Clearcut (1992)

I saw this movie in the early 90's and thought it was a good. The Scene of Graham Greene skinning the strip mine owners' leg was haunting. I'm a fan of Graham in many of his TV and movie appearances from Thunder Heart to Red Green Show. I wish I could buy this on DVD and in July I contacted HTTP://www.northernartsentertainment.com Larry Jackson and he wrote me saying Northern Arts Entertainment was thinking of Releasing the movie on there web site as a download that you can burn to a DVD and print art work and make your own DVD of it. Larry said it would be on the HTTP://www.iarthouse.com/ in August of 2008. Sadly it has not shown up and Larry no longer answers my emails. Maybe if others who want to have this on DVD you can go to the iarthouse site and call the 1800 number 1800-811-4515 and mention that you would like to see the Clear cut on the site or ask to speak to Larry.

I've seen reviews by 'critics' who hated it, hated Graham Greene's character, etc. They don't like it because he's not the happy-go-lucky smiling injun they want to see. It's obvious Arthur is not human, but a personification, or materialization, of Peter's sweatlodge vision. "You dreamed anger, and your anger is real"...and it's taken on a life of it's own. When his work is done, when he's taught Peter to take more than a passive stance, he returns to his world. But you also see that spirit is going to be carried into future generations by the precocious Polly, the little girl at the beginning and end of the film. I love Budd's babbling once pain/infection/delirium takes place. And I hope his ordeal has taught him a thing or two about his cavalier destruction of not only the land, but aboriginal rights and greed.

I found the movie hard to follow. At the end, I didn't know what the message was suppose to be; what was the plot? Was anything accomplished during the story? If this was supposed to be about spiritual matters, Graham Green's talents were better put to use in "Dancing with Wolves" and "Thunderheart".

Arthur is the spirit-guide Peter McGuire finds during his sweat-lodge vision; a water-spirit who becomes the personification of McGuire's own anger. If you don't believe me on this, pay attention to the water shots (starting with the opening shot of the movie), the sweat-lodge sequence, and listen carefully to almost everything Wilf says. Once you understand what Arthur is, you can see that the primary themes explored are (1) talk vs. action, and (2) if you cannot control your anger, your anger will control you. I found Ron Lea a bit too wimpy to carry off the final scene, but overall, this is a very thought-provoking movie, which I recommend to anyone who likes to think.