The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian: Native Voice 2003
Distributed by Films Media Group, PO Box 2053, Princeton, New Jersey 08543-2053; 800-257-5126
Produced by Cambridge Educational
Director n/a
DVD, color, 28 min.
Jr. High - Adult
Museums, Native American Studies, Art, Art History, Art Education, American Studies, Multicultural Studies, South American Studies, Canadian Studies, Anthropology
Date Entered: 03/10/2006
Reviewed by Kristin M. Jacobi, J. Eugene Smith Library, Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CTThis program is one of 30 Great Museums episodes produced thus far, all of which have been screened on television at one time or another. Holding its Grand Opening on September 21, 2004, the newest addition to the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) is in Washington DC on the National Mall. This facility as well as the George Gustav Heye Center of the NMAI (housed at the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City) and the NMAI Cultural Resource Center in Suitland, MD make up the triad of buildings and locations for the cultural artifacts that comprise the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian.
Introducing the viewer to the wealth of objects, history and culture of Native Americans from North America to South America and as an overview that encompasses a vast geographic space and historic time, this excellent program makes one realize the difficulty of telling the histories of Native Americans and their stories in one twenty-eight minute documentary.
The variety of the objects, their beauty, and their cultural value and significance is not lost on the viewer. The interpretation and representation of the cultures has been expressed with photographs, videos, and the choice of objects themselves. This program allows the viewer the background knowledge needed, appropriately edited, and given by the museum director and museum curators interspersed with interviews with Native Americans reflecting on the art objects as integrating craft and culture.
We learn the history of George Heye, a New York City banker, and his passion for collecting Native American art in the 1880s. And how, without his collecting of (approximately) one million objects, the museum culture in the United States of native peoples would not be as exhaustive and expansive as it currently is.
The Museums’ architecture, art and culture give voice and vision to the story of the Native peoples in the Americas. This glimpse into the treasures found at the NMAI is just that, a brief view into the native environment, but worthy of sparking many interests.
Technically, this very well conceived program includes appropriate music, NMAI archival videos, black and white photographs, interviews, and excellent individual stories relating to specific objects of art and how they pertain to the culture in which they were created.
This program would be useful as an introduction to museum studies or Native American studies. There is a generic Teachers Guide available on the Great Museums website.
Highly recommended.