The Sons of the Great Bear
“Myth, chased from the real by the violence of history, finds refuge in Cinema”
- Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
Say the word ‘Western’ to anybody, and it immediately conjures up an image in their head. From vast, sweeping plains to the wide-brimmed Stetson, the image of the Western is ingrained in the public conscious. So culturally unanimous is this imagery that it has in fact, replaced the reality of history. In his seminal work Qu-est ce que le Cinema, legendary film theorist Andre Bazin outlines that the “relations between the facts of history and the western are not immediate and direct, but dialectic”. He states that the Western is a myth, an idealized historical reconstruction of a time gone by; “born of an encounter between a mythology and a means of expression”. The iconography, themes and storylines of the Western are therefore a constructed mythology, formed by a collective recollection of the past.
This recollection, rather than being driven by an adherence to the facts of history, is in fact more similar to the folklore of ancient civilizations. The ideals of the present inform the presentation of the past, and as the Greeks spouted oral-poetics of the gods to reinforce moral fortitude, the American Western supplants the societal ideals of the present onto a mis-remembered history. Or, as Bazin states, “[the Western myths] may themselves doubtless be reduced to an even more essential principle…the great epic Manicheism which sets the forces of evil over against the knights of the true cause”.
Because this is an American myth, the “true cause” is that specific brand of exceptionalism found across the pond, the bold, unabashed and propagandist peddling of the American ideal. Whilst this blanket definition of the genre does not include the later revisionist or anti-westerns, it rings particularly true of the films that emerged from Hollywood in the 50’s, such as The Searchers (dir. John Ford, 1956).This film is a perfect example of the pitfalls that arise as a result of the mis-remembered frontier myth, as John Wayne ruthlessly cuts down the Native American and American exceptionalism paves the way for American superiority.
This is a mis-representation of the history of old west and the Frontier. Any historical realism concerning the subjugation of the Natives is lost in the haze of false recollection.
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What then happens when a Western emerges that flips the genre on its head and what that film then tells us about the society from which it emerged. If the Western formulates a history informed by the contemporary society that produces it, what changes when that society positions itself squarely against the American ideal?
From 1965–1976 the East German film monopoly DEFA produced over a dozen westerns, titled Indianerfilme, several of which broke the GDR box office record of more than 3 million tickets sold. They were immensely popular among East German audiences, satisfying a need for popular entertainment and allowing the population on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain to engage with that most German of escapist fantasy, that of the Old West. Where the Indinaerfilme differ from the traditional Western however, is their focus.
Shot in Yugoslavia and Central Asia, the Indianerfilme fore fronted the struggle of the Native Americans, taking the analogue of the heroic cowboy and flipping it on its head. Instead of John Wayne, audiences in the GDR had Gokjo Mitic, a Serbian hired for his impressive physique, who had all his dialogue dubbed over by German actors. Along with Gokjo’s imposing figure, Indianerfilme almost always concerned themselves with the subjugation of the Native American and an atrocity being committed by the White man upon the Native.
In almost every Indianerfilm the idealistically portrayed tribal life is disturbed by traitorous cowboys, such as in Apachen or by members of the U.S Cavalry, as is the case in Blutsbruder. These films stand out to the viewer because of how clearly the focus has been shifted, transforming a standard genre piece into something more distinctive. When held in comparison to the standard American Western; the iconography is similarly presented, the music is almost a direct parody and there are clear good and bad sides, it’s just that instead of rooting for the cowboy, we root for his enemy. The symbolic figure of American exceptionalism is now our villain. It is Bazin’s “Manicheism”, just carried out in reverse.
If this is the case, and the Indianerfilme inhabit a space seemingly both similar and diametrically opposed to the American Western, how does it reflect the values, ideals and politics of the GDR, in the way that the American Western emulates American exceptionalism?
There is an inherent relationship between the state, the filmmakers and the people in these films, with their content reflecting not only what the SED wanted the people of East Germany to watch, but also what the people wanted to watch themselves. It is this relationship between artist and audience that allows the Indianerfilme to inhabit such a unique space. It would be very easy to see the Indianerfilme as a nothing but the product of the GDR dictatorship, but to do so seems somewhat of a narrow interpretation.
They could instead be interpreted as an attempt to carve out an identity for a populace in desperate need of one. Their anti-American (and therefore antifascist) content is a way for the audience and filmmakers to address their past, as the Manicheism of the plot confronts fascism. Gokjo Mitic was not only a function of the state’s constructed propaganda, but a genuine idol for the East Germans to look up to. He was a strong, socialist figure that brought that hammer down on the oppressors and the fascists. The Indianerfilme were popular because they were distinctly Eastern, allowing for the citizens of the GDR to engage in fantasies of the Old West. They had their own stories and their own idols, with landscapes that they came to recognise and into which they could escape and they no longer had to rely on West German books and films. They became so popular and so ingrained in the public consciousness because they provided that which the people of East German so desired, a shared identity.
