by myhappyface
Let's talk for a minute about how much I love the movie Thunderheart. One of my favorite things is watching robots learn to love, and Val Kilmer's character Ray Levoi, at the beginning of this film, is the quintessential robot. Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. He's being sent to an Indian reservation because he's part Sioux, but it is a part of himself he doesn't even acknowledge enough to despise.
Maggie Eagle Bear, played by Sheila Tousey in what I think was her first screen role, is just. As far as I can tell, she was based on actual Indian rights activist Anna Mae Aquash, right down to the bullet she takes near the film's end; she is brave and smart and determined, and shuts down Levoi's mealy-mouthedness in a heartbeat. When Grandma opens the door for the FBI, Maggie's standing in the back with a shotgun, just in case.
Walter Crow Horse, played by Graham Greene, is a cop on the res furious at the constant intrusion of the federal government into his home and the destruction and corruption that intrusion entails. And at first, Ray is just, in Walter's words, the "second coming of the same old cavalry."
They flirt like mad. There's script stuff - "Hey, Crow Horse, fuck you," "Yeah, you'd love to" - and then there are the mannerisms of the characters, the way they lean into each other and smile and hold the stare. (I think it is called "acting" or something.)
Part of why I love this movie is because I love conspiracies, the way the characters have to dance to keep up with it, and Ray is far too smart to let himself be kept in the dark for long, despite Coutelle's best efforts. To quote The Wire, he finally gets real with the story, he learns to accept all the parts of himself, and that's what makes him grow, what turns him into a real person.
Lesson: the Internet never forgets. I wrote a ship manifesto for Ray/Walter when I was, uh, sixteen. So that happened.
Grandpa Reaches (Chief Ted Thin Elk) thanks you for stopping by.
Maggie Eagle Bear, played by Sheila Tousey in what I think was her first screen role, is just. As far as I can tell, she was based on actual Indian rights activist Anna Mae Aquash, right down to the bullet she takes near the film's end; she is brave and smart and determined, and shuts down Levoi's mealy-mouthedness in a heartbeat. When Grandma opens the door for the FBI, Maggie's standing in the back with a shotgun, just in case.
Walter Crow Horse, played by Graham Greene, is a cop on the res furious at the constant intrusion of the federal government into his home and the destruction and corruption that intrusion entails. And at first, Ray is just, in Walter's words, the "second coming of the same old cavalry."
They flirt like mad. There's script stuff - "Hey, Crow Horse, fuck you," "Yeah, you'd love to" - and then there are the mannerisms of the characters, the way they lean into each other and smile and hold the stare. (I think it is called "acting" or something.)
Part of why I love this movie is because I love conspiracies, the way the characters have to dance to keep up with it, and Ray is far too smart to let himself be kept in the dark for long, despite Coutelle's best efforts. To quote The Wire, he finally gets real with the story, he learns to accept all the parts of himself, and that's what makes him grow, what turns him into a real person.
Lesson: the Internet never forgets. I wrote a ship manifesto for Ray/Walter when I was, uh, sixteen. So that happened.
Grandpa Reaches (Chief Ted Thin Elk) thanks you for stopping by.