells the timeless tale of a bar bouncer with a mysterious past who lives by his own rules, a small town terrorized by a wealthy senior citizen, a sexy doctor, and karate. Road House: The Play! is the magic that results from taking the original film script, putting it on stage, and adding original songs.

Created by Shelley McLendon
Adapted to the stage by Shelley McLendon and Courtenay Hameister, aka The Witty One
Directed by John Breen

I hereby claim Road House as an Oregon film, based on the Portland origins of Sam Elliott.

Breaking In (1989)

Anne Richardson — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 04:46:33 +0000

Professional thief Ernie (Burt Reynolds) meets Mike (Casey Siemaszko), an underemployed young mechanic, after they both break into the same house – one to crack a safe, the other just to make sandwich. The men size each other up, and then Ernie makes a business proposition. The climax of this low key caper film takes place in the basement under the Oaks Park skating rink.

This is Casey Siemaszko’s second Oregon film, after Stand By Me. Screenwriter John Sayles’ second Oregon film, after Clan of the Cave Bear.

I hereby claim Breaking In as an Oregon film, on the basis of the location shooting.

Artists At Work

Anne Richardson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:32:26 +0000

Gus Van Sant directs Matt Dillon in Drugstore Cowboy.

Our Town

Anne Richardson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 16:17:06 +0000

Shot in 1989, Drugstore Cowboy meticulously recreates the Portland of 1971.

Gus Van Sant’s warts and all portrait of the cloudy colonial outpost we call home is so detailed and accurate that people may forget that the film was carefully art directed.

Compare the city Van Sant created for Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Le Gros and Heather Graham to inhabit to the one seen in the background of Drugs: Killers or Dillers and The Case of the Kitchen Killer, both shot during the early 70’s, and judge for yourself the strength of his powers of recall.

Two sources of information about the locations used in Drugstore Cowboy: Here’s some Google Maps, and related research.

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Anne Richardson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:39:23 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Like all truly great movies, Drugstore Cowboy is a joyous piece of work. I believe the subject of a film does not determine whether it makes us feel happy or sad. I am inutterably depressed after seeing stupid comedies that insult my intelligence, but I felt exhilarated after seeing “Drugstore Cowboy,” because every person connected with this project is working at top form. It’s a high-wire act of daring, in which this unlikely subject matter becomes the occasion for a film about sad people we come to care very deeply about. Roger Ebert

It is my great honor to claim Drugstore Cowboy as an Oregon film.

Leave Me Alone (1988)

Anne Richardson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:42:35 +0000

Michael Jackson, pictured here with a few Michael wannabes.

Michael Jackson can do many things, but he can’t direct his own music videos. For that, he taps the best filmmakers around – John Landis (Thriller), Martin Scorsese (Bad) and Jim Blashfield (Leave Me Alone).

Leave Me Alone was made in Portland at Jim Blashfield’s studio. It won a Grammy, the Cannes Golden Lion (for special effects) and an MTV award (for special effects).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rolling Stone placed it at #8 in their list of Top 100 Music Videos of All Time.

Jim Farber, writing in Connoisseur Magazine, May 1989, sums it up:

While poking fun at the wildest tabloid rumors about the star’s life, Blashfield offers unexpected insight into Jackson’s psychology. He constructs two Jacksons here– one an impish child, the other a Gulliver-style giant, trapped in a labyrinth of roller coasters and log flumes. With wit and empathy, he portrays him as an adult enslaved to a child’s fantasies.

I hereby claim Leave Me Alone as an Oregon film, based on the Oregon citizenship of the writer-director-producer, Jim Blashfield.

Slaves Of New York (1989)

Anne Richardson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:59:39 +0000

Bernadette Peters is cute a button, and ten times as talented as her painter boyfriend, in Slaves Of New York, a feminist romantic comedy set in the East Village.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Slaves of New York is an Oregon film two times over. Directed by James Ivory, it also features Portlander Paige Powell as an extra in a party scene. Party on, Paige!

I hereby claim Slaves of New York as an Oregon film.