The Exiles (1961 film)

The Exiles
Directed by Kent Mackenzie
Produced by Kent Mackenzie
Written by Kent Mackenzie
Starring
  • Yvonne Williams
  • Homer Nish
  • Tommy Reynolds
  • Rico Rodriguez
  • Clifford Ray Sam
  • Clydean Parker
  • Mary Donahue
Music by
Cinematography
  • Erik Daarstad
  • Robert Kaufman
  • John Morrill
Edited by
  • Kent Mackenzie
  • Warren Brown
  • Thomas Conrad
  • Erik Daarstad
  • Thomas Miller
  • Beth Pattrick
Release date
  • 1961 (original)
  • 2008 (restoration)
Running time
 72 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Exiles (1961) is a film by Kent MacKenzie chronicling a day in the life of a group of twenty-something Native Americans who left reservation life in the 1950s to live in the district of Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, California. Bunker Hill was then a blighted residential locality of decayed Victorian mansions, sometimes featured in the writings of Raymond Chandler, John Fante, and Charles Bukowski. The structure of the film is that of a narrative feature, the script pieced together from interviews with the documentary subjects. The film features Yvonne Williams, Homer Nish, and Tommy Reynolds.

Production

Filming was done in 1958. The film features rock and roll music composed for the film and performed by The Revels. The cast of American Indian actors are notable for their lack of self-consciousness as they drink and socialize during a night out on the town ending in a 49 party[1] of drumming and dancing on "Hill X" overlooking downtown LA.[2][3]

Release

The Exiles premiered at the 1961 Venice Film Festival. As it was only licensed 16mm version to schools and churches, it did not find a distributor to release it theatrically in that year,[4] and so over the years it fell into obscurity, known to cinephiles but remaining largely unseen by the public. A restored version produced by the UCLA Film and Television Archive premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 2008, and Milestone Films released it commercially and on DVD in summer 2008.

Legacy

In 2009, it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant and will be preserved for all time.[5]

Cast

Production crew

  • Written, produced, and directed by Kent MacKenzie
  • Cinematography by Erik Daarstad, Robert Kaufman, John Morrill
  • Production by Ronald Austin, Sam Farnsworth, John Morrill, Erik Daarstad, Robert Kaufman, Beth Pattrick, Sven Walnum, Paula Powers
  • Additional photography by Sven Walnum, Nicholas Clapp, Vilis Lapenieks.
  • Archive photographs by Edward S. Curtis
  • Editing by Kent Mackenzie, Warren Brown, Thomas Conrad, Erik Daastad, Thomas Miller, Beth Patrick
  • Music by Anthony Hilder, The Revels, Robert Hafner, Eddie Sunrise
  • Sound by Sam Farnsworth
  • Sound effects edited by Thomas Conrad

Additional crew

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.britannica.com/art/forty-nine-dance
  2. ↑ Audio commentary by Sherman Alexie and Sean Axmaker DVD The Exiles
  3. ↑ http://www.laweekly.com/film/exiles-on-main-street-searching-for-the-ghosts-of-bunker-hills-native-american-past-2154829
  4. ↑ TIME Friday, July 18, 2008 Exiles on Indie Street By Richard Corliss
  5. ↑ "25 new titles added to National Film Registry". Yahoo News. Yahoo. 2009-12-30. Archived from the original on July 10, 2012. Retrieved 2009-12-30.
  • Official website
  • The Exiles on IMDb
  • Fleischer, Matthew (2008-08-14). "Exiles on Main Street". LA Weekly. Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved 2008-08-14.
  • Milestone Films (distributor)
  • Dargis, Manohla (2008-07-11). "Despair and Poetry at Margins of Society". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-07-11.
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