Smoke Signals | |
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Directed by | Chris Eyre |
Screenplay by | Sherman Alexie |
Based on | The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Brian Capener |
Edited by | Brian Berdan |
Music by | B.C. Smith |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Miramax Films |
Release date |
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Running time | 89 minutes |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Budget | $2 million (est.) |
Box office | $6.7 million [1] |
Smoke Signals is a 1998 coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Chris Eyre from a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on Alexie's short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). The film won several awards and accolades, and was well received at numerous film festivals.
In 2018, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." [2]
Hot-tempered basketball player Victor Joseph and eccentric storyteller Thomas Builds-the-Fire live on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Plummer, Idaho. The two men are brought together through Victor's father, Arnold, who rescued Thomas as an infant from a house fire that killed his parents in 1976. Because of this, Thomas considers him a hero. On the other hand, Victor, who endures Arnold's alcoholism, domestic violence, and eventual child abandonment, regards his father with both deep love and bitter resentment. Thomas and Victor grow up together as neighbors and acquaintances, fighting with each other and simultaneously forming a close, albeit uneasy, friendship.
When Arnold dies in Phoenix, Arizona, where he has stayed after leaving Victor and his mother Arlene, Victor and Thomas go on an adventure to retrieve his ashes. The trip is the means for Victor and Thomas to explore their identities. Neither of them loses sight of his identity as an "Indian", but their perspectives differ. Victor is more stoic and Thomas is more traditional (and romantic to the point of watching the feature film Dances with Wolves countless times). Their dichotomy is portrayed all through the film; it results in Victor being irritated with Thomas, and Thomas being fascinated with Victor.
Once they reach Phoenix, Victor has to confront his conflicted feelings about his father, as well as his own identity. He has to grapple with a new account of Thomas's parents' death, as told by Arnold's friend Suzy Song, who reveals that Arnold had drunkenly set off fireworks and accidentally started the fire that killed Thomas' parents. The road trip by the young men leads to Thomas reconciling with the memory of his adoptive father Arnold, as he understands more of his path to alcoholism and related abuse and abandonment. Victor also gains a better understanding of Thomas and his reverence for Arnold. Victor and Thomas eventually throw Arnold's ashes into a river as a form of acceptance.
While it was not the first film created by native filmmakers in the United States, Smoke Signals is recognized as being the first feature-length film written, directed, and produced by Native Americans to reach a wide audience both in the US and abroad. This film is also notable for its authenticity with regard to its cast of Native American actors and actresses, and because it was filmed on location on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation in Idaho.
Smoke Signals was well received by mainstream critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 91 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Smoke Signals tells a familiar story from an underrepresented point of view, proving that a fresh perspective can help subvert long-established expectations." [3] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [4]
Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film a rave review, calling it, "unpretentious, funny and soulful ... Well-acted, well-written, with spare, beautiful imagery." [5] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times described Smoke Signals as "a warm film of friendship and reconciliation, and whenever it refers to historic injustices or contemporary issues in Native American culture, it does so with wry, glancing humor. Smoke Signals is indeed poignant, but above all it's pretty funny." [6] Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle called the film "poignant and slyly humorous" and "alight with oddball nuances and wry observations," saying further, "the cast is uniformly excellent in their roles, and Eyre's persistent use of long, trailing shots reinforces the story's elegiac tone. Simple and elegant, Smoke Signals is a delicious, heady debut that lingers long after the tale is told." [7]
Susan Tavernetti of the Palo Alto Weekly , gave the film a mixed review, saying that "although sometimes the attempt to break down stereotypes seems stilted and forced, more often the result is humorous." She also said, "Chris Eyre's direction establishes an uneven tone, allowing some actors to deliver performances bordering on broad caricature while others play their roles straight." She praised the opening and closing sequences which "beautifully combine poetic voice-overs with visual lyricism." [8]
In 2023 Cody Lightning, who had portrayed the young Victor in the original film, released the mockumentary comedy film Hey, Viktor! , in which a fictionalized version of himself formulates a plan to revive his fading career by creating his own self-funded sequel to Smoke Signals. [9]
Stanley Tucci Jr. is an American actor. Known as a character actor, he has played a wide variety of roles ranging from menacing to sophisticated. Tucci has earned numerous accolades, including six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Tony Award.
Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. is a Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from several tribes. He grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and now lives in Seattle, Washington.
Adam Beach is a Canadian actor. He is best known for his roles as Victor Joseph in Smoke Signals; Frank Fencepost in Dance Me Outside; Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger; Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt; U.S. Marine Corporal Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers; Private Ben Yahzee in Windtalkers; Dr. Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee; NYPD Detective Chester Lake in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit; and Officer Jim Chee in the film adaptations of Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits and A Thief of Time. He starred in the Canadian 2012–2014 series Arctic Air and played Slipknot in the 2016 film Suicide Squad. He also performed as Squanto in Disney's historical drama film Squanto: A Warrior's Tale. Most recently he has starred in Hostiles (2017) as Black Hawk and the Netflix original film Juanita (2019) as Jess Gardiner and Edward Nappo in Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog.
Jim Boyd was a Native American singer-songwriter, actor, and member of the Jim Boyd Band on the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington. Boyd performed in several groups, including XIT, Greywolf, and Winterhawk. Boyd performed four songs with lyrics by Sherman Alexie on the soundtrack for the 1998 movie Smoke Signals, and also appeared in Alexie's 2002 film The Business of Fancydancing.
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Cynthia Geary is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Shelly Tambo on the television series Northern Exposure (1990–1995), which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
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The 3rd Florida Film Critics Circle Awards, given on 12 January 1999, honored the best in film for 1998.
Jason Sherman is a Canadian playwright and screenwriter.
Chris Eyre, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, is an American film director and producer who as of 2012 is chairman of the film department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven is a 1993 collection of interconnected short stories by Sherman Alexie. The characters and stories in the book, particularly "This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona", provided the basis of Alexie's screenplay for the film Smoke Signals.
The Business of Fancydancing is a 2002 film written and directed by Sherman Alexie. It is loosely based on his 1992 book of the same name, a collection of stories and poems.
Evan Tlesla Adams is an Indigenous Canadian actor, playwright, and physician. A Coast Salish from the Sliammon First Nation near Powell River, British Columbia, he is best known internationally for his roles in the films of Sherman Alexie, as Thomas Builds-the-Fire in the 1998 film Smoke Signals and Seymour Polatkin in the 2002 film The Business of Fancydancing.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a first-person narrative novel by Sherman Alexie, from the perspective of a Native American teenager, Arnold Spirit Jr., also known as "Junior," a 14-year-old promising cartoonist. The book is about Junior's life on the Spokane Indian Reservation and his decision to go to a nearly all-white public high school away from the reservation. The graphic novel includes 65 comic illustrations that help further the plot.
Reservation Blues is a 1995 novel by American writer Sherman Alexie, a citizen of the Spokane Tribe and descendant of the Coeur d'Alene Tribe.
Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by actor Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers from all over the world. At the core of the programs is the goal to introduce audiences to the artists' new work, aided by the institute's labs, granting and mentorship programs that take place throughout the year in the United States and internationally.
Cody Lightning is a Cree actor and filmmaker from Edmonton, Treaty 6, Alberta, Canada. He is the son of film director and actress Georgina Lightning and brother of actors Crystle Lightning and William Lightning. He was a Young Artist Award nominee in 1999 for Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor, for Smoke Signals (1998), and won the American Indian Film Festival award for Best Actor in 2007 for Four Sheets to the Wind.
Reel Injun is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, and Jeremiah Hayes that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film. Reel Injun is illustrated with excerpts from classic and contemporary portrayals of Native people in Hollywood movies and interviews with filmmakers, actors and film historians, while director Diamond travels across the United States to visit iconic locations in motion picture as well as American Indian history.
The portrayal of Native Americans in television and films concerns indigenous roles in cinema, particularly their depiction in Hollywood productions. Especially in the Western genre, Native American stock characters can reflect contemporary and historical perceptions of Native Americans and the Wild West.
Hey, Viktor! is a 2023 Canadian mockumentary comedy film directed by Cody Lightning and written by Lightning and Samuel Miller.