"Offers an extraordinary experience of living history. It cannot be praised enough." Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray Professor of English and American Studies, Yale University

Coming to Light tells the dramatic story of Curtis' life, his creation of his monumental work, and his changing views of the people he set out to document. The film also gives Indian people a voice in the discussion of Curtis' images. Hopi, Navajo, Eskimo, Blackfeet, Crow, Blood, Piegan, Suquamish, and Kwakiutl people who are descended from Curtis subjects or who are using his photographs for cultural preservation respond to the pictures, tell stories about the people in the photographs, and discuss the meaning of the images.

In 1900, Curtis attended a Piegan Sundance, a ceremony that had recently been outlawed. Curtis believed this would be the last Sundance, and it was this experience that set him on his path to document traditional Indian cultures. Eighty years later, some of Curtis' photographs inspired the Piegans to revive the ceremony, and it is still going strong today. The documentary begins with footage shot at a contemporary Piegan Sundance last year intercut with Curtis' 1900 photographs that led to its revival.

When Curtis began photographing Indians, he believed that their cultures were vanishing. When he finished in 1930, his own work vanished into obscurity, then was rediscovered in the 1970s and helped to inspire the revival of traditional culture on many reservations.

Coming to Light presents a complex, dedicated, flawed life, and explores many of the ironies inherent in Curtis's story, the often controversial nature of his romantic images, and the value of the photographs to Indian people and to all Americans today.

Note: This version is shortened from the director's original 84-minute cut and was edited with educational and group screenings in mind, where length is an important factor. The director describes the difference between the two versions as follows:

"The 56-minute version contains all of the elements that are in the original 84-minute version, but many of the details and some entire scenes have been edited out. For example, Curtis' building a camera at the age of twelve and homesteading on Puget Sound at nineteen are cut. His first meeting with J.P. Morgan is condensed into a brief mention. The entire contemporary Suquamish tribe is cut, with just a mention of Curtis' first Indian "subject," Princess Angeline. Also omitted are Curtis' rescue of famous scientists on Mt. Rainier and subsequent journey as official photographer on the 1898 Harriman expedition to Alaska, his 1911 fundraising "Picture Musicale" tour and triumph at Carnegie Hall, and the discussion by Indian people of the government boarding school system and other policies of assimilation. While still visually stunning and rich in complexity, most scenes in the 56-minute version are shorter, with less detail, less analysis, less history, less of Curtis' personal life, less exploration of contemporary Indian cultures, less richness.

If you can possibly show the 84-minute version, it will be well worth it. There is a place to break at 42 minutes or 52 minutes into the film (depending on class length) so that it can be shown in two parts with time at the end for classroom discussion. If time does not allow you to show the full director's cut, the shorter version will still provide a fresh, original, and revealing look at Curtis, his work, and the diversity and richness of American Indian cultures both in his time and today. In either case, the audience will be hungering for more, and eager to discuss the ideas, the stories, the cultures, the history, the work, and the man in "COMING TO LIGHT, Edward Curtis and The North American Indians." Anne Makepeace



Grade Level: 7-12, College, Adult
US Release Date: 2000     Copyright Date: 2000
DVD ISBN: 1-59458-630-6     VHS ISBN: 1-56029-839-1

Reviews "COMING TO LIGHT tells more than the story of its main subject, 'Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians.' It tells, too, of the tragedy of cultural loss and hopes for recovery of memory. The film honors the great achievements of Curtis by placing his pictures in a vibrant frame of sorrow, desire, and promise. In its sensitive and intelligent fusion of image, sound, and story, the film offers an extraordinary experience of living history. It cannot be praised enough." Alan Trachtenberg, Neil Gray Professor of English and American Studies, Yale University "The Odyssean photographic career and poignantly forlorn private life of Edward S. Curtis are charted with impressive sensitivity in this very welcome portrait...It's an outstanding subject, one that...emerges compellingly in documentary form." Todd McCarthy, Variety "Beautifully filmed, skillfully edited and well-paced, Coming To Light is highly recommended for courses on North American Indians, visual anthropology, and American popular culture. Well researched and deftly touching on the complex politics of cross-cultural visual representation, Makepeace's film exhibits a balanced perspective on Curtis as a trailblazer in visual ethnography." Harald Prins, American Anthropologist "A beautifully crafted epic..." David Ansen, Newsweek "An unusually well-balanced view of Edward Curtis' life and works as the best known photographer of North American Indian people during the first part of the twentieth century." Bill Sturtevant, Curator of Ethnology, National Museum of National History, Smithsonian Institution "Remarkable, a fascinating and thorough look at a photographer whose 40,000 images recorded Native American life." Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times