As a filmmaker, Paul Ratner is drawn to images. His first love of film came from old black and white movies by world cinema auteurs like the jarring works of Bergman, Eisenstein, Bunuel, Lang, Dreyer, Ozu and other great masters.
“For a while in college, it felt almost like cheating to watch a film made in color,” he said. “As I grew older, I accepted color and now find it hard to stick to a monochrome diet. Life seems too resplendent for just one tone.”
While making Moses on the Mesa, a film about a German-Jewish immigrant who fell in love with a Native-American woman and became governor of her tribe of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico in the late 1800s, Ratner developed a passion for researching old photographs of indigenous people.
“Many of the photographs I found were colored by hand, as color film was only the domain of experimentalists until 1930s (thanks, Kodachrome!) Painting on black and white prints was an art in and of itself, and many of the colorized photos exhibit true talent which preserved for us the truer likeness of the people many a hundred years ago thought were vanishing. Of course, Native Americans have not vanished despite the harrowing efforts of so many. They are growing stronger as a people, but a way of life they left behind is often only found in these photos.”
(via The Huffington Post)
“For a while in college, it felt almost like cheating to watch a film made in color,” he said. “As I grew older, I accepted color and now find it hard to stick to a monochrome diet. Life seems too resplendent for just one tone.”
While making Moses on the Mesa, a film about a German-Jewish immigrant who fell in love with a Native-American woman and became governor of her tribe of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico in the late 1800s, Ratner developed a passion for researching old photographs of indigenous people.
“Many of the photographs I found were colored by hand, as color film was only the domain of experimentalists until 1930s (thanks, Kodachrome!) Painting on black and white prints was an art in and of itself, and many of the colorized photos exhibit true talent which preserved for us the truer likeness of the people many a hundred years ago thought were vanishing. Of course, Native Americans have not vanished despite the harrowing efforts of so many. They are growing stronger as a people, but a way of life they left behind is often only found in these photos.”
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| Minnehaha. 1904. Photochrom print by the Detroit Photographic Co. Source - Library of Congress. |
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| Amos Two Bulls. Lakota. Photo by Gertrude Käsebier. 1900. Source - Library of Congress. |
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| A medicine man with patient. Taos Pueblo, New Mexico. 1905. Photo by Carl Moon. Source - Huntington Digital Library. |
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| Chief James A. Garfield. Jicarilla Apache. 1899. Photo by William Henry Jackson. Source - Montana State University Library. |
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| Bone Necklace. Oglala Lakota Chief. 1899. Photo by Heyn Photo. Source - Library of Congress. |
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| Charles American Horse (the son of Chief American Horse). Oglala Lakota. 1901. Photo by William Herman Rau. Source - Princeton Digital Library. |
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| Acoma pueblo. New Mexico. Early 1900s. Photo by Chicago Transparency Company. Source - Palace of the Governors Archives. New Mexico History Museum. |
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| Cheyenne Chief Wolf Robe. Color halftone reproduction of a painting from a F. A. Rinehart photograph. 1898. Source - Denver Public Library Digital Collections. |
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| Eagle Arrow. A Siksika man. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass lantern slide by Walter McClintock. Source -Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. |
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| Chief Little Wound and family. Oglala Lakota. 1899. Photo by Heyn Photo. Source - Denver Public Library Digital Collections. |
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| Strong Left Hand and family. Northern Cheyenne Reservation. 1906. Photo by Julia Tuell. Source - Buzz Tuell, Tuell Pioneer Photography. |
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| A Crow dancer. Early 1900s. Photo by Richard Throssel. Source - University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center. |
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| Thunder Tipi of Brings-Down-The-Sun. Blackfoot camp. Early 1900s. Glass lantern slide by Walter McClintock. Source -Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. |
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| Handpainted print depicting five riders going downhill in Montana. Early 1900s. Photo by Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature and Science. |
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| Old Coyote (aka Yellow Dog). Crow. Original photo circa 1879 (color tinted circa 1910). Source - Denver Public Library Digital Collections. |
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| Piegan men giving prayer to the Thunderbird near a river in Montana. 1912. Photo by Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature and Science. |
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| Arrowmaker, an Ojibwe man. 1903. Photochrom print by the Detroit Photographic Co. Source - Library of Congress. |
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| Northern Plains man on an overlook. Montana. Early 1900s. Hand-colored photo by Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature and Science. |
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| "Songlike", a Pueblo man, 1899. Photo by F.A. Rinehart. Source - Boston Public Library. |
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| Geronimo (Goyaałé). Apache. 1898. Photo by F.A. Rinehart. Omaha, Nebraska. Source - Boston Public Library. |
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| Blackfeet tribal camp with grazing horses. Montana. Early 1900s. Glass lantern slide by Walter McClintock. Source -Yale Collection of Western Americana, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. |
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| Handpainted print of a young woman by the river. Early 1900s. Photo by Roland W. Reed. Source - Denver Museum of Nature and Science. |
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| "In Summer". Kiowa. 1898. Photo by F.A. Rinehart. Source - Boston Public Library. |
(via The Huffington Post)
