Insider/Outsider: Arlene Bowman’s <i>Navajo Talking Picture</i>

Arlene Bowman’s Navajo Talking Picture (1986) portrays the filmmaker’s grandmother as a reluctant documentary subject, filmed against her wishes on her Navajo reservation. Upon its release, the film confounded critics by seeming to replicate an objectifying gaze weaponized against Native Americans since settler colonialism and throughout histories of documentary and classical Hollywood. What was Bowman doing, pursuing her elder with such ferocity? As this article discovers, language and translation offer clues. Aware of the importance of language to place-based identity, Bowman approached translation as a political question in the film. She did not speak Navajo, and had little idea what her grandmother was saying as she filmed her – though hostile body language spoke loudly. In some scenes, Bowman enlisted an interpreter. In others, she added English dubbing in post-production. Drawing on Trinh T. Minh-ha’s concept of the ‘insider/outsider’ filmmaker, this article argues that Bowman foregrounds her troubles with translation to examine her own situated – and estranged – identity. Seen today, amidst global discussions of Indigenous land rights and environmental racism, the film remains powerful and provocative in its performative indictment of extractivism’s reach.