Constructing Indianness in Kent Mackenzie's The Exiles

Abstract

Film critics consistently note two prominent features of The Exiles as its visual style and its drunken Indians. It has been called one of the greatest films ever by or about Native people, even author Sherman Alexie has championed it as a realistic portrayal of urban Indians, yet, Kent Mackenzie's The Exiles profits from the same characterizations that promulgates negative representation of Indians in film and video. Mackenzie had an idea to make documentary that would shed light on the Federal Indian Relocation policy and show the effects of paternalism on relocatees living in the Bunker Hill area of Los Angeles but his investigation into the "Indian problem" was topical; Mackenzie had two urban Indian stories available to him, the first being one of self-determination, hard work and perseverance, and the second, a story about self-destruction. Archival documents in the Milestone DVD package and the film itself demonstrate that Mackenzie constructed for his actor-subjects an image of Indianness that little to do with themselves as individual Indian people, and everything to do with Mackenzie's own personal construction of Indianness.