Navajo Silversmith
This film is structured in almost the same fashion as the weaving film. The film starts with a series of shots showing the Navajo silversmith completing the filing on some little Yeibechai figures which have already been cast and are on his work bench. We then cut away from this (as in A Navajo Weaver) to what is apparently the beginning of the story. We see the silversmith walking and wandering across the Navajo landscape and finally arriving at what appears to be a silver mine. The silversmith spends a great deal of time finding nuggets of silver embedded in the rock. He then spends another period of walking and wandering to look for the particular kind of sandstone from which he will make his mold. We see him working at sawing and grinding his mold, finally drawing his design in the sand, and then transferring it to the mold. At this point we have again the only face close-up (thinking of the design) in the film.

After the mold is made we see him melting the nuggets of silver and pouring the silver into the mold. He goes through the process of filing and polishing and the last shot in the film is the shot with which we began. At one point in the film, during the silversmith’s wanderings to find silver, the film is interrupted to show us what appears to be an abandoned log cabin. In this sequence, the circular camera movements, moving clockwise like the sun, are most clearly apparent. This sequence was inserted to show that the mine was indeed very old, because the dwelling places around it are also old. Of note in this film, and mentioned in our analysis, is the fact that the Navajo have never mined silver on the reservation. Johnny was aware of that, but seemed unable to tell his story without starting at the beginning, and didn’t worry about the “real truth.”
-Sol Worth & John Adair

223MB | 20:41.355 | 592×448 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/ECA775771E287EC/Navajo_Silversmith_(Nelson,_1966).avi

Language:Silent
Subtitles:None

The post John Nelson – Through Navajo Eyes: Navajo Silversmith (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Shallow Well Project
This is a film that Johnny undertook to make after he was reprimanded by the community for making the photographs of horses which are described in the text. It was at that time that he was asked to supervise the construction of a shallow well.

Johnny previously had experience as a foreman helping to construct these wells in the community. He told the relative who suggested that he undertake the supervision of this construction that he couldn’t do it because he was learning to make movies. But then he realized that perhaps he could make a film about it and thus regain some of his status.

This film is in many ways different from any of the other films made by the Navajo and is discussed in the analysis section. It opens, however, in much the same way, showing the old first-a series of shots of the old open ponds from which the Navajo used to draw water. We then see a series of closeups of flies and insects on the water. After moving with the camera around the stagnant pool we cut quickly to a series of Navajo workmen beginning to build their shallow well. We follow, in almost educational film style, all the processes, in close-up, by which the various portions of the well are built. Intercut at moments are shots of the Navajo reading blueprints, measuring with yardsticks, and receiving instructions from the foreman who actually was in charge of this project. Johnny again shows the typical Navajo use of the circular pan in many of the shots of the cement work as the camera explores the various parts of the installation, always moving in a sunwise direction. When the job is finished we see a Navajo (Johnny used Worth to play the part of a Navajo) walking up to the well and drawing water and we see water coming from the various parts of the shallow well. The film ends not with shots of anybody walking, but with a series of shots of trucks driving away from the well.

Of interest here is that although there are no face close-ups, there are also no shots of Navajos walking to get anything. All the tools and all the equipment they need are right there. Instead of walking away from the job they ride away. This is the only time in any of the films in which Navajos are shown using their pickup trucks.
-Sol Worth & John Adair

164MB | 15:14.907 | 592×448 | av

https://nitro.download/view/0D0160ECEF76A76/Shallow_Well_Project_(Nelson,_1966).avi

Language:Silent
Subtitles:None

The post John Nelson – Through Navajo Eyes: Shallow Well Project (1966) first appeared on Cinema of the World.