Educational Media Reviews Online

Milestone Film and Video have once again not only released a rare and interesting film that has not seen a public in almost fifty years, but have painstakingly gathered numerous supplementary materials to contextualize the film. The richness of these materials provides not only a fundamental background to the landscape in which the film takes place but positions it within the urban architectural and sociological histories of Los Angeles.

The history of filmmaking in the United States through the end of the 1970s is based for the most part on the development and devolution of the studio system. When an “independent” film made during the still reigning studio system veers outside the typical subject matter and cinematic space of the period, it resonates with anyone who hungers for images capturing life as it was rather than how it was manufactured on Hollywood lots. In this way, The Exiles could be compared to Jules Dassin’s 1948 The Naked City, which itself was a semi-documentary about life in the streets of New York. The difference is that The Exiles is more personal and localized to a group of individuals who are not only exiles but, in a way, also immigrants in an urban environment that is both chosen and imposed, foreign and mundane.

Kent Mackenzie set out to make a film that accurately portrayed the lives of relocated Native Americans living in Los Angeles. It was a mix of documentary and scripted events and the film never got a theatrical release until 2009. After graduating from USC in 1956, Kent Mackenzie began spending time a group of young Native Americans in downtown Los Angeles and proceeded to film them. The result is not only a provocatively realistic portrayal of their lives in 1961 but is also an aesthetic tour de force: The film is beautifully shot with exquisite night scenes, driving around Los Angeles and supplemented with a rich musical rock and roll score by Norman Knowles and the Revels.

In addition the 2-disc set includes four short films directed Kent Mackenzie whose career was cut short with his death in 1980. It also includes a short film by Greg Kimble featuring the history of Los Angeles urban development in the Bunker Hill area; White Fawn’s Devotion, a 1911 film added to the Library of Congress’s Film Registry and considered the first Native American film; Kent Mackenzie’s personal papers related to the making of The Exiles, including a production history on Bunker Hill, the 1956 financing proposal, six scripts and the final script for the film as well as original publicity material and other artifacts. There is also a short clip from Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself featuring shots from The Exiles. This 2-disc premiere edition of The Exiles is very highly recommended.