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When I was a young student, I was always told to read the assigned texts. The expected literature were Basel textbooks, which are still used in our schools today. As a young girl, I always wanted to read American Indian books, and I would search for them. Towards the end of my third-grade year, my father moved me from the boarding school to the public school, whose library had many, many books. I had found one a unique edition, The Owl in the Cedar Tree by Scott Momaday. I read this book numerous times and felt connected with the character. When I was in fifth grade, I recall reading a social studies chapter book about Lewis and Clark exploring the West. I saw a picture of the two men standing on a cliff edge with Sacajawea pointing towards the western horizon. I wondered who she was and I wanted to know more about her. I did not read about her until I was in high school and had found a book about her, Sacajawea by Anna Waldo. These experiences of searching for specific books inspired me to read when I was young. As a teacher, I give my students opportunities to share their experiences about their reading. This is how I can make connections with my students in finding out the type of genre they enjoy reading, then support and supplement their interest. Today, there are numerous resources available for students, and they need guidance in finding them. I want my students to know and see what is available in the vast collections of university libraries. I know our district requires teachers to follow their curriculum, but we can always supplement our students' enjoyment when choosing to read their selections of literature.
Our fifth grade English Language Art (ELA) curriculum will begin using the Wit and Wisdom program for our reading and writing curriculum in the coming school year. I am not particularly thrilled about this curriculum in our district because it is another scripted curriculum. The culture and language portion is not required and not a priority. I felt this is important because many of our students are predominantly of Diné heritage and needs frequent exposure to their own culture and language.
The curriculum I will be creating will be a fifth-grade literature and social study unit that will be taught to general education students, with the inclusion of Special Education students and English Language Learners. I would like my students to know and understand how adaptations from literature to movies change historical and cultural perspectives. I will use Oliver La Farge's Laughing Boy, published in 1920 and the film Laughing Boy produced in 1934. Laughing Boy is a young Navajo man living in the northern part of the Navajo reservation. He meets Slim Girl, also known as Lily, who was schooled at a boarding school off the reservation. Attending the dormitory school, she lost most of her cultural traditions and became accustomed to the Western society lifestyle. Her questionable morals with men like George Hartshorne—from whom she got luxuries were her downfall and led to her not becoming an excellent Navajo wife. Laughing Boy and Slim Girl meet at a formal gathering place, Tsé Łaní, which is currently between Pinion and Chinle on the Diné Nation. According to the novel, the dance was a four-day event, which was either a Fire Dance or Ndaa'. After the four-day ceremony, the two leave the event and eventually marry, despite the disapproval of his relatives and friends at the ceremonial event. They felt that Lily's life as a town Indian way will make her an unsuitable wife. Their marriage was a temporary due to their vast differences, and they begin to draw away from one another. Eventually, Laughing Boy learns of Slim Girl's loose morals, which ultimately gets her killed. Laughing Boy is alone again. He accepts her loss and returns to the north and to the ceremonial dances to sing again.
Laughing Boy the movie, did not use Diné actors and actresses. The actor Ramon Navarro, a Mexican film actor, played the role of Laughing Boy, and actress Lupe Velez, a Mexican stage and screen actress, played the role of Slim Girl and Lily. How does this change affect our understanding of the film? Does it make the movie less authentic, or is it just a directorial choice, such as showing the actor singing as in a play or an opera? The actor, Ramon, did not or could not sing the actual songs from the novel. Maybe a director decided to have him sing a song in English. I think it would have been more beautiful in Navajo with a drum. The director, W.S. Van Dyke, is known the film world as "One-Take Woody" because of his efficiency in completing a movie quickly and under budget. He has more sympathy with the American Indian portrayal on film and he was very serious about stereotypical comments and supported American Indian actors on set. In 1933, Van Dyke produced the Eskimo. The movie was a box office hit and led him to produce more movies. He had a big heart and helped employ people who were part of the film industry. Of course, the change of the primary roles of the characters in the movie was a significant deviation from literature and from the historical events of the Diné way of life back in the early 1900s. The two Mexican actors did not fit into the scenes because they did not look like American Indians and stood out as typical ‘Hollywood Indian' personas. Their character portrayal was not genuine or convincing. The actual Navajo Indians in the background made the movie more realistic and were connected with their culture, using the language. As I viewed the video, I was able to hear the background voices of Navajo conversations. If these actors, actress, and had director studied the Diné culture and language maybe the actors would have performed better and the production would have been a successful box office release. But the movie did not do well when it was released. It was a box office flop. Although the film did not do well in the cinema world, it is still a resource I can use as a medium for my curriculum unit.
I want my students to recognize and understand the adaptions of a book and how the characters and events are portrayed in a film. They will analyze how Laughing Boy and Slim Girl/Lily confront conflicts within their relationship because of their cultural differences and how the characters begin to change and accept each other's character traits, attitudes, habits, and demeanors. The questions will connect to the conventional idea of educational choice for self and others. Does living the Navajo way of life and living as an American make a person's life difficult during the early 1900s? How is being different not wrong? And, how the book and film weave the stereotype of what it is to be a good Navajo and how it is not good to be an American. We will discuss the cultural dance, their wedding, marriage life and Slim Girl/Lily to Lily/Slim Girl. We will address the difference between the book and film, the details of what adaptations mean and examples of how directors and viewers understand the changes.
Adaptations
Novels and films are two different media. As Brigitte stated, "adaptation is a translation of text from one medium to another and often source text remains."1 But the key things the books and film share are the characters, settings, and the story. In the film world, the production includes a team of movie experts and directors collaborating before, during, and after creating the movie. The challenge for the team is staying faithful to the book and thinking of the literature as a movie, a screenplay made for a film. The director has to think about how to structure the story to hold the viewer's attention for the length of the movie, which is unlike a book. There are similar features in literature and entertainment that the cinema world can use regarding technology. In order to understand the issue of adaptation, students will deal with the task of retelling the story using moving pictures, music, color, and the location of the setting.
The movie, Laughing Boy, used black and white as Brigitte stated during one of our seminar sessions, the human face is very important to film. The close up of the face is a major resource for film, but it does not exist in the theater.2 As in the movie, Van Dyke filmed numerous facial close up shot of Slim Girl’s the eyes with tears, creating an emotional connection to Slim Girl's plea. The black-and-white colors lend an element of flawlessness to the skin because of the thick black and whitest white colors. The light and dark tones of black-and-white create definite contrasts. Brigitte shared during the Akira Kurosawa clips, how the focus on the face in the frame also draws the viewer back to the bigger frame. Sometimes the viewer's eye moves directly to the face because of the amount of light on the subject. These are some of the reasons why black-and-white films should stay black-and-white and makes these films true classics.
But the film business has drastically changed with the advancements of technology. These technological adaptations make it possible to mirror literary work and films. The basic black and white films have some advantage and the same goes for color movies. The movie Laughing Boy attempted to stay faithful to the novel but used "mise-en-scene of lighting, texture, and the setting"3 to make the background and the close up of the faces of actor/actress beautiful. In the film many of the scenes were loosely adapted because the Mexican actor and actress who played a Navajo couple in the culture were unsuited for the role of Navajo characters. The dance, wedding, marriage, and the Slim Girl and Lily character roles are key events in the book and film that demonstrate adaptations from one of the media into the other.
The Dance
Laughing Boy is a Navajo love story, and the 1934 movie begins with the dance. In the novel, Laughing Boy prepares to travel to the Tsé Łani to attend and sing at the dance. He enjoys the additional events that happen there, such as the singing, the horse racing, and selling his silver jewelry. In both book and movie, the character Slim Girl attends the dance, too. As she danced with other men, Laughing Boy noticed her. She is unlike the other Navajo women because of her extravagant silver and turquoise jewelry and the way she carried herself caught his attention. The difference between the novel and the film involves how the people accepted her attendance and how the dance is conducted. On the screen, the women reject her presence and tell Slim Girl to leave, and that her kind is not welcome. Then the male elders ask her to go, so she leaves the camp and finds Laughing Boy and follows him. The dance was a brief event. The dancers moved within individual circles like they are spinning around and not in a whole group, and they circled around the campfire. In the film, Laughing Boy runs off and does not complete the dance, whereas, in the book, the entire ceremonial event lasts for three days. During the dancing, the couple moves in a circle around the central fire with other dancers from the beginning to the end of the song. After they finished their dance, Laughing Boy had to pay her for the dance, which he does. Both media included details about betting and a horse race. The movie sequence shows Laughing Boy making a bet with another rider known as Redman, a Ute Indian. (What is a Ute man doing at a Navajo ceremony dance?) During the race Redman knocks him off his horse, and Laughing Boy loses the competition, thereby losing his money, bow guard, and horse. In the book chapter, Laughing Boy won the horse race and sold his jewelry.
I know, and some of my students will know, about the events that happen at these ceremonial dances. These events are sacred and will not have betting and horse racing because these ceremonies are for healing. The patient may need protection or a healing prayer and sing conducted. Betting, horse races, and contests are usually during nation fairs, like the Navajo Nation Fair, the Blanding, Chinle, Shiprock, and Tuba City Fairs which happening during the autumn season.
Wedding
Another significant adaptation from the text and to the film is the couple's wedding. Both the book and movie did not elaborate on details of a Navajo wedding. A Navajo marriage begins before sundown in a newly built hooghan the men folks have constructed. As the event occurs, the groom sits in the eastern part of the hooghan, and the rest of his family sit at the northern part of the hooghan, the same goes with the bride and her family on the southern side. A wedding ceremonial process is a long event. A Navajo basket with blue cornmeal mush, the sprinkled corn pollen and the washing of the hands are the significant symbolic union for the bride and groom. These essential rituals prepare the couple for growth, home and a new family and a stronger tie to K'e. K'e is a Navajo concept for kinship as to clan, family, relatives, grandparents and great-great grandparents on both the matrilineal and patrilineal sides. At the conclusion of the ceremony, elders from both families give suggestions about how to be a good wife, husband, and parents in their new home and family. The traditional wedding is still conducted today, and some of my students’ families assist with the activities. The author and the director do not elaborate on this significant event, and I believe this is an important life decision when a young couple is marrying.
Although the film implied that a wedding has happened, it was not thoroughly explained. This is another adaption between the two genres. The scenes in the movie stated a wedding has happened because Laughing Boy's mother said they had been married for three months, and she has to learn to kill a goat. When Slim Girl could not butcher the goat, his mother stated, "Our ways will never be your ways, you have lived the life of the Whiteman too long."4 Slim Girl wants to move away to their hooghan with Laughing Boy. He replied saying that they have to wait for two more years. Slim Girl suggested that they return to town so that she can sell her jewelry and rug to get more money so that the couple can move away to their own home. She was not happy living with his family.
The novel included many wedding rituals there were not reverent or essential because Slim Girl was excited and wanted the ceremony to end. They were married at the house Hartshorn had purchased. The town Indian known as Yellowhorse conducted the wedding. Yes, the Navajo basket was used, but instead of blue cornmeal mush, yellow corn was used. Laughing Boy was confused and accepted the marriage. He sang a prayer and thought they were married beautifully. Afterward, the small group ate what was available as their feast and shared whiskey with each other. The marriage was not a significant event because family, relatives, and clans were not informed or in attendance. This is unlike Laughing Boy's character because he is a traditional Navajo who believes in the Dine Circle of Life. Maybe, Laughing Boy just went along with the wedding because he knew his family did not agree with his marrying Slim Girl.
Married Life
The novel displayed specific events of Laughing Boy and Slim Girl's relationship as harmonious endless lovers. Slim Girl learned the Navajo way of life by weaving rugs, residing in a hooghan, assisting her husband, and becoming a Navajo wife. In addition to her duties as wife, she traveled to the ceremonial events Laughing Boy attended. Laughing Boy’s marital happiness with Slim Girl completed him as a contented husband. He was cautious when they went to visit his family in the North. Slim Girl carefully made sure she conducted herself correctly. Laughing Boy approved of her actions while interacting with his family. "Out of the corner of his eye, without seeming to pay attention, he watched Slim Girl with relish as she said and did exactly the right things, giving an excellent impersonation of just any attractive woman."5 The book focused on the relationship of the couple as what an ideal couple should be. La Farge used some factual events of what a Navajo wife does within her hooghan and what a husband does to provide for the home. He most likely used his own marriage as an example of married life. Although their marriage was blissful, Slim Girl was very cautious when she returned to Los Palos and made plans to leave when Laughing Boy took his herd of horses to the range for days. Lily’s return to town shows she still yearns for the American lifestyle even though she knows her marriage is wonderful. She is engaged in a tug-of-war between being a traditional Navajo and being an Anglo-American.
This is in contrast to the film scenes of Slim Girl. She was not happy residing with Laughing Boy's family in the North. His mother, sister, and grandmother required her to do many chores to help Slim Girl become an acceptable Navajo wife. The demanding tasks, such as weaving a rug with designs different from the usual designs, did not work out. Laughing Boy's mother once again says, "You have lived with the Whiteman too long, our life will never work for you."6 That her in-laws tell her to do chores is not true to the culture because the couple should be residing with her family and clan and in her family's home area. But Slim Girl rationalizes with Laughing Boy, "To be different is not a bad thing,"7 because she knows she is unlike other Navajo women. She tells Laughing Boy to let her trade and sell things in town to get more money to buy their hooghan, livestock, and jewelry.
Slim Girl and Lily
Both the novel and movie have the character play two roles--from Slim Girl to Lily, then from Lily to Slim Girl. She can travel to Los Palos to meet with the cowboy, George Hartshorn, as Lily, then return home, changing back to Slim Girl an excellent Navajo wife. After marrying Laughing Boy, Slim Girl's goal is to play her Lily role in order to obtain more money so as to have sufficient wealth when the couple leaves to journey north to his family. Wealth here means money, silver and turquoise jewelry, and livestock (horses and sheep). The novel describes Lily's activities in the town with George and his jealousy about not having her around as much. George wanted Lily for himself. In this sense "he gave her more money than he ever had before, more than he could well afford, seeking to bind her to him, knowing that that was no way to arrive at truth, but craving, if she was lying to him, to be lied to so well he would be convinced."8 Lily began to play the two roles for her own benefit: "She could shape and bend men, and she could control her destinies in theirs."9 The power of controlling men became her means of gaining happiness. But each time she returns to Laughing Boy, Slim Girl was irritable, angry, and moody. She was the same irritable character Lily when she returned to Los Palos. "Feeling less sure of herself, she was over-careful, and betrayed more than ever that reserve of something withheld that belonged inevitably to her double life."10
This is unlike the movie, which included two sequences of Lily in town with George Hartshorn. The first sequence shows Lily changing from her traditional clothing to American apparel to meet Hartshorn. There is also the sequence when Lily revisits the orphanage and distributes candy to the children. She confronts the dorm supervisor and says her peace to her, "I know, fix the bed, sweep the floor, clean the kitchen, and no candy,"11 then she throws the bag of candies into the air for all the children. "I know your rules, and now I don't need to follow them, and I can do what I want,"12 and walks away. Lily revisiting the orphanage is how the director show empathy towards the native children. Near the end of the movie, Lily revisits George, and during this scene, Laughing Boy comes to visit her in town. When he enters the house she stays in and sees Lily with another man, Laughing Boy pulls out his bow and arrow to shoot Hartshorn and ends up killing Lily. The novel tells a different story about how Slim Girl dies: while the couple travels to the North, Red Man shoots her. He shoots his rifle from a distance aiming at Laughing Boy, but the bullet hits Slim Girl. He leaves quickly and does not know she was shot and that he killed her.
In both of the two mediums, the characters (Laughing Boy, his paternal family, the people at the dance, and his friend) reiterated and stressed that the importance of living a Navajo lifestyle is greater than living like an American to Slim Girl. Slim Girl/Lily begins to prove that living in both worlds is acceptable and can use the American ways to benefit the Navajo way of life. Her assertion that, “To be different is not a bad thing,” is her justification of being able to adapt and to live in both worlds.
The Language of Film
When young children watch a movie, they do not pay attention to the lighting, camera angles and movements, character placement, and setting. They focus on the quick changes of the characters or moments of action, like a chase or a fight scene. Children enjoy the colors and constant motion of an action movie. Viewing a film for them is about entertainment and family get-togethers. But students can also learn to see the film at an academic analysis level and use literature and movies as the tools for learning. Comparing and contrasting the scenes puts them into a critical analysis mode and gives them a purpose, so students learn and understand the how and why of movie production. Maybe in two or three of them it will spark their interest in working in the film world.
To understand and know how to look at movies, students need to use film vocabulary to begin to look at the screen to catch the why, how, and where of the camera's movement. This is one of the basics of watching a scene. As Brigitte mentioned during our seminar sessions, the pacing, editing, lighting, composition of the frame, camera angle (shots, cut, long take, high angle, and low angle), the placement of the human figures, and the human voice staged (the voiced lip sync) are the many film elements a student can look for when watching a film. I will focus on specific film terminology in connection with the film. For example, at the beginning of the movie, there is a long shot view of the landscape and the group of horse riders entering the valley, then the camera moves to a high angle, then pans from left to right following the horse riders.
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