Filming In The Land of The Head Hunters 2

''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' (also called ''In the Land of the War Canoes'') is a

1914 This year saw the beginning of what became known as World War I, after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austrian throne was Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, assassinated by Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip. It als ...

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized Sound recording and reproduction, recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) ...

fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of the

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region of the

Central Coast of British Columbia , settlement_type = Region of British Columbia , image_skyline = , nickname = "The Coast" , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = British ...

, Canada, written and directed by

Edward S. Curtis Edward Sherriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the "Shadow Catcher", Curtis travele ...

and acted entirely by Kwakwaka'wakw native people. The film was selected in 1999 for preservation in the US

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

as being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant." It was the first feature-length film whose cast was composed entirely of Native North Americans; the second, eight years later, was Robert Flaherty's ''

Nanook of the North ''Nanook of the North'' is a 1922 American silent film which combines elements of documentary and docudrama, at a time when the concept of separating films into documentary and drama did not yet exist. In the tradition of what would later be c ...

''. Most of the film was shot on the Deer Island near

Fort Rupert Fort Rupert is the site of a former Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fort on the east coast near the northern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The unincorporated community on Beaver Harbour is about by road southeast of Port Hardy. Coal & fo ...

, British Columbia. It was the first feature film made in British Columbia, and is the oldest surviving feature film made in Canada.

Original release

Curtis had earlier experimented with multimedia. In 1911 he created a stage show with slides, a lecture, and live musical accompaniment, called ''

The Indian Picture Opera ''The Indian Picture Opera'' is a magic lantern slide show by photographer Edward S. Curtis. In the early 1900s, Curtis published the renowned 20-volume book subscription entitled ''The North American Indian''. He compiled about 2400 photograph ...

''. He used stereopticon projectors, where two projectors dissolved back and forth between images. This was his prelude to entering the motion picture era. The film opened in

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and

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

in December 1914, with live performances of a score by John J. Braham, had access to

wax cylinder Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to give low ...

recordings of Kwakwaka'wakw music, and the promotional campaign at the time suggested that his score was based on these; in fact, there were few snatches of Kwakwaka'wakw music in the score. Curtis hoped the film would be successful enough to fund the completion of ''

The North American Indian Edward Sherriff Curtis (February 19, 1868 – October 19, 1952) was an American photographer and ethnology, ethnologist whose work focused on the Western United States, American West and on Native American people. Sometimes referred to as the ...

'', a multi-volume history of every indigenous tribe on the continent he had been working on since 1906. Although critically praised, the film was a commercial failure.Aaron Glass, Brad Evans, Andrea Sanborn, Project statement, p. 2-3 of the program for presentation of ''In the Land of the Head Hunters'', Moore Theatre, Seattle, Washington, June 10, 2008. Curtis spent approximately $75,000 to make the film, but it only earned $3,269.18 after a year in theaters. He was so disappointed with the film's financial performance that he sold all the rights to the film to the

New York Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

in 1919 or 1920. When the museum lost Curtis's donated material, the film was considered lost until 1947.

Salvaging the film and score

A single damaged, incomplete print of the film was salvaged from a dumpster by film collector Hugo Zeiter of Danville Illinois and donated to

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's Field Museum of Natural History in 1947. Bill Holm and

George Quimby George may refer to: People * George (given name) * George (surname) * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Washington, First President of the United States * George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...

obtained a 16mm copy in 1965 and completed a re-edited version of the film in 1974, having added a soundtrack by Kwakwaka'wakw musicians, and released the result as ''In the Land of the War Canoes''. Independently, some other damaged clips from the film made their way to the

UCLA Film and Television Archive The UCLA Film & Television Archive is a visual arts organization focused on the preservation, study, and appreciation of film and television, based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Also a nonprofit exhibition venue, the ar ...

. The score had been filed at the library of the

Getty Research Institute The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

, but without a title that tied it to the film. The 2008 restoration brought together these materials.

Milestone Films Milestone Film and Video is an independent film distribution company, founded in 1990 in the United States by Dennis Doros and Amy Heller. The company researches and distributes cinematographic material from around the world, including silent film, ...

has announced plans to release a restored "One-Hundredth Anniversary" DVD of the film with the original score in 2014.Milestone Films catalog
In the Land of the Head Hunters

Documentary or melodrama?

''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' has often been discussed as a flawed

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

. The film combines many accurate representations of aspects of Kwakwaka'wakw culture, art, and technology from the era in which it was made with a melodramatic plot based on practices that either dated from long before the first contact of the Kwakwaka'wakw with people of European descent or were entirely fictional. Curtis appears never to have specifically presented the film as a documentary, but he also never specifically called it a work of fiction. Some aspects of the film do have documentary accuracy: the artwork, the ceremonial dances, the clothing, the architecture of the buildings, and the construction of the dugout, or a

war canoe A war canoe is a watercraft of the canoe type designed and outfitted for warfare, and which is found in various forms in many world cultures. In modern times, such designs have become adapted as a sport, and "war canoe" can mean a type of flatwat ...

reflected Kwakwaka'wakw culture. Other aspects of the film were based on the Kwakwaka'wakw's orally transmitted traditions or on aspects of other neighboring cultures. The film also accurately portrays Kwakwaka'wakw rituals that were, at the time, prohibited by Canada's potlatch prohibition, enacted in 1884 and not rescinded until 1951. However, as is noted by the producers who supervised the centennial restoration of the film,

Plot

The following plot synopsis was published in conjunction with a 1915 showing of the film at Carnegie Hall:

Cast

Notes

External links

*''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' essay by Brad Evans and Aaron Glass at

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*''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 , pages 37–3

*
Edward Curtis meets the Kwakwaka'wakw: "In the Land of the Head Hunters"Book version of ''In the Land of the Head Hunters''
(published 1915; now in public domain). PDF scanned from a copy in the Bancroft Library of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

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''In the Land of the Head Hunters'': Film Introduction and Panel

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located ...

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{{DEFAULTSORT:In The Land Of The Head Hunters 1914 films United States National Film Registry films American black-and-white films American silent feature films World Film Company films 1914 drama films Headhunting accounts and studies Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations films First Nations history in British Columbia Films set in British Columbia Films shot in British Columbia Articles containing video clips Silent American drama films 1910s American films